The district of Blackfriars claimed to be independent of the municipal authorities of London. The inhabitants asserted an inheritance of the privileges of sanctuary, formerly pertaining to that famous monastery which had given its name to the neighbourhood. Hence, to find shelter and protection within the precincts of the ancient foundation, players, who had been driven out of the city, here erected a theatre; and Papists, who were proscribed by law, here assembled for worship. And it is not a little curious that Puritans also were somewhat numerous in the same locality; a fact which is indicated by their presenting what seems to have been an influential petition to the Lords of the Privy Council against the continuance of stage-plays by their dramatic neighbours.[62] Blackfriars, as we have seen, is also mentioned among the places in which certain Nonconformists were wont to meet in the first quarter of the seventeenth century; and in this same place we now meet with an Anabaptist assembly listening to the popular preachers of millenarianism.
Feake and Powell.
A letter from an eye-witness communicates additional information respecting these meetings. The writer states that he had been to one of them, and had heard Feake preach upon the subject of the little horn described in the book of Daniel; and he states that in the course of the sermon the preacher exclaimed, "I know some would have the late King Charles to be meant by this little horn; but as I said at first, I'll name nobody. God will make it clear shortly to His people who is meant here." When Feake had concluded his portion of the service, Vavasour Powell continued to discourse on the same subject, in a similar strain of interpretation—still more explicitly reflecting on public men and measures than his predecessor had done—interpreting the king of the north to signify the late monarch, and inveighing bitterly against the military commanders of the day, as the sole cause of the pressure of taxation. The leading points of the sermon were, that Christ was setting up a fifth monarchy in the world; that a spirit of prophecy had been communicated to the saints, whereby they were enabled to describe future events; and that the design of Christ was to destroy all antichristian forms, including established churches together with their clergy. Upon this third particular, the reporter states that Powell was somewhat copious, and said "they must down, though they were never so strongly protected, for Christ is none of their Lord Protectors, though the army-men protect them." "Yes," said he, "and rather than those shall down, they will pull Parliaments in pieces, and this made them break the last Parliament; for on Saturday, the 10th of December, the House refused to settle a commission of ministers to ride in circuits, as the judges did, and judge who were fit to be continued or put out of their livings, and so to maintain them upon the old corrupt foundation still. And when the House would not yield that these antichristian clergymen and tithes should be upheld, then, on Monday following, in the morning, they were thrust out (I mean the few honest men of them that were present) by violence; and the rest (as they had agreed beforehand) went and subscribed their names to a paper giving up their authority in the name of the whole; whereas none of the honest men would subscribe or surrender, save only some three or four, who have since professed their hearty sorrow to me for it. This is true, and we must speak it out, for our mouths shall not be stopped with paper-proclamations." ... Further, in relation to the Parliament, he remarked, "they were broken by force, and it was a business plotted by the great army-men, clergymen, and their party together." ... Powell afterwards "flew into many strange ejaculations, 'Lord! what have our army-men all apostatized from their principles? What is become of all their declarations, protestations, and professions? Are they choked with lands, and parks, and manors? Let us go home, and pray, and say, 'Lord, wilt Thou have Oliver Cromwell to reign over us, or Jesus Christ to reign over us.'" "I know," he proceeded, "there are many gracious souls in the army, and of good principles, but the greater they grow, the more they are corrupted with lands and honours. I'll tell you, it was a common proverb that we had among us of the General, that in the field he was the graciousest and most gallant man in the world; but out of the field, and when he came home to government, the worst." This strange preacher told his congregation that "snares were laid for them, and spies set over them, and that they might be deprived of the benefit of meeting in that place. But then (said he) we will meet at another, and if we be driven thence, we will meet at private houses, and if we cannot have liberty there, we will into the fields, and if we be driven thence, we will into corners, for we will never give over, and God will not permit this spirit to go down. He will be the support of the spirits of His people. He complained also of the faltering of divers who had formerly been very forward at this meeting, but now drew back, and therefore he prayed that the Lord would hold up the meeting."[63]
1653, December.
Powell having concluded, somebody seated in one corner of the gallery began to speak, and would have replied to the preacher; but, though he strained his voice with the utmost violence to overcome the outcries of the congregation, he was compelled, after half-an-hour's tumult, to hold his peace. A Mr. Colaine, amidst the confusion, ascended the pulpit, and afterwards expounded the fifth chapter of Hosea, representing the state of things in England as parallel to that which the prophet portrayed, and inveighing strongly against the national clergy of Antichrist, and the parochial priests of Baal.
According to another letter, personal allusions to Cromwell even yet more violent occurred in the discourses of these misguided men. Powell and Feake called him "the dissemblingist perjured villain in the world," and desired any friends of his, who might be present, to go and report this to him, adding, that the Protector's reign would be short, and "that he should be served worse than that great tyrant the last Lord Protector was, he being altogether as bad, if not worse than he."[64]
Feake and Powell.
These fanatics threw themselves with earnestness into the Dutch war. That conflict, looking at the political and religious character of the combatants, strikes us as very strange, both parties being republicans, and both being defenders of religious liberty: but it had arisen from commercial and maritime rivalries, into which additional bitterness had been shed by the natural sympathies of the Prince of Orange with the Stuart family. A confederation of the two commonwealths, for the promotion of civil freedom and the interests of Protestantism throughout Europe, formed an English dream at the end of the civil wars; and what had at first been contemplated as a subject for peaceful negotiation was afterwards absurdly sought to be accomplished by naval battles. The republican zeal and Protestant fervour of Feake and his friends enlisted them on the side of a thorough union between the two states, and they stipulated for it as an indispensable condition of peace. That England should persevere till Holland could be yoked to her in humble submission for the attainment of these civil and religious ends, constituted a staple theme in the harangues at Blackfriars. Conciliation and compromise were condemned. The preachers denounced in the wildest way the statesman-like views of Cromwell, who felt anxious to put an end to the deadly struggle of two countries, between which policy as well as justice dictated alliance with mutual independence. His opponents did all they could to stir up the people of England against the Netherlanders, and one of the Dutch deputies, who went to hear them, wrote home, declaring that their sermons were "most horrid trumpets of fire, murder, and flame."[65] Millenarianism thus became mixed up with political schemes; and these Commonwealth visionaries believed that God had given Holland to the English as a "landing place of the saints, whence they should proceed to pluck the whore of Babylon from her chair, and to establish the kingdom of Christ on the Continent."[66]
Between the resignation of the Little Parliament on the 12th of October, and the date of the last of these letters, a great change had come over the government of England. Cromwell and his council of officers, "after several days seeking of God," had determined formally to avow the perpetuation of what was already a fact—that supreme authority should rest in a single person, even in Oliver himself. His title was to be "Lord Protector," and with him was to be associated "a council of godly, able, and discreet persons," consisting of not more than twenty-one.
Cromwell made Protector.