History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

by Henry Thomas Buckle

[648] Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 247) says, that the struggle in 1667 ‘put an end to general impeachments.’

[649] Printing at first was regulated by royal proclamations; then by the Star-chamber; and afterwards by the Long Parliament. The decrees of the Star-chamber were taken as the basis of 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 33; but this act expired in 1679, and was not renewed during the reign of Charles II. Compare Blackstone's Comment. vol. iv. p. 152, with Hunt's Hist. of Newspapers, vol. i. p. 154, and Fox's Hist. of James II. p. 146.

[650] The fullest account I have seen in any history, of this great Revolution, which swept away the traditions and the language of feudalism, is that given in Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iv. pp. 369–378. But Harris, though an industrious collector, was a man of slender ability, and not at all aware of the real nature of a change, of which the obvious and immediately practical results formed the smallest part. The true point of view is, that it was a formal recognition by the legislature that the Middle Ages were extinct, and that it was necessary to inaugurate a more modern and innovating policy. Hereafter I shall have occasion to examine this in detail, and show how it was merely a symptom of a revolutionary movement. In the meantime the reader may refer to the very short notices in Dalrymple's Hist. of Feudal Property, p. 89; Blackstone's Comment. vol. ii. pp. 76, 77; Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 11; Parl. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 53, 167, 168; Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, vol. ii. p. 58.

[651] Mr. Hallam has a noble passage on the services rendered to English civilization by the vices of the English court: ‘We are, however, much indebted to the memory of Barbara Duchess of Cleveland, Louisa Duchess of Portsmouth, and Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn. We owe a tribute of gratitude to the Mays, the Killigrews, the Chiffinches, and the Grammonts. They played a serviceable part in ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our forefathers from the Star-chamber and the High-commission court; they laboured in their vocation against standing armies and corruption; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of English freedom—the expulsion of the House of Stuart.’ Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 50.

[652] Burnet (Own Time, vol. i. p. 448) tells us that, in 1667, the king, even at the council-board, expressed himself against the bishops, and said, that the clergy ‘thought of nothing but to get good benefices, and to keep a good table.’ See also, on his dislike to the bishops, vol. ii. p. 22; and Pepys' Diary, vol. iv. p. 2. In another place, vol. iv. p. 42, Pepys writes: ‘And I believe the hierarchy will in a little time be shaken, whether they will or no; the king being offended with them, and set upon it, as I hear.’ Evelyn, in a conversation with Pepys, noticed with regret such conduct of Charles, ‘that a bishop shall never be seen about him, as the king of France hath always.’ Pepys, vol. iii. p. 201. Evelyn, in his benevolent way, ascribes this to ‘the negligence of the clergy;’ but history teaches us that the clergy have never neglected kings, except when the king has first neglected them. Sir John Reresby gives a curious account of a conversation Charles II. held with him respecting ‘mitred heads,’ in which the feeling of the king is very apparent. Reresby's Travels and Memoirs, p. 238.

[653] On the animosity of the clergy against Hobbes, and on the extent to which he reciprocated it, compare Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. pp. 532, 631; Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. x. p. 111; with the angry language of Burnet (Own Time, vol. i. p. 322), and of Whiston (Memoirs, p. 251). See also Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, edit. Bliss, vol. iii. p. 1211. Monconys, who was in London in 1663, says of Hobbes, ‘Il me dit l'aversion que tous les gens d'église tant catholiques que protestans avoient pour lui.’ Monconys' Voyages, vol. iii. p. 43; and p. 115, ‘M. Hobbes, que je trouvai toujours fort ennemi des prêtres catholiques et des protestans.’ About the same time, Sorbiere was in London; and he writes respecting Hobbes: ‘I know not how it comes to pass, the clergy are afraid of him, and so are the Oxford mathematicians and their adherents; wherefore his majesty (Charles II.) was pleased to make a very good comparison when he told me, he was like a bear, whom they baited with dogs to try him.’ Sorbiere's Voyage to England, p. 40.

[654] This was a common expression for whoever attacked established opinions late in the seventeenth, and even early in the eighteenth century. For instances of it, see Baxter's Life of Himself, folio, 1696, part iii. p. 48; Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp. 505, 510; Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 41; Vernon Correspond. vol. iii. p. 13; King's Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 191; Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 149.

[655] Burnet says, they ‘made deep and lasting impressions on the king's mind.’ Own Time, vol. i. p. 172.

[656] A likeness, by Cooper. See Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, edit. Bliss, vol. iii. p. 1208.

[657] Sorbiere's Voyage to England, p. 39; Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. iii. p. 1208. On the popularity of the works of Hobbes in the reign of Charles II. compare Pepys' Diary, vol. iv. p. 164, with Lives of the Norths, vol. iii. p. 339.