Laymen also deplored the severities of the measure. Hale, Boyle, and Sir Peter Pett did so; whilst Locke's earliest work, written in 1660, aimed at reconciling the Puritans to submission in things indifferent.[402] A strong conviction existed in the minds of Episcopalians and Royalists that Nonconformity was disloyal and insurrectionary; and this conviction, then, and long afterwards, operated as a power in the Church of England, destructive of social peace and union, far beyond what is generally supposed. The rumours about plots in the earlier period of the reign of Charles II. have not much occupied the attention of historians. They are commonly dismissed as idle tales. No doubt they were such in most instances; and not in a single instance did any actual insurrection occur. But in history, it is important to notice, not only what men have done, but what men have believed to be done. Beliefs, however absurd, have been to those who entertained them, just the same as facts, and these beliefs have actually been factors of great power: as such they claim to be noted by the historian. I have too much faith in the English spirit of the seventeenth century, in the generosity which mingled with the High Churchmanship of the best of the Cavaliers, and in the thorough conscientiousness of many of the Conformists, to believe that they could have acted towards Dissenters as they did, unless they had been hood-winked by people who persuaded them, that Dissenters were not true-hearted Englishmen, but only so many wretched rebels. It so happens that the State Papers, as already indicated, afford almost innumerable illustrations of the extent and operation of these prejudices, and I make no apology for employing many of these documents in subsequent pages as useful contributions to English history.
RUMOURED PLOTS.
1662.
In October, 1662, Sir Edward Nicholas was succeeded by Sir Henry Bennet. Like his predecessor, he gave himself diligently to inquiries respecting suspected persons. A month before the former retired, he told Lord Rutherford that there were rumours of disturbances intended by Presbyterians and Independents, but at present all was quiet. A month afterwards he confessed to the same person, that there was no commotion in any part of the kingdom, although factious sectaries raised reports to frighten people.[403] Frivolous letters constantly poured in upon the bewildered officials. There came notes of conversation with Edward Bagshawe,[404] who said London was discontented; that 1,960[405] ministers were turned out of their livings; that Dunkirk was sold; that the King only minded his mistresses; that the Queen and her cabal carried on the Government at Somerset House; that Popery was coming in; that the people would not endure these things, but would rise on the ground that the Long Parliament was not yet dissolved because they had passed an Act against any dissolution but by themselves. A large bundle of examinations was forwarded to Bennet, about the same time, by the Earl of Northumberland—an informer conveying them, and adding to the written secrets, vivâ voce revelations—the papers disclosing such frivolous circumstances as that three gentlemen and two servants, whom nobody knew, had been seen somewhere, and that "an ancient grey man," and "a Jersey Frenchman" were mysteriously moving from place to place. Also, there arrived a packet promising much information, which, when opened, was found to contain only religious sentences, and a number of love verses. Suspicious persons were reported, and it is amusing, amongst unknown names to find mentioned "Dr. Goodwin and Owen, who now scruple at the surplice, but used to wear velvet cassocks, and to receive from five to seven hundred a-year from their Churches."[406] The letter-bags were robbed; people's houses were broken into, and trunks full of papers seized and carried off by constables. Spies employed by the Government were active in collecting reports, and there can be no doubt that they were quite as active in inventing them. Two informers, Peter and John Crabb, brought accounts of intended insurrections; but at the same time they made awkward revelations respecting themselves. Peter had told the Secretary of State, that he and his brother John were the Secretary's devoted servants, and wished to be employed in a certain business; that he had only received a part of the money, which he understood the Secretary had sent him; and that to cover his profession as a spy, lest City people should wonder how he lived, he put out a "bill, advertizing the cure of the rickets in children, in Red Lion Court, Bishopsgate."[407] After reading the correspondence of these two brothers, I am not surprised to find depositions charging one of them with being a liar and a villain. The depositions are met by cross-swearing; the whole business leaving the impression that Whitehall was beset by troops of scoundrels.[408] A result of this kind of espionage, and of the exaggerations and inventions of informers, may be found in the trial and condemnation of six men in the month of December for being concerned in an intended rising of "Fifth Monarchy men, Anabaptists, Independents, and fighting Quakers." The evidence rested chiefly upon rumours.
CHAPTER XV.
DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.
After all Clarendon's advice and all Sheldon's opposition, the King, within four months of the meeting of Council already described, returned to his favourite expedient. He published, on the 26th of December, 1662, a Declaration, in which he referred to promises from Breda, of ease and liberty to tender consciences, and also to malicious rumours to the effect, that at the time he denied a fitting liberty to other sects whose consciences would not allow them to conform to the established religion, he was indulgent to Papists, not only in exempting them from the penalties of the law, but even to such a degree as might endanger the Protestant religion.[409] Respecting all this he asserted, that as he had been zealous to settle the uniformity of the Church, in discipline, ceremony, and government, and would ever constantly maintain it—so as for the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, did not conform, he should make it his special care, so far as possible, without invading the freedom of Parliament, to incline their wisdom, the next sessions, to concur in the making some such Act for that purpose, as might enable him to exercise, with a more universal satisfaction, that power of dispensing, which he conceived to be inherent in him as a Sovereign.[410]
1662.
When this Declaration was published, the hopes of ejected ministers began to revive. Independents took courage; Philip Nye, in spite of age and poverty, manifested some eagerness to revive public Nonconformist worship. Although personally under the ban of the law, he, with some other brethren, found admission to Whitehall, and was graciously allowed an interview with Charles. We do not exactly know what passed; but Nye received so much encouragement from His Majesty's conversation, that he told Baxter, the King had resolved to grant them liberty. The day after New Year's Day, the Independent diplomatist appeared at the house of the Presbyterian Divine to discuss the propriety of acknowledging the King's Declaration and seeking indulgence. Baxter resolved not to commit himself; nor would other Presbyterians take a share in the business; they had had enough of it, they said: the reasons, at the bottom of their policy, being that they dreaded a toleration which they knew would be extended so as to embrace Roman Catholics. They looked on the Declaration as a Trojan horse; but Nye, whose ideas of religious freedom perhaps had grown, so that he might be willing to concede it to Roman Catholics, and who certainly had a strong desire after unfettered action for himself and his party, thought the tactics of the Presbyterians unwise, and he considered that, through them, he and his brethren "missed of their intended liberty."[411]