Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

by Henry Hallam

[503] After giving the substance of Monk's speech to the house, recommending a new parliament, but insisting on commonwealth principles, Clarendon goes on; "There was no dissimulation in this, in order to cover and conceal his good intentions to the king; for without doubt he had not to this hour entertained any purpose or thought to serve him, but was really of the opinion he expressed in his paper, that it was a work impossible; and desired nothing but that he might see a commonwealth established on such a model as Holland was, where he had been bred, and that himself might enjoy the authority and place which the Prince of Orange possessed in that government."

[504] The Clarendon and Thurloe Papers are full of more proofs of this than can be quoted, and are very amusing to read, as a perpetually shifting picture of hopes and fears, and conjectures right or wrong. Pepys's Diary also, in these two months, strikingly shows the prevailing uncertainty as to Monk's intentions, as well as the general desire of having the king brought in. It seems plain that, if he had delayed a very little longer, he would have lost the whole credit of the restoration. All parties began to crowd in with addresses to the king in the first part of April, before Monk was known to have declared himself. Thurloe, among others, was full of his offers, though evidently anxious to find out whether the king had an interest with Monk. P. 898. The royalists had long entertained hopes, from time to time, of this deep politician; but it is certain he never wished well to their cause, and with St. John and Pierrepont, had been most zealous, to the last moment that it seemed practicable, against the restoration. There had been, so late as February 1660, or even afterwards, a strange plan of setting up again Richard Cromwell, wherein not only these three, but Montagu, Jones, and others were thought to be concerned, erroneously no doubt as to Montagu. Clarendon State Papers, 693; Carte's Letters, ii. 310, 330. "One of the greatest reasons they alledged was, that the king's party, consisting altogether of indigent men, will become powerful by little and little to force the king, whatever be his own disposition, to break any engagement he can now make; and, since the nation is bent on a single person, none will combine all interests so well as Richard." This made Monk, it is said, jealous of St. John, and he was chosen at Cambridge to exclude him. In a letter of Thurloe to Downing at the Hague, April 6, he says, "that many of the presbyterians are alarmed at the prospect, and thinking how to keep the king out without joining the sectaries."—vii. 887. This could hardly be achieved but by setting up Richard. Yet that, as is truly said in one of the letters quoted, was ridiculous. None were so conspicuous and intrepid on the king's side as the presbyterian ministers. Reynolds preached before the lord mayor, Feb. 28, with manifest allusion to the restoration; Gauden (who may be reckoned on that side, as conforming to it), on the same day much more explicitly. Kennet's Register, 69. Sharp says, in a letter to a correspondent in Scotland, that he, Ash, and Calamy had a long conversation with Monk, March 11, "and convinced him a commonwealth was impracticable, and to our sense sent him off that sense he hath hitherto maintained, and came from him as being satisfied of the necessity of dissolving this house, and calling a new parliament."—Id. p. 81. Baxter thinks the presbyterian ministers, together with Clarges and Morrice, turned Monk's resolution, and induced him to declare for the king. Life, p. 2. This is a very plausible conjecture, though I incline to think Monk more disposed that way by his own judgment or his wife's. But she was influenced by the presbyterian clergy. They evidently deserved of Charles what they did not meet with.

[505] The royalists began too soon with threatening speeches, which well nigh frustrated their object. Id. 721, 722, 727; Carte's Letters, 318; Thurloe, 887. One Dr. Griffith published a little book vindicating the late king in his war against the parliament, for which the ruling party were by no means ripe; and, having justified it before the council, was committed to the Gate-house early in April. Id. ibid. These imprudences occasioned the king's declaration from Breda. Somers Tracts, vi. 562. Another also was published, April 25, 1660, signed by several peers, knights, divines, etc., of the royalist party, disclaiming all private passions and resentments. Kennet's Register, 120; Clar. vii. 471. But these public professions were weak disguises, when belied by their current language. See Baxter, 217. Marchmont Needham, in a tract entitled, "Interest will not lye" (written in answer to an artful pamphlet ascribed to Fell, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, and reprinted in Maseres's Tracts, "The Interest of England stated"), endeavoured to alarm all other parties, especially the presbyterians, with representations of the violence they had to expect from that of the king. See Harris's Charles II. 268.

[506] Proofs of the disposition among this party to revive the treaty of the Isle of Wight occur perpetually in the Thurloe and Clarendon Papers, and in those published by Carte. The king's agents in England evidently expected nothing better; and were, generally speaking, much for his accepting the propositions. "The presbyterian lords," says Sir Allen Broderic to Hyde, "with many of whom I have spoken, pretend that, should the king come in upon any such insurrection, abetted by those of his own party, he would be more absolute than his father was in the height of his prerogative. Stay therefore, say they, till we are ready; our numbers so added will abundantly recompense the delay, rendering what is now extremely doubtful morally certain, and establishing his throne upon the true basis, liberty and property." July 16, 1659. Clar. State Papers, 527.

[507] Clarendon, Hist. of Rebellion, vii. 440; State Papers, 705, 729. "There is so insolent a spirit among some of the nobility," says Clarendon, about the middle of February, "that I really fear it will turn to an aristocracy; Monk inclining that way too. My opinion is clear, that the king ought not to part with the church, crown, or friends' lands, lest he make my lord of Northumberland his equal, nay, perhaps his superior."—P. 680.

[508] Downing, the minister at the Hague, was one of these. His overtures to the king were as early as Monk's, at the beginning of April; he declared his wish to see his majesty restored on good terms, though many were desirous to make him a doge of Venice. Carte's Letters, ii. 320. See also a remarkable letter of the king to Monk (dated May 21; but I suspect he used the new style, therefore read May 11), intimating what a service it would be to prevent the imposition of any terms. Clar. 745. And another from him to Morrice of the same tenor, May 20 (N. S.), 1660, and hinting that his majesty's friends in the house had complied with the general in all things, according to the king's directions, departing from their own sense, and restraining themselves from pursuing what they thought most for his service. Thurloe, vii. 912. This perhaps referred to the indemnity and other provisions then pending in the Commons, or rather to the delay of a few days before the delivery of Sir John Grenvil's message.

[509] "Monk came this day (about the first week of April) to the council, and assured them that, notwithstanding all the appearance of a general desire of kingly government, yet it was in nowise his sense, and that he would spend the last drop of his blood to maintain the contrary."—Extract of a letter from Thurloe to Downing. Carte's Letters, ii. 322. "The council of state are utterly ignorant of Monk's treating with the king; and surely, as the present temper of the council of state is now, and may possibly be also of the parliament, by reason of the presbyterian influence upon both, I should think the first chapman will not be the worst, who perhaps will not offer so good a rate in conjunction with the company, as may give to engross the commodity." Clar. 722, April 6. This sentence is a clue to all the intrigue. It is said soon afterwards (p. 726, April 11) that the presbyterians were much troubled at the course of the elections, which made some of the council of state again address themselves to Monk for his consent to propositions they would send to the king; but he absolutely refused, and said he would leave all to a free parliament, as he had promised the nation. Yet, though the elections went as well as the royalists could reasonably expect, Hyde was dissatisfied that the king was not restored without the intervention of the new parliament; and this may have been one reason of his spleen against Monk. Pp. 726, 731.

[510] A proposed resolution, that those who had been on the king's side, or their sons, should be disabled from voting at elections, was lost by 93 to 56, the last effort of the expiring Rump. Journals, 13 March. The electors did not think themselves bound by this arbitrary exclusion of the cavaliers from parliament; several of whom (though not perhaps a great number within the terms of the resolution) were returned. Massey, however, having gone down to stand for Glocester, was put under arrest by order of the council of state. Thurloe, 887. Clarendon, who was himself not insensible to that kind of superstition, had fancied that anything done at Glocester by Massey for the king's service would make a powerful impression on the people.

[511] It is a curious proof of the state of public sentiment that, though Monk himself wrote a letter to the electors of Bridgenorth, recommending Thurloe, the cavalier party was so powerful, that his friends did not even produce the letter, lest it should be treated with neglect. Thurloe, vii. 895.

[512] "To the king's coming in without conditions may be well imputed all the errors of his reign." Thus says Burnet. The great political error, if so it should be termed, of his reign, was a conspiracy with the king of France, and some wicked advisers at home, to subvert the religion and liberty of his subjects; and it is difficult to perceive by what conditions this secret intrigue could have been prevented.