Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

Claims of restitution arose from three sources—the Crown, the Church, and the impoverished adherents of the cause. The Crown lands had been seized by Parliament in 1648. No claim of prescription could be allowed to operate there; and the Crown was reinstated in possession of these lands, whether they had been granted or sold to their present possessors. The same summary method was applied to estates of which the original owners had been dispossessed, and which had passed as rewards for services to Parliament, or had been sold by that authority. But a much more troublesome question arose with regard to lands which had been sold by Royalist owners, in order to meet their own necessities, to satisfy the exactions levied by Parliament on "malignants," or to permit the loyal owner to contribute to the necessities of the Crown. Such cases involved fully as much hardship, and it made little difference to the impoverished landlord whether his estate had been impounded by the triumphant rebels, or had been sold by himself in order to meet the fines imposed by the usurping power. But it was felt that, except by a dangerous unsettlement of all legal process, and by destroying all public confidence, no universal cancelling of voluntary and legal transactions could take place. The Declaration of Breda had left all such matters to the decision of Parliament; and Hyde refused to depart from it, or to face the certain destruction of all public confidence which more drastic action in the way of restitution would have produced. But the murmurings of those whose sufferings were in no wise lessened by the technicalities of the law, were deep and enduring. The King was deemed to be ungrateful for the sacrifices, and careless of the sufferings of his adherents; and the heaviest part of the blame fell upon Hyde. Burnet tells us, repeating the talk of the day, that the Act of Indemnity was currently spoken of "as an Act of Indemnity for the King's enemies and of Oblivion for his friends"; and he avers that "the whole work, from beginning to end, was Hyde's." [Footnote: Burnet's History of His own Time, i. 298.] There is no reason to accept anything on Burnet's sole authority; but at least there is nothing in this inconsistent with Hyde's general attitude, nor is it, indeed, easy to see how any other course could have been followed without leading to widespread confusion and an undermining of public credit.

An even more crucial question, and one bristling with difficulties, arose with regard to Church property. Upon none had the sufferings of the time fallen with more severity than on the Church and her clergy. She had shared the tribulations of the Royal Martyr, and the best tribute that could be paid to his memory was surely to secure that she should now feel the sunshine of a new dawn. If the history of these twenty years had proved anything, it had proved how faithfully the Church reflected the spirit of the English people, and how deeply their traditional love for that Church was implanted in their hearts. She, too, had produced her own martyr in Laud, and the aims with which he had inspired her were recovering their hold over the nation. The pages of Pepys's Diary tell us how even his sprightly self-complacency could be moved to enthusiasm by the revival of her dignified ceremonial; and the harmony of her ritual had charms for those who had none of Pepys's musical taste and skill, but might well have a deeper love for its essential beauty, and a better appreciation of all that it meant for the heart of the nation. The survivors amongst her scattered bishops, and the long train of her ejected clergy, represented not only a tale of individual suffering, but an insult offered to the cherished traditions of a people singularly prone to be touched by an appeal to history. The yoke of the Presbyterians and Independents had been a hard one, and the Church Restored was the outward sign of release from bondage to those whom that yoke had galled. Her dignitaries had suffered the direst straits of poverty, and her clergy had sought a meagre livelihood in menial employment, or had lived in dependence upon the secret benevolence of impoverished loyalists, in whose households they were often well-loved inmates. They had full need of money, not only for their own subsistence, but to repair their desecrated shrines and to obliterate the marks which civil strife and an iconoclastic spirit had left upon those great cathedrals and those well-loved parish churches that symbolized the faith of the nation. They would have been more or less than human had they not been stirred by zeal to repair the ravages which sacrilegious hands had wrought upon the national Sion, and eager, with that end, to seize upon the booty which the plunderer was to be made to disgorge. To share that zeal was one of the constituent elements in Hyde's character, and he was not likely to abandon it in the face of a careless group of profligate courtiers, to whom the Church Restored was at best but a sign of the triumph of their party, and who were ready to toast the Church in their cups, but in their sober hours to allow it to starve as a new form of martyrdom.

Hyde's task in this matter was one of no small difficulty. The Presbyterians were able to point to their services to the Crown and their adherence to the principles of monarchy. In many cases they had proved acceptable to their parishioners, and where the Episcopal incumbent no longer survived, the removal of the existing pastor might seem to involve needless hardship, and would certainly irritate a large section of the nation. Even where the incumbent did survive, it would have been hopeless to demand the repayment of tithes over a long series of past years. The surviving clergy must be restored, but restored without payment of arrears. The bishops entered on their sees, and policy demanded that in dealing with the revenues they should interfere as little as might be with the rights of existing tenants of Church property.

But the constitution of the Church of England permitted the observance of no arbitrary rule, however expedient, in dealing with the revenues of individual bishops or incumbents. They possessed rights which the law must uphold, and they had abundant need of the resources placed at their command. Dilapidations had to be made good; debts necessarily incurred left little room for generosity. On the whole, their rights were not unduly strained, and Hyde declares that special instances, where bishops or incumbents pressed with rigour on their tenants, were comparatively rare, however much they were magnified by the rancour of their enemies. It was suggested that some of the revenues of the larger sees should be diverted for the benefit of the smaller incumbencies. To do this would have been to alter the constitution of the Church, and the moment of restitution after long suffering was not the time for such a change. Nor was there any machinery of the law by which it could have been carried out. Some of the surviving bishops were old and inactive. Others were appointed from the ranks of Royalist adherents on grounds of ardent partisanship rather than of fitness for the position; and it would have been too much to expect that in reaching a haven of prosperity after the storm of persecution they should not have been, at times, unduly attentive to worldly advantage. Hyde had long been conscious that wary and wise policy could not always be looked for from the clerical profession. But he had no wish, even had he possessed the power, to deprive them of the advantages which were theirs by law.

Behind the question of material interests there was another of far more consequence. What was to be the texture of the restored Church, and how far could a compromise be reached between the Church and the Nonconformists?

There can be no doubt that the position was affected by the terms of the Declaration of Breda, which constituted a sort of treaty between the Crown and the Parliament. That Declaration gave a full promise of toleration. But it is idle to maintain that toleration for tender consciences involved a reconstitution of the Church to suit those consciences. [Footnote: It is the failure to distinguish between these two things that vitiates the arguments of those who, in our own day, have reflected most severely on the action of Hyde. He had not the power, even if he had had the desire, to alter the framework of the Church. With regard to toleration, he had to take account of the fears of the nation, that such toleration was a device of Charles in favour of the Roman Catholics, and of the conviction that, as an act of the Crown alone, it was illegal. After his day, it was aided by the compliance of the most corrupt and unscrupulous Ministry which England has ever known. This confusion is the flaw which runs throughout a careful and painstaking monograph on the subject, published in 1908, by Mr. Frank Bate, under the powerful ægis of Professor Firth.] There was a large body of Presbyterian clergy whose incumbencies were not interfered with by any claims of ejected and surviving Episcopalians. If a compromise could be reached which would bring these incumbents within the pale of the Church, it might be well. But they could not found a claim to such a compromise on the terms of the Declaration. That secured to them only toleration for their scruples, not a revolution in the Church to suit their views. Charles II., while distinctly asserting his intention of maintaining the ritual of the Church in his own chapel, was ready, with his usual complaisance, to indicate a willingness to accept a compromise and to modify some of the usages of the Church, which, under Laud's rule, had become a part of her constitution. But in doing so he really went beyond, not only the terms of the Declaration, but the power of his own prerogative. The alteration desired could only be carried out by the action of Parliament; and it remained to be seen whether the temper of Parliament would permit it. As a fact, the ready compliance and easy temper of the King raised hopes in the breasts of the Presbyterians which were doomed to disappointment. At their first interview some of their appointed representatives shed tears of joy for the happy settlement which it seemed to portend. For a time a compromise seemed possible; but it could only have been achieved by offending the strongest party within the Church. Sincerely as he was attached to the ceremonies of the Church, Hyde was statesman first, and churchman only second. According to his view, the Church, as an institution of the State, was subject to the Civil power. He would have resented the intrusion of the State into fundamental points of doctrine; but if, upon non-essential matters of ceremonial, a working compromise could be attained, he was anxious that such a compromise should receive confirmation at the hands of the State. It soon appeared that such a consummation was scarcely to be hoped for. Angry debates arose in Parliament when the question of religion was touched. The proposals made by the Presbyterians might well provoke the anger of those who saw in them the subordination of ecclesiastical tradition to the tenets of a party which had been overbearing in their hour of triumph, and were ready now, by a cunning appeal for peace, to make their austere and unattractive ritual trample over the cherished customs of the Church. The fact that ritual, rather than doctrine, was concerned, made the fight only the more real, and the passions on either side the more eager. For one man who cared for doctrine there were a hundred to whom the familiar ritual of their Church embodied and represented its very essence. Apostolical succession and the Real Presence were matters for theologians. A stately liturgy, the dignity of worship—nay, even the wearing of the surplice— these stirred the hearts of the average Englishman ten times more deeply. Surrender on these matters would have meant that at every Sunday's service they would have been reminded that the usages that were enshrined in their memories had passed away, and that the Church they had fought for was transformed at the will of her triumphant enemies. The Convention Parliament was adjourned on September 13th, before any settlement was reached, and leaving any placating of the Presbyterians as unpopular as ever.

Charles still desired compromise from very weariness of the fight. Hyde was ready to help that compromise so far as it could be gained without substantial injury to the Church. Meetings took place at Worcester House, [Footnote: The house built by the Marquis of Worcester. It was confiscated during the Commonwealth, and had for a time been occupied by Cromwell.] where Hyde resided as Chancellor, at which the King himself was present, with certain of the bishops and the leading Presbyterian divines. Difficulties soon arose. It was no part of Charles's scheme that the Presbyterians should have the triumph all to themselves. In terms of the Declaration of Breda toleration was to be granted to all, and Hyde distinctly announced that it was the intention of the King to carry out that obligation to all. That was no part of the Presbyterian view, and portended a laxity which their consciences would not permit them to accept, and which might even embrace the hated Roman Catholics. If it was Hyde's intention by this announcement to countercheck their demand for a compromise which, in the pliancy of the King's temper, might have conceded all their main tenets, and to expose the hollowness of their demand for release from an over-strict conformity, his design succeeded admirably. The Presbyterians were forced into an illogical position. At the moment when they prayed for lenient treatment which was to help them to share in Church endowments, they were shown to be ready to enforce a yoke of intolerance upon those Dissenters who stood outside their own pale, and who sought only for liberty to carry on an unendowed worship after their own fashion.

But the hopes of compromise were even yet not at an end. Charles was still eager for it as an escape from harassing disputes. A Declaration was published which went strangely far in its concessions to the Presbyterians, if Hyde is to be considered as concurring in its proposals. Episcopacy was recognized as worthy of support because it was established by law, was expedient for the circumstances of the nation, and had a long tradition—but not as being a matter of divine institution. Its framework was to be modified so as to reduce materially the aristocratic government of the Church, and regulations were to be introduced which savoured strongly of Presbyterian republicanism of rule. The Liturgy was to be revised, and the outstanding accompaniments of ritual—genuflection, the sign of the Cross, the wearing of the surplice—were not to be enforced. Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles was not to be required.

If Hyde really assented to these proposals, it proves how urgent he considered the necessity of some settlement to be. The devout adherents of the Church might well suspect a betrayal of their cause. The Presbyterians were elated, not without due reason. All that they asked for seemed to be conceded; and perhaps, in the circumstances, they might have deigned to overlook the laxity which permitted toleration to those whose doctrines they held to be intolerable. Their triumph seemed so assured that they might look forward with confidence to the time when the Independent and the Anabaptist would be crushed out of existence. No wonder that one of their number, Reynolds, was persuaded to accept the Bishopric of Norwich, and that others found no reason to resent a similar offer to themselves, although their Presbyterianism did not, at the moment, fully warrant its acceptance.

But there remained a danger to be faced by this specious scheme of compromise. Parliament met after the adjournment, on November 6th. No Declaration could prevail until it had received Parliamentary confirmation; and Charles was to find that a Royalist Parliament might refuse to endorse even a royal compromise which sacrificed principle for the sake of an apparent peace. The Church was able to prove herself stronger than the King, and, at her bidding, Parliament declined to surrender the distinctive character of her Government and her ritual. It required no great prescience to foresee that concessions to Nonconformity were apt to have, as their chief result, the speedy formulating of new demands for modification at once of government and of ritual. Whatever was the motive, Parliament declined to accept the Bill which embodied the terms of the King's Declaration. Its second reading was rejected by 183 votes to 157. This happened at the close of November, and a month later the Convention Parliament was dissolved. It had still to be seen what further negotiations might lead to, and whether a new Parliament would be less zealous in maintaining the prerogatives of the Church, or whether new events might not sharpen the vengeance of the now dominant faction. As for Hyde himself, he knew well how much easier his task would be made if any compromise or conciliation could be effected. But such ease would have been bought too dear if it involved undue concessions to that Presbyterianism which his soul detested, a weakening of the Church which, in its broad features, he held to be indissolubly bound up with the constitution, or a betrayal of the cause for which Charles I and Laud had given their lives. Besides his own convictions, loyalty to these memories, that were sacred for him, kept Hyde true to the Church.