CHAPTER V.
DUKE OF MONMOUTH.
Readers of English history will remember the important political part played in the last years of Charles’ reign, by his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. When public feeling ran so high against the Duke of York, and so many Protestants were zealous for the Exclusion Bill, some amongst the latter favoured certain pretensions to the crown which had been put forward on behalf of his nephew. The pretensions were founded upon the alleged existence of a black box containing a contract of marriage between the King and the Duke’s mother, Lucy Walters, which black box made no small stir throughout the country in the year 1680.[102] Two years afterwards, when the Popish plot had ceased to alarm the public, and when the Duke of York’s prospects had begun to brighten, Monmouth endeavoured to revive his popularity, and to reinforce his claims by a progress in the North of England, during which journey he assumed a degree of state proper only to an heir apparent. Attended by a hundred horsemen,—fifty of whom rode before and fifty behind—he occupied a space in the midst of the cavalcade, mounted on a noble charger, and bowing with royal condescension to the crowds, who rent the air with shouts, “A Monmouth, a Monmouth, and no York!” Bells fired from the church steeples, and musketry roared from gates and ramparts, as the gay procession entered town after town. He might be found at fairs and races, rousing the men and wooing the women, and in town halls dining with the burgesses; always affecting royal etiquette, and actually going so far as to touch for the King’s evil. His movements closely watched, were duly reported to the Secretary of State by persons ill-affected towards the bold aspirant, including Shakerley, Governor of Chester Castle, who industriously wrote, day after day, minute descriptions of all Monmouth did in that old city,—a city in which, it may be recollected, Nonconformists had been found to be very numerous some years before.[103]
1682.
According to reports, the whole company of horsemen who rode with the Duke into Chester did not exceed 150, most of them being noted Dissenters. They came shouting, with a company of rabble on foot, whom they had induced to join them by providing drink. The bells rang, except at the Cathedral and St. Peter’s; and there were some bonfires. The Duke went first to the Mayor’s house, where he lodged; and, after a short stay there, he repaired to an inn, where he and his companions sat down at the ordinary, the chaplain being Dr. Fogg, one of the prebendaries. The Duke proceeded to the Cathedral, where he heard a sermon not very pleasant to him or to his associates. The same writer complains of the rabble making a riot, breaking into the Church of St. Peter’s, forcing open the steeple door, and ringing the bells, amongst the rest the fire bell. “Another company,” he adds, “at a bonfire, made by a great Presbyterian, broke the glass windows of an honest Churchman opposite.” Two or three days later, after accustomed healths, such as “Confusion to Popery, and to those that would not be enemies to the Duke of York,” Monmouth’s party expressed great displeasure at a sermon preached before His Grace, in the choir of the Cathedral; and, in general, uttered loud exclamations against the clergy. Having, it is said, spit their venom that way, without one syllable of opposition, they fell to magnifying the last Parliament, and to commending their votes.[104]
At such times as I am describing, people exist who are possessed by an inordinate love of writing, and of publishing what they write, and whose pens resemble the sting of wasps, and of other still more ignoble insects. Pamphleteers of this kind wrote against Dissenters, some whose malignity was greater than their wit, some whose wit kept pace with their malignity. Sir Roger L’Estrange, perhaps, may be reckoned as the most gifted, the most formidable, the most unscrupulous, and the most fierce of this tribe of tormentors. He had narrowly escaped being executed as a spy during the Civil Wars,—he had been shut up in Newgate for several years; and now the memory of his sufferings made him perfectly savage in his attacks upon those whom he identified with his former enemies. He perpetually rang changes upon the miseries of the year ’41, which he accused the popular party of having determined to revive. In his Foxes and Firebrands, and in his Citt and Bumkin, he vilified and lampooned all men of liberal opinions, whether those opinions happened to be ecclesiastical or political. Nonconformists were fools and rebels, and their toleration was inconsistent with order and peace. By abuse of one kind, he sought to force them into the Church, and then, when they had entered, he by another kind of abuse endeavoured to drive them out. Outside they were traitors, inside they were trimmers, so that it was impossible such people as L’Estrange could ever be pleased, let the conduct of Nonconformists be what it might. His career as a party writer, which began after the Restoration, attained its highest point at the period we have reached; and as a reward for his services to the cause of despotism, he obtained from his Royal master the honour of knighthood, an honour more than counterbalanced by the almost universal execration of posterity.[105]
ROYAL DESPOTISM.
Charles, in playing the despot, went on from bad to worse. Municipal corporations, whose freedom is always of primary importance to the interests of this country, were then still more intimately connected with our national liberties than at present—for not only was the administration of justice in cities and boroughs lodged in their hands, not only were juries in Middlesex returned by the City Sheriffs, but the right of election for members of Parliament rested, in a number of cases, not with the citizens and burgesses generally, but with those who were mayors, aldermen, and common councilmen. In many large places, especially London, the Corporation opposed the Court; and therefore no representatives subservient to the Crown could be expected to come from such a quarter. The King, relying upon legal advisers, who preferred cunning to equity, determined to try whether he could not deprive his subjects of their municipal rights by the process of quo warranto.[106] The attempt, made in the Metropolis first, so far succeeded, that the Court of King’s Bench gave judgment against the Corporation; and,—although it allowed the Corporation to retain its privileges, under certain restrictions,—from that time the capital of the kingdom remained powerless in the hands of the sovereign.
1683.
LORD W. RUSSELL.
Constitutional methods of expressing public opinion being suspended, there were men whom desperation drove to think of the patriot’s last resort. They talked of war. Shaftesbury, whose erratic ability and eloquence sometimes helped the cause of liberty, had disappeared from the stage of public affairs, and had, as we have seen, gone over to Holland, where he died. But his restless brain, employed in concocting schemes of insurrection, which at the time came to nothing, had left behind, amongst many Englishmen with whom he had been associated, seeds of discontent, ready to grow into acts of violence. The seeds did grow, and the harvest proved “a heap in the day of grief, and of desperate sorrow.” The Rye House Plot is well known. With any design of assassinating the King, Sidney and Russell—who came within the complications of a plan for forcibly resisting the despotism of Government—had nothing to do. Nothing could be more idle than to talk, as some did, of certain ministers—Owen, Mead, and Griffiths—being engaged in revolutionary designs. The King, when Mead had been summoned, ordered him to be discharged; but Sidney and Russell, it cannot be contradicted, were present at conversations turning upon the subject of an appeal to arms in the cause of freedom. These illustrious men were, as all readers of English history know, tried,[107] condemned, and executed; and as the story of Russell’s last moments belongs to the religious annals of our country, it claims some space on these pages.[108]
1683.
LORD W. RUSSELL.
In prison he devoted most of his time to meditation, receiving his death-warrant with calmness, and anticipating his departure with hope. Six or seven times, upon the last morning of his life (July 21), he engaged in prayer; and, on parting from Lord Cavendish, urged upon that nobleman the importance of personal piety: then, winding up his watch, he remarked—that he had done with time, and was going to eternity. As the mourning coach, which conveyed him to the place of execution, turned the corner by Little Queen Street, he remarked, “I have often turned to the other hand with great comfort (alluding to the proximity of Southampton Square, where he resided), but now I turn to this with greater.” As he saw some persons weeping, and others manifesting disrespect, he appreciated the commiseration of the former, and evinced no resentment at the conduct of the latter. He sang “within himself,” scarcely articulating words, observing, he hoped soon to sing better; and, as he looked upon the dense throng around him, he expressed the hope of soon beholding nobler multitudes. As he entered Lincoln’s Inn Fields, observing it rained, he said to his friends in the coach, “this may do you hurt that are bare-headed;” and as he caught sight of the familiar place he exclaimed, in allusion to his early days, “this has been to me a place of sinning, and God now makes it the place of my punishment.” Having expressed wonder at the crowds assembled, he placed in the Sheriff’s hand a long paper, and declared at the same time, that he had never intended to plot against the King’s life or reign. After praying that God would preserve His Majesty and the Protestant religion, he expressed an earnest wish that all Protestants would love one another, and not by mutual animosities open a way for the re-entrance of Popery. In the paper just mentioned, he avowed his attachment to the Church of England, and expressed a desire that Conformists would be less severe, and that Dissenters would be less scrupulous. He said he had always been ready to venture his life for his country and his religion; and he avowed his sincerity and earnestness in supporting the Bill of Exclusion, as the best means of defending the Crown and the Church: he forgave his enemies, although he thought killing by forms and subtilties of law to be “the worst sort of murder.” When he had knelt down, Tillotson, who with Burnet stood by him on the scaffold, offered intercession on his behalf. The sufferer then unfastened his dress, took off his outer garment, bared his neck, and laid it on the block, without change of countenance. The executioner, to ensure his aim, touched him with the axe, but he did not shrink; and after two strokes Russell’s soul went where vindictive passions could not follow him.[109]
It has been justly remarked that when his memory ceases to be an object of veneration “it requires no spirit of prophecy to foretell that English liberty will be fast approaching to its final consummation;” and we may add, that no less a Christian than a patriot, he has left behind a name as dear to English Christians as it is to English patriots.
We have seen the spirit which prevailed two years before—we have proofs of its continuance in connection with the last days of Lord William Russell. That nobleman tenaciously held the principle, that in some cases it was lawful to resist Government by force. But Churchmen, who, at the Revolution, in practice approved, if they did not in theory uphold the doctrine, condemned it at this early period not only as impolitic, but as irreligious. Tillotson wrote to Russell just before his execution a letter, in which he said that Christianity plainly discountenanced the resistance of authority, that in the same law which establishes our religion, it is declared to be unlawful, under any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms; and that his Lordship’s opinion was contrary to the doctrine of all Protestant Churches. He also pronounced the same opinion to be an offence of a heinous nature, calling “for a very particular and deep repentance.”[110]
1683.
Tillotson, in this letter, committed himself to the doctrine of passive obedience; and its publication, without any subsequent denial or recantation, places him before the world as upholding one main-prop of the Stuart despotism. Burnet also, by his conduct at the time, lent his influence to the same side; for, with characteristic haste, and with that inaccuracy, into which haste so often betrayed him, he rushed from Russell’s cell at Newgate, saying, that he had converted his noble friend, who declared his satisfaction in that point to which Tillotson’s letter relates. Such conduct indicated sympathy at the time with the opinions in the letter now mentioned; and, therefore, it involves Burnet in the same responsibility with Tillotson. Russell, however, soon undeceived both his advisers, insisting that the notion which he had of the laws, and of the English Government, differed from that of the two Divines. He died a martyr to the faith, which placed the Crown of England on the head of the Prince of Orange, whose claims Tillotson and Burnet afterwards vindicated, and whose conduct they ever delighted to eulogize.
When Churchmen, of moderation and liberality, acted in this way, what could be expected from Churchmen of a different order? The University of Oxford having collected from the writings of Puritans, from Independents, and from political philosophers, sentences which plainly, or by implication, justified under certain circumstances resistance to Government, decreed by a vote of Convocation, such propositions to be false, seditious, and impious,—and most of them also heretical and blasphemous, infamous to the Christian religion, and destructive of all good government in Church and State. The books containing such opinions were forbidden to be read, and ordered to be burnt.[111]
CONTROVERSY.
At this juncture it happened that Nonconformists were silent, as respected political and ecclesiastical controversy, except that John Howe published a beautiful sermon on the question, “What may most hopefully be attempted to allay animosities among Protestants, that our divisions may not be our ruin?” Owen had been overtaken by his last illness, and Baxter had become tired of disputation. Many of his brethren were suffering from persecution; and those who were not, could have controverted the political doctrines of the Church only by incurring the risk of losing their property, their liberty, or their life. The Government did everything it could to prevent the expression of liberal opinions. The quiet habits of most Dissenters, the cultivation of calm endurance, especially by Quakers, and by others in a less conspicuous manner, served to promote this remarkable silence—a silence which, compared with the subsequent Revolution, resembles the smoothness of the torrent on the edge of the abyss. Nor should it be forgotten that men who comprehended the dangers of the hour felt, notwithstanding, immense perplexity as to what they ought to say or do; since Charles II. pertinaciously professed the greatest moderation, and declared a love for Parliaments and for the liberties of his country,—thus by cunning and artifice, showing as great a proficiency in king-craft as ever his father had done.
1683.
A little more than one month after Lord William Russell’s execution, Dr. John Owen, whose illness we just now mentioned, entered his rest. He closed his days in the little village of Ealing, where he possessed an estate. In his seclusion he wrote The Glory of Christ. Transported by his theme he poured forth reflections like “a sea of glass mingled with fire,” and in conversation with his friends devoutly expressed his hopes and desires. “I am going,” he said, “to Him, whom my soul has loved; or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my consolation. I am leaving the ship of the Church in a storm, but while the Great Pilot is in it the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live and pray, and hope and wait patiently, and do not despond: the promise stands invincible that He will never leave us nor forsake us.” The first sheet of his last book had passed through the press, under the superintendence of Mr. Payne, an eminent Dissenting minister at Saffron Walden; and as he informed Owen of the circumstance the latter exclaimed “I am glad to hear it; but, O! brother Payne, the long-wished-for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in this world.”[112] As the dying man inherited a strong constitution, he had much to endure when the last struggle came, and the attendants upon his dying bed were deeply affected, both by the intensity of his pains and the brightness of his peace. In silence, with uplifted eyes and hands, this eminent man left the world; and—which is a remarkable coincidence—he did so on St. Bartholomew’s Day.
PERSECUTION.
Throughout the last three or four years of the reign of Charles II. the persecutions carried on against the Nonconformists increased in violence; and the cause is to be found, not only in the religious character of the victims, but in the political course which they felt it their duty to pursue. Indeed the latter in some cases mainly excited the party in power. Nonconformists generally had supported members of the Opposition, at the last three elections. They were known to be advocates of constitutional liberty against the despotic designs of men in high places. “Which alone,” observed John Howe—and his testimony is most trustworthy—“and not our mere dissent from the Church of England in matters of religion, wherein Charles II. was sufficiently known to be a Prince of great indifferency, drew upon us, soon after the dissolution of the last of those Parliaments, that dreadful storm of persecution that destroyed not a small number of lives in gaols, and ruined multitudes of families.”[113]
The Presbyterians, who had often received promises of comprehension, were persecuted in common with the rest of the Nonconformists. If ever a man lived in the world inoffensively, as well as usefully, it was Oliver Heywood; yet he did not escape imprisonment. His case exposes the wicked intolerance of the rulers far beyond that of some others, where partial ignorance of the circumstances might leave room for the idea, that a measure of imprudence provoked opposition. No provocation, we are sure, could have been given to the authorities of the country by this eminently amiable and holy person.
1684.
The case of Thomas Rosewell, a Presbyterian minister, in Rotherhithe, differs from that of Heywood; but his treatment was not less unjust. Charged with uttering treason in his discourses, the jury, after an address from Judge Jeffreys, who presided at the trial, brought him in guilty. When the prisoner moved for an arrest of judgment, the King, being informed of the circumstances, felt so convinced of the infamous character of the witnesses, and of the loyalty of Rosewell, that he pardoned him at once.[114]
PERSECUTION.
From the evidence elicited during Rosewell’s trial we are enabled to form a distinct picture of one of the Nonconformist places of worship in those days, and of several interesting circumstances connected with the services. The place in which he preached was situated in Salisbury Street, Rotherhithe, near the preacher’s dwelling, and consisted of a tenement or tenements, so altered as to adapt the building for accommodating a large number of people. “The rooms were but of a low height.” “There was a low parlour, and a little room up six steps;” and where the preacher stood “was a large room and a garret.” He stood “in the door-case of that room, that the sound might go up and down.” The chamber was hung with sad-coloured paper, and a sad-coloured bed was in the room. Upon the left hand of the speaker “was a chest of sweet wood, and a little cabinet upon it; and a glass over that; and upon the right hand, on the side of the chimney, was a closet.” Three or four hundred people commonly attended—some “people of quality;” and a “store of watermen and seamen” from Deptford, Rotherhithe, and thereabouts. There were shutters in the windows, and the sun came in, and Rosewell was afraid lest the people that went by should hear him. Upon the occasion in question, at first there was not light enough let into the apartment, and he desired that one part of the shutters should be opened; then he requested that half might be shut again, for fear he should be overheard. The congregation met at seven in the morning, and did not break up until a little after two in the afternoon,—a pause taking place in the middle, when the preacher went in to dinner, and “left us there,” says the witness; “and abundance in the congregation ate sweetmeats, or biscuits, or such things.” A man, who was a brazier, acted as door-keeper, and was angry at a woman’s “coming with pattens, for they made an impression on the ground, and gave notice to others that there was company there.” She found out the place only “by dogging of people as they went along;” and by inquiries made of certain persons “set commonly at a place called Cherry Garden Stairs.”[115]
1684.
PERSECUTION.
Thomas Delaune, a Baptist schoolmaster, and a person of considerable learning, appears as an eminent sufferer in those dark days. He published A Plea for the Nonconformists, in answer to a sermon entitled A Scrupulous Conscience, published by Dr. Benjamin Calamy, Rector of St. Lawrence Jewry. Delaune simply endeavoured to prove that certain observances in the Episcopal establishment more resembled what is found in the Popish Communion than what is found in primitive antiquity. The publication being treated as a criminal offence, the author was committed to Newgate in November, 1683, and indicted for “a false, seditious, and scandalous libel concerning the Lord the King and the Book of Common Prayer.” The Jury, imbued with the spirit of the age, found him guilty, after which the Judge sentenced him to pay a fine of one hundred marks, to be kept a close prisoner until he paid the money, and to find security for good behaviour during twelve months afterwards. Delaune remained in confinement fifteen months, at the end of which time nature broke down under hardship and suffering. The poor man died, and it is shocking to add, his wife and two small children also expired during the same period within the walls of Newgate.[116] In the same prison Francis Bampfield, a Baptist minister, and an Oxford man, who had suffered repeatedly for his Nonconformity, perished in the month of February, 1684.[117] Of all sects, perhaps, the Quakers suffered most. Their meetings were disturbed by drums and fiddles; women were insulted, their hoods and scarfs torn, and little boys were beaten or whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Seven hundred Friends were reported as being imprisoned in the year 1683.