A committee, already appointed to suppress distasteful pamphlets, was now furnished with new and strict instructions, and rewards were offered to those who should denounce the secret presses and anonymous authors[509]. The drama was entirely forbidden; and stage, galleries, and benches removed from the theatres. If a case occurred, the players were to be punished as vagabonds, and the spectators subjected to a fine.
Fairfax had sent two regiments to Whitehall; for in the contest with the King the Parliamentary and military leaders A.D. 1648. were now most closely united. The soldiers exercised a sort of police authority, and prosecuted malignants and Papists: but what might not be included under those names! The prisons were filled with Royalists, alike Catholic and Protestant: others were banished or took to flight.
Thus those who desired to introduce universal liberty appeared as the wielders of an absolute, selfish, and oppressive power. Ideas in their nature mutually exclusive were brought, through love of faction and power, to walk hand in hand.
FOOTNOTES:
[492] ‘Che una religione sia stabilita cioe l’antica, che e quella del re dentro tutto lo stato e tutte le altre saranno tolerate, dentro le quali altre gli independenti vogliono comprendasi la loro propria, ed ancora la nostra per qualche anno.’ Lettera di Londra 19 Luglio.
[493] From the King’s conversation with Lauderdale, in Burnet, Hamiltons 324.
[494] From some expressions in a request of his for help the hope was reawakened at Rome that he would yet be converted. They were greeted as the first rays of grace shining upon him. But in reality there was as little idea of it now as ever.
[495] Articles of agreement between our Sov. Lord King Charles and H. E. Sir Thomas Fairfax with his Council of War. In Fairfax Correspondence, Civil War i. 394.
[496] Huntingdon’s reasons for laying down his commission. In Maseres 402.
[497] Memoirs of Sir John Berkeley, in Maseres 361. ‘They would comprise the several interests of the Royal, Presbyterian and Independent parties, as far as they were consisting with each other.’