1655.
The treatment of Dr. Edward Pocock has been frequently mentioned by historians. He held the living of Childrey, in Berkshire, twelve miles from the city of Oxford, and was greatly troubled by disaffected parishioners. Articles were presented to the Commissioners, charging him with using the Prayer Book, and with similar offences. The trial came on before the Commissioners, first at Abingdon, and then at Wantage; and for some months this learned man was abominably worried by ignorant enemies. Chiefly through the interference of his friend, Dr. Owen, he was at length delivered out of their clutches.[103]
Proceedings against Royalist Episcopalians.
The antipathy of Oliver the Puritan to the Common Prayer Book, as a rag of Popery, is apparent from the terms of the ordinance against scandalous Ministers, and from the whole tenor of his life. But Oliver the Protector had other and still stronger grounds of dislike to the Episcopal Clergy, which led him to bind such suspicions around the use of the liturgy as made it to his mind symbolical of treason and rebellion. The Episcopalian Royalists would not be quiet. No sooner had turbulent Anabaptists been put under lock and key, than people who wished to see both Church and King restored were discovered all over his Highness's dominions busy with their plots. Cavalier horsemen were galloping to a rendezvous in Sherwood Forest. Carts full of arms and ammunition were grinding along the ruts of Yorkshire roads. Divers of the old gentry were scheming to seize the city of York for Charles Stuart. Four thousand men were expected to meet on Marston Moor, to try and reverse the decision of arms given there in 1644. Reports were circulated of designs upon Newcastle, upon Shrewsbury, and upon Winchester. Much more than talk occurred at Salisbury, where Royalist insurgents, on Sunday night in the spring assize week, actually seized the judges and the high sheriff, and endeavoured to proclaim King Charles at the Market Cross.[104] Plots abounded amongst Royalists; and people at home, eagerly turning their hopes into facts, wrote to friends on the Continent, telling them that Salisbury, and Plymouth, and Portsmouth, and Yarmouth, had all been surprised and taken. Rumour abroad proceeded so far as to affirm that England had declared for the King, and that the gates of the city of London had been shut against the Protector; and that Charles was waiting in the North till it should be safe for him publicly to appear.[105] This plot, after blazing up in the county town of Wilts, went out through a timely and decisive extinguishment of the first flames, and nothing remained of it but a few dead ashes. Yet it exasperated his Highness against the Royalists; and—entertaining the idea that ejected clergymen were still plotting his overthrow, that they entered families to foment treason, that, under pretence of teaching religion, they promoted disaffection, that meeting for common prayer meant meeting to upset the Commonwealth—he issued a most unrighteous declaration in the month of October, 1655. Grounds for suspecting the revolutionary character of certain gatherings did exist, and a regard for the safety of government and the order of society required that particular individuals should be watched; but the conduct of some was no more reason for punishing all who used the Prayer Book, than Venner's insurrection, at a later date, was a reason for prohibiting all Nonconformist worship. The policy of Cromwell, in forbidding clergymen to become schoolmasters, however great might be his subsequent leniency, closely resembles the policy of the government after the Restoration. The decree declared that no delinquents after the 1st of January, 1655-6, should keep as chaplain or schoolmaster any sequestered minister, or permit their children to be taught by him. Nor should an ejected clergyman keep a school, or preach publicly or privately, or baptize, or administer the Lord's Supper, or celebrate marriages, or use the Prayer Book.
This declaration was intended to strike terror into the Royalist party; and so it did. And it would appear that with this effect the Protector was satisfied. The last clause in the document plainly shewed that he did not mean to carry it out in the case of persons who were disposed to remain quiet; and in point of fact, we know that, after this declaration had been published, the worship of Episcopalians continued, in some instances, to be winked at. The document ended in these words: "Nevertheless, his Highness doth declare that, towards such of the said persons as have, since their ejection or sequestration, given, or shall hereafter give, a real testimony of their godliness and good affection to the present government, so much tenderness shall be used as may consist with the safety and good of the nation."[106]
Major-Generals.
Between the first and second Protectorate Parliaments, Cromwell ruled England by Major-Generals. The country was divided into ten districts, each superintended by one of these military satraps. In short, the whole realm was placed under martial law; as we should say in modern phrase, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. Such a step, perhaps, had become a political necessity. Of course, the proceeding laid Cromwell open to the awkward charge of absolutism, tyranny, and espionage; and all he could urge in reply was the logic of a cruel necessity, "If not good, yet best." The carrying out of such a policy made England look for awhile too much like France and Austria in our own times, and it sanctioned the practice of employing spies—a practice which prevailed after the Restoration.
1655.
As religious affairs had become inextricably woven with secular ones, these Major-Generals looked after the Church as well as after the world. The principle of such an interference rested upon the fact of the union between Church and State. Teachers of religion supported by the State must be watched by the State. Teachers of religion not so supported, but interfering with the business of the State, must be checked by the State. So men reasoned. Yet, although these officers were so many military bishops, they did not aim at establishing any kind of religious uniformity. They left Presbyterianism and Congregationalism to work their own way amongst the English people; yet, under pretence of curbing political disaffection and preventing social disorder, they did what has been often done under colour of the same pretext—they persecuted many perfectly harmless persons. Their reports, conveyed to head quarters, place in a strong light some phases of the religious condition of the country.