[Footnote 1: Journals, Feb. 6. New Parl. Hist. iii. 1575. Philips, 597.
Price, 759. The Lord-general Monk, his Speech. Printed by J. Macock, 1660.]
[Footnote 2: Gumble, 228. Price, 759, 760. Philips, 595. About this time, a parcel of letters to the king, written by different persons in different ciphers, and intrusted to the care of a Mr. Leonard, was intercepted by Lockhart at Dunkirk, and sent by him to the council. When the writers were first told that the letters had been deciphered, they laughed at the information as of a thing impracticable; but were soon undeceived by the decipherer, who sent to them by the son of the bishop of Ely copies of their letters in cipher, with a correct interlineary explanation of each. They were astonished and alarmed; and, to save themselves from the consequences of the discovery, purchased of him two of the original letters at the price of three hundred pounds.—Compare Barwick's Life, 171, and App. 402, 412, 415, 422, with the correspondence on the subject in the Clarendon Papers, iii. 668, 681, 696, 700, 715. After this, all letters of importance were conveyed through the hands of Mrs. Mary Knatchbull, the abbess of the English convent in Gand.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 6.]
The sincerity of this declaration was soon put to the test. The loyal party in the city, especially among the moderate Presbyterians, had long been on the increase. At the last elections the common council had been filled with members of a new character; and the declaration which they issued demanded "a full and free parliament, according to the ancient and fundamental laws of the land." Of the assembly sitting in Westminster, as it contained no representative from the city, no notice was taken; the taxes which it had imposed were not paid; and the common council, as if it had been an independent authority, received and answered addresses from the neighbouring counties. This contumacy, in the opinion of the parliamentary leaders, called for prompt and exemplary punishment; and it was artfully suggested that, by making Monk the minister of their vengeance, they would open a wide breach between him and their opponents. Two hours after midnight he received[a] an order to march into the city, to arrest eleven of the principal citizens, to remove the posts and chains which had lately been fixed in the streets, and to destroy the portcullises and the gates. After a moment's hesitation, he resolved to obey, rather than hazard the loss of his commission. The citizens received him with groans and hisses; the soldiers murmured; the officers tendered their resignations. He merely replied that his orders left nothing to his discretion; but the reply was made with a sternness of
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 9.]
tone, and a gloominess of countenance, which showed, and probably was intended to show, that he acted with reluctance and with self-reproach.[1]
As soon as the posts and chains were removed, Monk suggested, in a letter to the speaker, that enough had been done to subdue the refractory spirit of the citizens. But the parliamentary leaders were not satisfied: they voted that he should execute his former orders; and the demolition of the gates and portcullises was effected. The soldiers loudly proclaimed their discontent: the general, mortified and ashamed, though he had been instructed to quarter them in the city, led them back to Whitehall.[2] There, on the review of these proceedings, he thought that he discovered proofs of a design, first to commit him with the citizens, and then to discard him entirely. For the house, while he was so ungraciously employed, had received, with a show of favour, a petition from the celebrated Praise-God Barebone, praying that no man might sit in parliament, or hold any public office, who refused to abjure the pretensions of Charles Stuart, or of any other single person. Now this was the very case of the general, and his suspicions were confirmed by the reasoning of his confidential advisers. With their aid, a letter to the speaker was prepared[a] the same evening, and approved the next morning by the council of officers. In it the latter were made to complain that they had been rendered the instruments of personal resentment against the citizens, and to require that by the following Friday every vacancy in the house should be filled up, preparatory to its
[Footnote 1: Journ. Feb. 9. Price, 761. Ludlow, ii. 336. Clar. Pap. iii. 674, 691. Gumble, 236. Skinner, 231-237.]
[Footnote 2: Journ. Feb. 9. Philips, 599.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 10.]