1662.
II. In the House of Commons there existed a mad Royalist party, influenced by strong personal resentment, who identified the Church with the Throne, who could not forget what they had suffered under the Commonwealth, and who especially had a keen recollection of estates sequestered, and of fines imposed. They were bent upon punishing their foes, and therefore made the Act as rigid as possible. Its severest provisions are to be ascribed not to any clerical body, nor to the Lords, nor to the Prelates, but to the Commons. The Commons were more intolerant and fierce than any of the Bishops, than any of the clergy. "Every man, according to his passion, thought of adding somewhat" to the Bill which "might make it more grievous to somebody whom he did not love."[342] Liberal amendments in the Upper House were resisted in the Lower; and to the unjust and ungenerous provisions added by the Lords, were others more unjust and ungenerous added by the Commons. The Commons, in comparison with the Lords, appear to have been what the young men, whom Rehoboam consulted and followed, were in comparison with the old men, who stood before Solomon his father; and the scourge of whips became a scourge of scorpions.[343] Bad as was the Bill from the first, it was worse in the end than in the beginning.
III. Clarendon ought to bear a large share of responsibility. His attachment to an Episcopalian establishment has been repeatedly noticed. He regarded it as the bulwark of Protestantism, the main stay of the nation's weal. Burnet reckons him more a friend of the Bishops than of the Church; certainly he showed anxiety to please them, and their good opinion and support were of importance to him in many ways. What induced him to court the Bishops would, in a still stronger degree, induce him to gratify the Commons. Consequently, supposing that his better nature, or his wiser judgment, inclined him—which is probable—towards a more moderate course, other considerations induced him to adopt the severe line of policy which had been chalked out by some, and filled up by others.[344] Clarendon, as leader of the Upper House, does not appear to have used his influence for the purpose of removing from the Bill any of the most rigorous parts of it; to their abatement perhaps he might contribute, although this does not appear. The liberal amendments proposed by certain Peers seem to have been abandoned without a struggle; and for this surrender surely Clarendon is mainly answerable.
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
IV. Another party concurred in the Act from entirely different motives. The Roman Catholics had been on the increase since the Restoration. Somerset House, the residence of the Queen Mother, was the place of resort for the leaders of the party. There, and at the mansion of the Earl of Bristol, they consulted upon the interests of their own Church. Of course, they had no idea of seeking comprehension in the Establishment: their policy was to procure toleration; with that for the present they would be satisfied, whatever might be their ulterior aims. Nothing promised so much advantage to them as the passing of a stringent measure, which would cast out of the English Church as many Protestants as possible. Whilst they were aware of the terror which they inspired in the minds of Nonconformists, they hoped that fellowship in suffering might soften antipathy, and dispose their enemies, for their own sakes, to advocate some general indulgence: they considered that the fact, of a large number of Protestants suffering from persecuting laws, would at least strengthen the argument in its favour. It was, I apprehend, on this principle, that the Duke of York and the Catholic Peers united in supporting all the provisions for uniformity.
1662.
At the head of this Roman Catholic party the King himself is to be placed. When he had reluctantly made up his mind to consent to the measure, it was in accordance with the circuitous policy I have now pointed out. Besides, he was fond of a dispensing power, liking Royal Declarations better than Acts of Parliament; almost any statute would be tolerable to him, if it gave him the prospect of affording relief to his subjects in the form of sovereign concession. Clarendon, who subsequently opposed the exercise of this power, now virtually recognized it, as a prerogative of the King, in the speech just quoted, and plainly pointed to the Royal intention of employing that assumed prerogative for mitigating the severities of the present statute.
Policy and passion were stamped upon the face of the measure. It would be the bitterest of all satires to say that the men principally concerned in it were influenced by religious conviction—that conscientiously and in the sight of God, they performed an act which, though they saw it to be rigorous, they felt to be righteous. Amidst keenly excited feelings on the side of an exclusive policy, perhaps there was no impulse of greater force than the very common one of party feeling.
When we recollect that it was not to the clergy then expressing itself in Convocation, or in any other way, but to Parliament, that the Church of England owed the clauses which required the repudiation of the Covenant, and of the doctrine of non-resistance—clauses which so galled the Puritans—the Act, to a large extent, appears, not so much an ecclesiastical measure, as a work executed by a political faction, bent upon crushing opponents, under pretence of their being unpatriotic and disloyal. Of the bad spirit in which Parliament framed and passed this act there remains not the shadow of a doubt; and it is impossible that any one acquainted with the circumstance, however he may admire the Church so re-established at the Restoration, can think of the mode of its re-establishment without shame and sorrow.