WORCESTER HOUSE DECLARATION.
Charles, there can be no doubt, simply wished to keep the Presbyterians quiet as long as possible, to get a few of their leaders into the Episcopal Church, and to employ others, to whom he held out hopes of toleration, as tools for securing liberty to the Papists.[157] Clarendon, I believe, sincerely desired, as a staunch Episcopalian, to restore the Establishment upon its old basis—nor do I see any reason to question, that he also sincerely desired to bring Baxter and others within its pale. With the purpose of winning Presbyterians over to Episcopacy he was willing to make a few concessions. But, of any genuine wish to base the Church upon the principles laid down in the Declaration, there is no proof; and such a wish is inconsistent with his known attachment to Prelacy. He had, it is true, ever since the return of Royalty became probable, shown great moderation in his behaviour to the Puritan party; but this circumstance is quite consistent with the idea of his simply proposing to bring them over to Episcopalianism. Looking at the opinions of the prelates already expressed, and afterwards maintained at the Savoy, is it possible that the Declaration could have been designed as a bonâ fide basis of a Church settlement? The conclusion is inevitable, that Clarendon aimed at accomplishing his object by such a method as statesmen deem to be justifiable diplomacy.[158] After the fate of the Declaration in Parliament, the aspect of affairs changed in reference to Presbyterians. Hopes once raised were dashed to the ground. The overtures of the Court were seen to be hollow, and the preferments offered were declined. Reynolds, nevertheless, retained the Bishopric of Norwich.
CHAPTER VI.
THE REGICIDES.
The treatment of the men who had been foremost in what the Royalists called the Great Rebellion, affords a further and a critical instance of the temper of Parliament. At first, and for some little time afterwards, the majority supported a large measure of oblivion. Not more than seven persons were excepted from the Act of Indemnity. But the number speedily increased to twenty-nine.[159] Afterwards it was proposed that all who sat on the trial of Charles I., and had not surrendered according to a late Proclamation, were to be excluded from the Act of Oblivion,—a point carried without any division. The Lords made the Bill more stringent. They determined to exclude all who had signed the death-warrant, or were sitting in the court when sentence was pronounced, whether they had submitted since the Restoration or not; to these the Lords added the names of Hacker, Vane, Lambert, Haselrig, and Axtell. Yet they struck out a clause, reserving Lenthall and others for future punishment. The Commons had been slow with the Act of Indemnity, notwithstanding the salvation of many of their old friends was involved in it. The Lords were slower still, and both had to be spurred on by Royal messages. When the Bill, in its increased severity, came down from the Lords, the Commons resisted the sweeping amendment which excluded all the members of the High Court of Justice from the general amnesty. They pleaded that such an exclusion would violate the promise from Breda, and the terms of the recent Proclamation. Repeated conferences took place between the Houses, and it is visible that the spirit of resistance to the vindictiveness of the Lords gradually gave way, and that the violent Royalists were gaining ground amongst them. The Commons entered into a compromise. Most of the judges were excepted; others were reserved for lesser penalties. About twenty persons, besides those who had pronounced sentence in the High Court of Justice, were incapacitated for any civil or military office.[160]
The regicides being excluded from the Act of Oblivion, some of them were tried at the Old Bailey, in the month of October, 1660. Amongst those who then stood at the bar were four persons who have appeared, more or less conspicuously, in connection with the Ecclesiastical History of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth.
1660.
Major-General Harrison, the famous Republican, who, in the Little Parliament had opposed the tithe system, who had plunged deeply into the study of prophecy, had been for some time expecting the reign of the saints, and had been involved in the revolutionary schemes of the Fifth Monarchy men, was arraigned for having sat upon the trial of his "late Sovereign Lord King Charles I., of ever blessed memory," and for having signed and sealed the warrant for his execution.[161] He was found guilty, and condemned to die. With his political fanaticism there blended other feelings; and the propriety of his demeanour in prison was such, that the woman, who cleaned his cell, and kindled his fire, declared she could not conceive how he deserved to be there, for he was a man "full of God—there was nothing but God in his mouth—and his discourse and frame of heart would melt the hardest of their hearts."[162] He died expressing transports of religious joy.