Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

Opposition to the Government, however, came from a source more powerful than a divided Parliament. Lambert had been cashiered by the late Protector; but he still retained an enormous influence in the army, and the army had no mind to submit tamely to extinction by Parliament. A council of the officers met to air their grievances, and Lambert, although no longer an officer, had a place amongst them. They complained that their pay was in arrear; that their services were neglected; that "the good old cause was traduced by malignants"; and that Parliament must be moved to redress their wrongs. With strange impolicy, Parliament passed a resolution against any council of officers, and sought to impose its authority upon a power greater than itself. The ready answer was a demand for the dissolution of Parliament. Richard Cromwell was allowed no choice in the matter; if he did not do it, the army, he was told, would do it for him. He gave an involuntary assent. On April 22nd the dissolution took place, and Richard found himself virtually deposed. For another year there was little but anarchy in England, and any semblance of a constitution was virtually in abeyance.

As the creature of the army, the old Rump Parliament was restored on May 7th. That was the name given to that section of the Long Parliament which sat from 1648 (when "Pride's Purge," as it was called, was applied) to 1653, when Cromwell ejected the remaining members and summarily closed the doors of Parliament. Of 213 members of the Long Parliament only ninety were thus permitted to sit, and of these only seventy actually did sit. Those who were not pronounced Republicans were excluded by the rough-and- ready method of a military guard placed at the door of the House. Such an assembly could have no respect from the nation, and was clearly only an instrument by which the Council of the Army might exercise its power. "The name of the Protector was no longer heard but in derision." [Footnote: Richard Cromwell submitted himself, with abject and craven weakness, to the will of this so-called Parliament. Nor did his younger brother, Henry, the Lieutenant of Ireland, prove to have any larger share of his father's courage.] But nothing was established to take the place of the authority thus cast aside.

Once more, and in even greater degree, the hopes of the Royalists were cast down. The restoration of the House which had destroyed the monarchy seemed, in the words of Hyde, "to pull up all the hopes of the King by the roots." In this despair the Duke of York was ready, at the persuasion of those about him, to accept from the King of Spain the post of Admiral of his Fleet. It offered, what there seemed but little likelihood of his otherwise obtaining, a place of dignity and a means of livelihood. That it necessarily involved a profession of the Roman Catholic religion was sufficient to condemn it in the eyes of Hyde, as at once unprincipled and impolitic. With the Duke's immediate advisers such considerations counted for nothing.

Backed by the visible force of the army, of which Lambert, now restored to his commission, was the virtual leader, the Rump Parliament showed a temporary vigour. All Cavaliers were banished from London. Monk, who commanded in Scotland, accepted the Parliament's authority. The fleet gave in its allegiance, and the relations with foreign powers were for a brief period renewed under the altered administration. The name of Parliament sufficed for a time to carry conviction to the people at large that this was the only means of preserving the Republican institutions which seemed to embody all that they had fought for.

But the real popular support to this fantastic substitute for Government was very small. All over the country discontent was widely spread, and had penetrated deeply into the hearts of the people. The Royalists, detached and ill-organized as they were, yet found themselves able to show some boldness and to appeal more openly for armed support. John Mordaunt, a brother of the Earl of Mordaunt, was daunted by no difficulties, and was able without great danger to carry on correspondence with probable adherents, to pass backwards and forwards between the exiled Court and England, and to concoct armed risings in various parts of the kingdom. The King took up his residence incognito at Calais, in readiness to sail for England and put himself at the head of the levies whose gathering was confidently hoped for. The Duke of York was close at hand at Boulogne. To the more cautious counsellors like Hyde the schemes seemed hazardous and the time unripe for them. But even he could not refuse some response to affections so warm and efforts so courageous as those of Mordaunt. At the beginning of August all, it was hoped, would be ready for a series of successful risings in different parts of the country.

There was indeed abundance of enthusiasm. From all parts of the country offers of risings came. Sir George Booth was to seize Chester; Lord Newport, Shrewsbury; and in Gloucestershire, Devonshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and North Wales, the Royalists were only too eager for the work. The ludicrous weakness of the Parliament made it a matter of no great danger to defy what could hardly be deemed an existing Government. But the Royalists had been too long depressed and deprived of any share in administration to take a just measure of the difficulties. They reckoned without the army that was at the back of Parliament.

They reckoned also without that treachery which had only too ample opportunity to work, amidst plans and associates so scattered and so lamentably disorganized, A traitor was now, as often in these Royalist plottings, received into their full confidence, and through him a detailed account of all their plans was sent to Thurloe. [Footnote: John Thurloe was born in 1616, and became a lawyer. He obtained active employment under the Parliament, and was Secretary to the Parliamentary Commissioners at Uxbridge. He acted as Secretary to Cromwell for secret correspondence, and amassed enormous experience in the intricacies of foreign diplomacy, which afterwards stood him in good stead when, after the Restoration, he wished to make himself useful to the new Government, and thus escape the penalties which his former political attachments would certainly have involved. Until the Restoration was all but accomplished he gave useful help to Richard Cromwell, but yet was able to ingratiate himself with the new Ministers.] Hyde learned that Sir Richard Willis, [Footnote: Sir Richard Willis had done good service to the royal cause in the war. As a close adherent of Prince Rupert, he became, when Governor of Newark in 1645, involved in one of the many quarrels between the Civil Commissioners and the army officers. Charles I. removed him from the Governorship, but desired to do so without friction by providing him with a post in his own escort. Willis's insolence in refusing this roused the King's anger so far as to lead him to banish Willis from his presence. Willis was a good soldier, rendered mutinous by the bad example of Prince Rupert; but it is hard to account for his present treachery. As Warburton, in his note on the History of the Rebellion (Bk. XVI., para. 31) says, "he could not think of starving for conscience' sake, though he had courage enough to fight for it.">[ who had already played a double game of treachery, was acting as he had acted before, when he betrayed Ormonde's presence in London to Cromwell, and at the same time enabled Ormonde to escape by telling him of Cromwell's knowledge. Willis's betrayal gave the Parliamentary leaders time to collect forces sufficient to meet all attacks; and when he had thus baulked the attempt, Willis was ready to discover enough to prevent those whom he had betrayed from falling into the trap. Messages were sent to delay the rising, and in most cases they were in time to prevent outbreaks which were fore-doomed to failure. Only Sir George Booth, in the seizure of Chester, and Middleton, in the North Wales rising, actually carried out what had been planned. A very brief campaign sufficed for Lambert to crush the nascent rebellion. Booth and Lord Derby [Footnote: Son of the Earl who played so noble a part in the war, and who was executed after the battle of Worcester in 1651.] were prisoners in the hands of Lambert; and Middleton was compelled to consent to the destruction of his house, Chirk Castle. Once more a brief gleam of hope was succeeded by more profound despair, and there was nothing more to be done by Charles and the Duke of York than to return from the French coast to Brussels. But there was no Cromwell to crush future attempts by a policy of ruthless revenge. A few prisoners were taken; but the time was past for trials and executions. Legal processes were beyond the range of the sorry faction that stood for administration in England.

But scarcely had these abortive attempts been crushed before another avenue of hope opened itself to Charles and his adherents. It was one for which Hyde had no great liking, and from which he expected little good result. But obviously it was not to be neglected. After a long, barren, and destructive war, both France and Spain were eager for peace. Neither was ready to make the first overtures, and neither would confess an ardent desire for peace. But an opportunity occurred, now that a wife had to be found for Louis XIV. The Infanta of Spain offered a consort entirely suitable, and a marriage might be arranged with the better augury if it should prove a method of bringing to an end a mutually destructive war. Mazarin viewed the proposal with suspicion, and was unwilling to conclude a peace when the success of French arms seemed already secure. But the Queen-Mother of France ardently desired the marriage, and mainly by her efforts Cardinal Mazarin and Don Lewis de Haro were induced to treat. Most men thought that the design was a vain one, fomented only in the enthusiasm of family ties. But the desire for a cessation of a useless struggle operated more powerfully than Mazarin was able to perceive; and that desire overcame the delays and doubts of diplomatic action. The time and place of meeting to arrange a treaty of peace were fixed; and there was at least a fair prospect that the two Kings might soon find themselves with free hands, and with greater power to prosecute the forcible restoration of Charles II. to his throne. Both had often alleged that only the poverty of their exchequer and the heavy expenses of the war prevented any cordial and effective assistance being rendered to the exiled King. What claim to consideration might Charles not make good, what sound reasons of policy might it not be possible to suggest, if both were relieved of the burdens of war?

Hyde, as we have abundant reason to know, placed no confidence in foreign aid, and looked with suspicion upon the conditions under which it would be granted. But he could interpose no obstacles to the present application. He himself remained at Breda, and held the threads of all the discrepant and varying negotiations; but he did not attempt to dissuade Charles from making a somewhat venturesome and hopeless voyage to Fontarabia, where the Treaty was being discussed in September, 1659. At first Charles attempted to procure a pass from Cardinal Mazarin. But in the face of opposition by the Queen this was hopeless, and, accompanied only by Ormonde and Bristol and a small retinue, he made his way, incognito, through France. Even in the strain of anxiety Charles's natural disposition showed itself in wasting time in order to see parts of France which he had not yet visited. The pleasure of the moment always weighed with him more than the prosecution of business. Adversity, perhaps happily for himself, made him callous rather than despondent.

The business of the treaty between France and Spain meanwhile advanced more quickly than any one had ventured to hope. The difficulties as to France's pledges to Portugal, and those of Spain to the Prince of Condé, were somehow settled—or, at least, ignored. If France had to yield to some pressure on the part of Don Lewis de Haro, she avenged herself by retaining her hold on those former Spanish possessions in Flanders which the fortune of war had placed in her hands. Sir Henry Bennet represented Charles in Spain, and was sorely perplexed when the final ratification approached, and the King made no appearance. Ormonde had been sent to Fontarabia, but Charles lingered at Toulouse, before proceeding from there towards Madrid. His presence there was not desired, and he found himself compelled, after roundabout journeys, to put in an appearance at the scene of the treaty. Both France and Spain held out delusive hopes of aid. Don Lewis presented him with a dole of seven thousand pistoles, and promised a good reception on his return to Flanders. There was nothing for it but to make his way back to Brussels, and join once more in the plans of Hyde and his council there. He found the prospect no more cheerful than before.