Meanwhile the new Government had been stoutly at work. The spirit of the "good old cause" was strong in the two or three scores of members most regularly in attendance, among whom were Vane, Marten, Ludlow, Hasilrig, Scott, Salway, Weaver, Neville, Raleigh, Lister, Walton, Say, Downes, Morley, and John Jones. Remembering the great days of the Commonwealth between 1649 and 1653, and not inquiring how much of the greatness of those days had been owing to the fact that the politicians at the centre had then a Cromwell marching over the map for them, and winning them the victories that gave them great work to do, they set themselves, with all their industry, courage, and ability, to prove to the world that those great days might be renewed without a Cromwell. The Council generally held its meetings early in the morning, so that the Council-business might not interfere with their attendance in the House. Johnstone of Warriston, though a non-Parliamentary member of the Council, at once acquired high influence in it. He, Vane, and Whitlocke, were most frequently in the chair.
A new great seal; new Commissioners for the same (Bradshaw, Tyrrell, and Fountain); new Judges; state of the public debts; orders for the sale of Hampton Court and Somerset House; suspension of the sale of Hampton Court; votes for pay of the Army and Navy; an Act of Indemnity and Oblivion; a Bill for settling the Union with Scotland; re-declarations of a Free Commonwealth, without Single Person, Kingship, or House of Peers; Irish affairs; a Vote for ending the present Parliament on the 7th of May ensuing: these mere headings will indicate much of the miscellaneous activity of the Council, or of the House, or of committees of the House, as far as to the end of July. One may glance more closely at their proceedings and intentions in two departments: (1) Church and Religion, On the 27th of June, In reply to a petition from "many thousands of the free-born people of this Commonwealth" for the abolition of Tithes, the House voted that "the payment of Tithes shall continue as now they are, unless this Parliament shall find out some other and more equal and comfortable maintenance." Evidently, therefore, the Restored Rumpers were not yet prepared to interfere materially with the Church-Establishment as it had been left by Oliver. The petition, however, which drew from them this declaration, is itself significant. In the opinion of many over the country absolute Voluntaryism in Religion was part and parcel of "the good old cause," and ought to be re-proclaimed as such, at once. Nor, though the Rumpers now refused to admit that, was sympathy with the demand wanting within their own body. The majority of the Parliament and of its Council were, indeed, orthodox Independents or Semi-Presbyterians, approving of Cromwell's Church policy, and anxious to support the existing public ministry. But Vane and some other leading Rumpers were men of mystic and extreme theological lights, pointing in the direction of Fifth-Monarchyism, Quakerism, and all other varieties of that fervency for Religion itself which would destroy mere state-paid machinery in its behalf, while a few, on the other hand, such as Neville, were cool freethinkers, contemptuous of Church and Clergy as but an apparatus for the prevalent superstition. For the present, it had been thought impolitic perhaps to divide counsels in that matter, or to give offence to the sober majority of the people by reviving the question, so much agitated between 1649 and 1653, whether pure Republicanism in politics did not necessarily involve absolute Voluntaryism in Religion; but the probability is that the question was only adjourned. In the connected question of Religious Toleration the new Government was more free at once to give effect to strong views; and, though it was not formally announced that unlimited Toleration was to be the rule of the Restored Republic, this was substantially the understanding. On the whole, Cromwell's policy in Church-matters was merely continued. (2) Relations with Foreign Powers. In this matter the rule of the new Government was a very simple one. It was to withdraw, as speedily as possible, from all foreign entanglements. No longer now could Charles Gustavus of Sweden calculate on help from England. Montague's Fleet, indeed, was still in the Baltic; Meadows was re-commissioned as envoy-in-ordinary to the Kings of Denmark and Sweden; envoys from Sweden had audiences in London; and at length, early in July, the importance of the Baltic business was fully recognised by the despatch of Algernon Sidney and Sir Robert Honeywood, two of the members of the Council of State, and Mr. Boone, a member of the House, to act as plenipotentiaries with Montague for the settlement of the differences between Sweden and Denmark and between Sweden and the Dutch. The instructions, however, were to compel the Swedish King to a pacification, and to co-operate with the Dutch and the Danes in that interest. As regarded the Dutch themselves, among whom Downing was grudgingly continued as Resident, there was the most studious care for a friendly intercourse. There was no revival now of that imperious project of the old Commonwealth Government for a union of the two Republics which had alarmed the Dutch and led to the great naval war with them. It was enough that the English should mind their own affairs, and the Dutch theirs. But the determination to have no more of Cromwell's "spirited foreign policy" was most signally manifested in the business of the French alliance and the war with Spain. That peace should be made with Spain was a foregone conclusion, and circumstances were favourable. The Spaniards, crippled by their losses in Flanders, had for some time been making overtures of peace to the French Court; these had been received the more willingly at last because of the uncertainties in which Louis XIV. and Mazarin were left by Cromwell's death; negotiations had been cleverly on foot since the beginning of the year for a treaty between the two Catholic Powers, to include the marriage of Louis XIV. with the Spanish Infanta, Maria Theresa; and, though the treaty had not been concluded, preliminaries had been so far arranged that, since May 1659, there had been a cessation of hostilities. Thus relieved already from the trouble of carrying on military operations in Flanders, the Restored Rumpers took steps to get themselves included in the Treaty in progress between the two Kings, or, if they should fail in that, to secure peace with Spain independently. This was the main business on which Lockhart had been re-commissioned as ambassador to the French Court, From Paris he went to St. Jean de Luz, at the foot of the Pyrenees, where Mazarin and the Spanish Prime Minister Don Luis de Haro were then holding their consultations. He arrived there on the 1st of August, in such ambassadorial pomp as he thought likely to credit his difficult mission. The business of that mission, was to undo the work he had done for Cromwell. Such was the will of his new masters. Dunkirk and the rest of Cromwell's acquisitions on the Continent were only a trouble; and, if any decent arrangement could be made for selling them either to France or back to Spain, why not be satisfied? War with Continental Papacy and championship of Continental Protestantism were but expensive moonshine.1
1: Whitlocke, from May to the end of July 1659; Parl. Hist. for same term; Commons Journals of dates; Guizot, I. 165-172.
In nothing was the Republican energy of the new Rumpers more conspicuous than in their determination to subject all forms of the public service to direct Parliamentary control. They would have all rigorously in the grasp of the little Restored House itself, until the power should be handed over to a duly constituted successor. Hence their precaution, while nominating Fleetwood Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-chief of the Forces in England and Scotland, of not giving him supreme power in appointing his officers, but making him only one of a Commission of Seven for recommending officers to the House (May 13). Persevering in this policy, and becoming even more stringent in it, notwithstanding the complaints of the Army-magnates that it showed want of confidence in their integrity, the House proceeded, May 28, to a vast remodelling of the entire Armies of England. Scotland, and Ireland. Fleetwood was confirmed in the Commandership-in-Chief for England and Scotland by a special Bill, passed June 7; and by another Bill, passed June 8, reconstituting the Commissioners for nominations of officers, it was secured not only that such nominations should require Parliamentary approval, but also that each commission to an officer should be signed by the Speaker in the name of the Parliament, and delivered, if possible, to the officer personally from the Speaker's own hands. Accordingly, on the 9th of June, Fleetwood himself was solemnly presented with a signed transcript of the Act appointing him Commander-in-Chief in England and Scotland; and from that day, on through the rest of June, the whole of July, and even into August and September, much of the business of the House consisted in passing commissions to the officers recommended, sometimes with a rejection or substitution, and in seeing the officers come up in batches to the Speaker to receive their commissions one by one, each with a lecture on his duty. As each foot-regiment, consisting of ten companies, had its colonel, its lieutenant-colonel, its major, and its quartermaster, with seven captains besides, and twenty subalterns, and as each horse-regiment, consisting of six troops, had its colonel, its major, four captains besides, six lieutenants, six cornets, and six quartermasters, one may guess the tediousness of this process of approving nominations and delivering commissions. About 1200 persons had to be approved and commissioned, or, if we throw in chaplains, surgeons, &c., about 1400 in all. Nevertheless, with certain arrangements for delivering commissions to officers at a distance, the process was carried so far that one can make out from the Journals of the House not only the general plan of the Remodelling, but even the names of a large proportion of the actually appointed officers. The essence of the scheme was, of course, that all very pronounced Cromwellians,—e.g. Falconbridge, Howard, Ingoldsby, Whalley, Barkstead, Goffe, and Pride,—should be thrown out of their commands, and men of the right stamp substituted. It is to be noticed also, however, that there were to be now properly but two Generals, and that the highest officers under these, whatever had been their previous designations, were all, with a certain courtesy exception in favour of Lambert and Monk, to rank on one level as merely Colonels. As far as to these Colonels, the result was as follows:
I. ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
Commander-in-Chief: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, CHARLES FLEETWOOD.
I. FOR, SERVICE IN ENGLAND AND WALES: 1. Colonels of Horse Regiments: John Lambert (with Richard Creed for his Major), John Desborough, James Berry (with Unton Crooke for his Major), Robert Lilburne, Francis Hacker, John Okey, William Packer (with John Gladman for his Major), Nathaniel Rich, Thomas Saunders, and Herbert Morley. 2. Colonels of Foot-Regiments: Lieutenant-General Fleetwood, Lambert, Robert Overton, Matthew Alured, John Hewson (with John Duckinfield for his Lieutenant-Colonel), John Biscoe, William Sydenham, Edward Salmon, Richard Mosse, Richard Ashfield, Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Thomas Kelsay, John Clerk, Robert Gibbon, Robert Barrow.—One finds, besides, certain Colonels appointed to garrison commands: e.g. Colonel Thomas Fitch to be Governor of the Tower, Colonel Nathaniel Whetham to be Governor of Portsmouth, Colonel Mark Grimes to be Governor of Cardiff Overton was Governor of Hall as well as Colonel of a Foot-Regiment; and Alured had charge of the Life-Guard of the House and the Council at Westminster,—All these appointments were actually made; other colonelcies probably stood over for consideration.—In the Journals Lambert is styled "Major-General Lambert," but that was only by courtesy. He had no commission with that title; and Ludlow makes a point of marking this by always calling him "Colonel Lambert" only. His distinction was in holding two colonelcies together, one of Foot and one of Horse.
II. FOR SERVICE IN SCOTLAND:—Here, probably because of Monk's passive resistance, the reorganization was less completely carried out; but the intention seems to have been that Monk, though in courtesy he might still be called "General Monk," should have only, by actual commission, the same distinction of double colonelcy that Lambert had in England. He had a Regiment of Foot and also one of Horse; and among the other Colonels were, or were to be, Thomas Talbot (at Edinburgh), Timothy Wilkes (at Leith), Ralph Cobbet (at Glasgow), Roger Sawrey (at Ayr), Charles Fairfax (at Aberdeen), Thomas Read (at Stirling, with John Clobery for his Lieutenant-Colonel), Henry Smith (at Inverness), John Pierson (at Perth), the veteran Thomas Morgan of Flanders celebrity (a Dragoon Regiment), and Philip Twistleton (a Horse Regiment). One or two of these were substitutions for officers whom Monk preferred.
II. IRELAND.
Commander-in-Chief: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL EDMUND LUDLOW.