Abate the edge of Traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Shakspeare.
Those who have but an indifferent banquet to offer, are not usually inclined to discourage their guests, by a repulsive bill of fare; yet surely, when a public invitation is given, there is honesty, and prudence too, in simply stating the kind of regale we are going to spread, lest a palled and sickly appetite should expect stimulants, or a perverted taste should pine for foreign luxuries and modern cookery, when we have nothing to set before them but plain old English food. Church and King now look as obsolete in a publication, as beef and pudding would at a gala dinner; yet let us remember, that as the latter have fed our heroes from the days of Cressy and Agincourt to the present times, so the former have fashioned minds fit to animate these mighty bodies. It is only to those who have a relish for stern virtue and grave reflection, that I would recommend the following pages.
I have dated this narrative in a peculiarly calamitous period, though well aware that virtue, like happiness, is supposed to flourish most in times of tranquility. Such times afford no subjects for the historian or the bard; and even the moralist is often led to revert rather to those stormy eras which roused the energies of the human soul, and compelled it to assert qualities of which they who have observed only the repose of domestic life can form no conception. Man, attempting with finite powers to compass the most stupendous designs in spite of physical or moral obstacles; submitting to every privation, braving danger and death, often even defying omnipotence, and all for the sake of some speculative tenet, some doubtful advantage, the post of honour burdened by superlative responsibility, or the eminence of power attended with perpetual care, is an object no less interesting to the philosopher, than it is miraculous to the peasant, who places enjoyment in ease and animal indulgence. It is on the motives and actions which characterise this self-denial and enterprise, that the hero and the statesman fix their attention; forming their models, and drawing their conclusions, not from the passive inclinations, but from the capabilities of our species, not from what man would or ought to prefer, but from what he has achieved when stimulated by hope, goaded by ambition, or instigated by desperation.
Under the influence of these passions, how often has one restless spirit disturbed the repose of a prosperous nation, and spread desolation and misery over the fairest portions of the globe. Does God permit this—and is he righteous? Yes, short-sighted questioner of Omniscience, the Father of the universe is never more conspicuous in his paternal care, than when, by means of temporal afflictions, he draws our regards toward our heavenly country.—Then is death disarmed of the terrors which are planted round the bed of prosperity; then is the soul freed from that bondage of sensual delight, which impedes her spiritual exertion. The no longer pampered body, subdued to spareness, braced by toil, elastic from exertion, and patient from habit, is not a clog, but a meet companion for its immortal associate. Prosperity, among many other evils, engenders religious apathy, and luxurious selfishness. She presents a gorgeous stage, on which the puppets of vanity and petty ambition act their insignificant parts; adversity educates and exercises men.
Nor is the moral harvest a mere gleaning of good deeds. Where misery and wickedness seem most to abound; where desperadoes and plunderers go forth to destroy and pillage; the passive virtues pray, and endure. Self-devoting generosity then interposes her shield, and magnanimous heroism her sword; benevolence seeks out and consoles distress; the confessor intercedes with heaven; the patriot sacrifices his fortune and his comforts; the martyr dies on the scaffold, and the hero in the field. England hath often witnessed such piteous scenes, and many fear she is now on the verge of similar calamities, which threaten to cloud her glory from the envy and admiration of foreign nations, making her a taunting proverb of reproach to her enemies, while she points a moral, and adorns a tale, for posterity. May those who govern her wide extended empire, so study the records of our former woes, and shape their political course with such single-hearted observance of the unerring laws of God, as to become, under his Providence, our preservers from danger; and may the governed, remembering the tyranny which originated from insubordination; the daring ambition of popular demagogues; the hypocrisy of noisy reformers, and all the certain misery which arises from the pursuit of speculative unattainable perfection, adhere to those institutions, which have been consecrated with the best blood in England, and proved by the experience of ages to be consistent with as large a portion of national prosperity, as any people have ever enjoyed. Yet as our offences may prevail over our prayers, let us prepare our minds for times of trial. The public duties they require, are adapted to the discussion of that sex, whose physical and mental powers fit it for active life, and deliberate policy. But the exercise of the milder virtues is imperiously called for in seasons of national alarm. Whether we are to endure the loss of our accustomed wealth and luxury, or to encounter the far heavier trial of domestic confusion, there are habits of thinking and acting, which will conduce to individual comfort and improvement. There are sorrows which neither "King nor laws can cause or cure;" enjoyments, that no tyrant can withhold; and blessings, which even the wildest theories of democracy cannot destroy. The asylum where these sacred heritages of a good conscience are generally concealed, is the domestic hearth, that circumscribed but important precinct where the female Lares sit as guardians. Is it presumptuous in one, who has long officiated at such an household altar, again to solicit the forbearance and favour, which she has often experienced, by calling public attention to a popular way of communicating opinions, not first invented by herself, though she has often had recourse to it. The tale she now chooses as a vehicle, aims at conveying instruction to the present times, under the form of a chronicle of the past. The political and religious motives, which convulsed England in the middle of the seventeenth century, bear so striking a resemblance to those which are now attempted to be promulgated, that surely it must be salutary to remind the inconsiderate, that reformists introduced first anarchy and then despotism, and that a multitude of new religions gave birth to infidelity.
Nor let the serious hue which a story must wear that is dated in those times, when the church militant was called to the house of mourning, deter the gay and young from a patient perusal. Whatever mere prudential instructors may affirm, worldly prosperity should not be held out as the criterion, or the reward of right conduct. Let us remember St. Augustine's answer to those Pagans, who reproached him with the evils that Christians, in common with themselves, suffered from the then convulsed state of the world. They asked him, "Where is thy God?" But he declined founding the believer's privileges on individual exemptions, or personal providences. "My God," said he, "in all his attributes, different from the false impotent Gods of the Heathen, is to be found wherever his worshippers are;—if I am carried into captivity, his consolations shall yet reach me;—if I lose the possessions of this life, my precious faith shall still supply their want;—and if I die, not as the suffering heathen dies, by his own impious and impatient hand, but in obedience to the will of God, my great reward begins. I shall enter upon a life that will never be taken from me; and henceforth all tears shall be wiped from my eyes."
Adversity purifies communities, as well as individuals. If fastidiousness, selfishness, pride, and sensuality, conspire to cloud, with imaginary woes, the enjoyments of those whom others deem happy and prosperous; faction, discontent, a querulous appetite for freedom, and an inordinate ambition to acquire sudden pre-eminence, disturb public tranquillity, when a country has long enjoyed the blessings of plenty and repose. Previous to the commencement of that great rebellion, which tore the crown and mitre from the degraded shield of Britain, our forefathers, as we are informed by the noble historian of his country's woes and shames[[1]], experienced an unusual share of prosperity. During the early part of the reign of King Charles the First, he tells us, "this nation enjoyed the greatest calm, and the fullest measure of felicity that any people of any age for so long a time together had been blessed with, to the envy and wonder of all the other parts of Christendom." The portrait he draws is so striking, that I must exhibit it in its native colours. "A happiness invidiously set off by this distinction, that every other kingdom, every other state, were entangled and almost destroyed by the fury of arms. The court was in great plenty, or rather (which is the discredit of plenty) excess and luxury, the country rich, and what is more, fully enjoying the pleasure of its own wealth, and so the more easily corrupted with the pride and wantonness of it. The church flourishing with learned and extraordinary men; trade increased to that degree, that we were the exchange of Christendom; foreign merchants looking upon nothing so much their own, as what they had laid up in the warehouses of this kingdom; the royal navy in number and equipage, very formidable at sea; lastly, for a complement of all these blessings, they were enjoyed under the protection of a King of the most harmless disposition; the most exemplary piety; the greatest sobriety, chastity, and mercy, that ever Prince had been endowed with: But all these blessings could but enable, not compel, us to be happy. We wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own happiness, which all but we had; and we took pains to make, when we could not find ourselves miserable. There was in truth a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest. The court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent. Every man more troubled and perplexed at what they called the violation of one law, than delighted or pleased with the observance of all the rest of the charter. Never imputing the increase of their receipts, revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue, and merit of the crown; but objecting every small imposition to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the government. The growth of knowledge and virtue were disrelished for the infirmities of some learned men, and the increase of grace and favour to the church was more repined and murmured at than the increase of piety and devotion in it were regarded."