judges, six resigned; the other six consented to retain their situations, if parliament would issue a proclamation declaratory of its intention to maintain the fundamental laws of the kingdom. The condition was accepted and fulfilled;[1] the courts proceeded to hear and determine causes after the ancient manner; and the great body of the people scarcely felt the important change which had been made in the government of the country. For several years past the supreme authority had been administered in the name of the king by the two houses at Westminster, with the aid of the committee at Derby House; now the same authority was equally administered in the name of the people by one house only, and with the advice of a council of state.
The merit or demerit of thus erecting a commonwealth on the ruins of the monarchy chiefly belongs to Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, and Marten, who by their superior influence guided and controlled the opinions and passions of their associates in the senate and the army. After the king's death they derived much valuable aid from the talents of Vane,[2] Whitelock, and St. John; and a feeble lustre was shed on their cause by the accession of the five peers
[Footnote 1: Journals, Feb. 8. Yet neither this declaration nor the frequent remonstrances of the lawyers could prevent the house from usurping the office of the judges, or from inflicting illegal punishments. Thus, for example, on the report of a committee, detailing the discovery of a conspiracy to extort money by a false charge of delinquency, the house, without hearing the accused, or sending them before a court of justice, proceeded to inflict on some the penalties of the pillory, fine, and imprisonment, and adjudged Mrs. Samford, as the principal, to be whipped the next day from Newgate to the Old Exchange, and to be kept to hard labour for three months.—Journals, 1650, Feb. 2, Aug. 13.]
[Footnote 2: Immediately after Pride's purge, Vane, disgusted at the intolerance of his own party, left London, and retired to Raby Castle; he was now induced to rejoin them, and resumed his seat on Feb. 26.]
from the abolished House of Lords. But, after all, what right could this handful of men have to impose a new constitution on the kingdom? Ought they not, in consistency with their own principles, to have ascertained the sense of the nation by calling a new parliament? The question was raised, but the leaders, aware that their power was based on the sword of the military, shrunk from the experiment; and, to elude the demands of their opponents, appointed a committee to regulate the succession of parliaments and the election of members; a committee, which repeatedly met and deliberated, but never brought the question to any definitive conclusion. Still, when the new authorities looked around the house, and observed the empty benches, they were admonished of their own insignificance, and of the hollowness of their pretensions. They claimed the sovereign authority, as the representatives of the people; but the majority of those representatives had been excluded by successive acts of military violence; and the house had been reduced from more than five hundred members, to less than one-seventh of that number. For the credit and security of the government it was necessary both to supply the deficiency, and, at the same time, to oppose a bar to the introduction of men of opposite principles. With this view, they resolved[a] to continue the exclusion of those who had on the 5th of December assented to the vote, that the king's "concessions were a sufficient ground to proceed to a settlement;" but to open the house to all others who should previously enter on the journals their dissent from that resolution.[1] By this expedient, and by occasional writs for elections in those places where
[Footnote 1: Journ. Feb. 1. Walker, part ii. 115. Whitelock, 376.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Feb. 1.]
the influence of the party was irresistible, the number of members gradually rose to one hundred and fifty, though it was seldom that the attendance of one-half, or even of one-third, could be procured.
During the war, the dread of retaliation had taught the two parties to temper with moderation the license of victory. Little blood had been shed except in the field of battle. But now that check was removed. The fanatics, not satisfied with the death of the king, demanded, with the Bible in their hands, additional victims; and the politicians deemed it prudent by the display of punishment to restrain the machinations of their enemies. Among the royalists in custody were the duke of Hamilton (who was also earl of Cambridge in England), the earl of Holland, Goring, earl of Norwich, the Lord Capel, and Sir John Owen, all engaged in the last attempt for the restoration of Charles to the throne. By a resolution of the House of Commons in November, Hamilton had been adjudged to pay a fine of one hundred thousand pounds, and the other four to remain in perpetual imprisonment; but after the triumph of the Independents, this vote had been rescinded,[a] and a high court of justice was now established to try the same persons on a charge of high treason. It was in vain that Hamilton pleaded the order of the Scottish parliament under which he had acted; that Capel demanded to be brought before his peers, or a jury of his countrymen, according to those fundamental laws which the parliament had promised to maintain; that all invoked the national faith in favour of that quarter which they had obtained at the time of their surrender. Bradshaw, the president, delivered the opinions of the court. To Hamilton, he replied,
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Feb. 1.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. Feb. 10.]