Chapter IV: In the House of Commons (1)

Cromwell's death was an epoch in Marvell's history. Up to that date he had, since he left the University, led the life of a scholar, with a turn for business, and was known to many as an agreeable companion and a lively wit. He was keenly interested in public affairs, and personally acquainted with some men in great place, and for a year before Cromwell's death he had been in a branch of the Civil Service; but of the wear and tear, the strife and contention, of what are called "practical politics" he knew nothing from personal experience.

Within a year of the Protector's death all this was changed and, for the rest of his days, with but the shortest of occasional intervals, Andrew Marvell led the life of an active, eager member of Parliament, knowing all that was going on in the Chamber and hearing of everything that was alleged to be going on in the Court; busily occupied with the affairs of his constituents in Hull, and daily watching, with an increasingly heavy heart and a bitter humour, the corruption of the times, the declension of our sea-power, the growing shame of England, and what he believed to be a dangerous conspiracy afoot for the undoing of the Reformation and the destruction of the Constitution in both Church and State.

"Garden-poetry" could not be reared on such a soil as this. The age of Cromwell and Blake was over. The remainder of Marvell's life (save so far as personal friendship sweetened it) was spent in politics, public business, in concocting roughly rhymed and bitter satirical poems, and in the composition of prose pamphlets.

Through it all Marvell remained very much the man of letters, though one with a great natural aptitude for business. His was always the critical attitude. He was the friend of Milton and Harrington, of the political philosophers who invented paper constitutions in the "Rota" Club, and of the new race of men whose thoughts turned to Natural Science, and who founded the Royal Society. Office he never thought of. He could have had it had he chosen, for he was a man of mark, even of distinction, from the first. Clarendon has told us how members of the House of Commons "got on" in the Long Parliament of Charles the Second. It was full of the king's friends, who ran out of the House to tell their shrewd master the gossip of the lobbies, "commended this man and discommended another who deserved better, and would many times, when His Majesty spoke well of any man, ask His Majesty if he would give them leave to let that person know how gracious His Majesty was to him, or bring him to kiss his hand. To which he commonly consenting, every one of his servants delivered some message from him to a Parliament man, and invited him to Court, as if the King would be willing to see him. And by this means the rooms at Court were always full of the members of the House of Commons. This man brought to kiss his hand, and the King induced to confer with that man and to thank him for his affection, which could never conclude without some general expression of grace or promise, which the poor gentleman always interpreted to his own advantage, and expected some fruit from it that it could never yield."

The suspicious Clarendon, already shaking to his fall, goes on to add, "all which, being contrary to all former order, did the King no good, and rendered those unable to do him service who were inclined to it."[77:1]

It is a lifelike picture Clarendon draws of the crowded rooms, and of the witty king moving about fooling vanity, ambition, and corruption to the top of their bent. That the king chose his own ministers is plain enough.

Marvell was at the beginning well disposed towards Charles. They had some points in common; and among them a quick sense of humour and a turn for business. But the member for Hull must soon have recognised that there was no place for an honest quick-witted man in any Stuart administration.

Marvell and his great chief remained in their offices until the close of the year 1659, when the impending Restoration enforced their retirement. Milton used his leisure to pour forth excited tracts to prove how easy it would still be to establish a Free Commonwealth. Once again, and for the last time, he prompted the age to quit its clogs

"by the known rules of ancient liberty."

These pamphlets of Milton's prove how little that solitary thinker ever knew of the real mind and temper of the English people.

The Lord Richard Cromwell was exactly the sort of eldest son a great soldier like Oliver, who had put his foot on fortune's neck, was likely to have. Richard (1626-1712) was not, indeed, born in the purple, but his early manhood was nurtured in it. Religion, as represented by long sermons, tiresome treatises, and prayerful exercises, bored him to death. Of enthusiasm he had not a trace, nor was he bred to arms. He delighted in hunting, in the open air, and the company of sportsmen. Whatever came his way easily, and as a matter of right, he was well content to take. He bore himself well on State occasions, and could make a better speech than ever his father was able to do. But he was not a "restless" Cromwell, and had no faith in his destiny. I do not know whether he had ever read _Don Quixote_, in Shelton's translation, a very popular book of the time; probably not, for, though Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Richard was not a reading man, but if he had, he must have sympathised with Sancho Panza's attitude of mind towards the famous island.

"If your highness has no mind that the government you promised should
be given me, God made me of less, and perhaps it may be easier for
Sancho, the Squire, to get to Heaven than for Sancho, the Governor.
_In the dark all cats are gray._"

The new Protector took up the reins of power with proper forms and ceremonies, and at once proceeded to summon a Parliament, an Imperial Cromwellian Parliament, containing representatives both from Scotland and Ireland. In this Parliament Andrew Marvell sat for the first time as one of the two members for Kingston-upon-Hull. His election took place on the 10th of January 1659, being the first county day after the sheriff had received the writ. Five candidates were nominated: Thomas Strickland, Andrew Marvell, John Ramsden, Henry Smyth, and Sir Henry Vane, and a vote being taken in the presence of the mayor, aldermen, and many of the burgesses, John Ramsden and Andrew Marvell were declared duly elected.

Nobody to-day, glancing his eye over a list of the knights and burgesses who made up Richard Cromwell's first and last Parliament, would ever guess that it represented an order of things of the most recent date which was just about to disappear. On paper it has a solid look. The fine old crusted Parliamentary names with which the clerks were to remain so long familiar as the members trooped out to divide were more than well represented.[79:1] The Drakes of Amersham were there; Boscawens, Bullers, and Trelawneys flocked from Cornwall; Sir Wilfred Lawson sat for Cumberland, and his son for Cockermouth; a Knightly represented Northamptonshire, whilst Lucys from Charlecote looked after Warwick, both town and county. Arthur Onslow came from Surrey, a Townshend from Norfolk, and, of course, a Bankes from Corfe Castle;[79:2] Oxford University, contented, as she occasionally is, to be represented by a great man, had chosen Sir Matthew Hale, whilst the no less useful and laborious Thurloe sat for the sister University. Anthony Ashley Cooper was there, but in opposition, snuffing the morrow. Mildmays, Lawleys, Binghams, Herberts, Pelhams, all travelled up to London with the Lord-Protector's writs in their pockets. A less revolutionary assembly never met, though there was a regicide or two among them. But when the members found themselves alone together there was some loose talk.

On the 27th of January 1659 Marvell attended for the first time in his place, when the new Protector opened Parliament, and made a speech in the House of Lords, which was pronounced at the time to be "a very handsome oration."

The first business of the Commons was to elect a Speaker, nor was their choice a very lucky one, for it first fell on Chaloner Chute, who speedily breaking down in health, the Recorder of London was appointed his substitute, but the Recorder being on his deathbed at the time, and Chute dying very shortly afterwards, Thomas Bampfield was elected Speaker, and continued so to be until the Parliament was dissolved by proclamation on the 22nd of April. This proclamation was Richard Cromwell's last act of State.

Marvell's first Parliament was both short and inglorious. One only of its resolutions is worth quoting:--

"That a very considerable navy be forthwith provided, and put to sea
for the safety of the Commonwealth and the preservation of the trade
and commerce thereof."

It was, however, the army and not the navy that had to be reckoned with--an army unpaid, angry, suspicious, and happily divided. I must not trace the history of faction. There is no less exalted page in English history since the days of Stephen. Monk is its fitting hero, and Charles the Second its expensive saviour of society. The story how the Restoration was engineered by General Monk, who, if vulgar, was adroit, both on land and sea, is best told from Monk's point of view in the concluding chapter of _Baker's Chronicle_ (Sir Roger de Coverley's favourite Sunday reading), whilst that old-fashioned remnant, who still love to read history for fun, may not object to be told that they will find printed in the Report of the Leyborne-Popham Papers (_Historical Manuscripts Commission_, 1899, p. 204) a _Narrative of the Restoration_, by Mr. John Collins, the Chief Butler of the Inner Temple, proving in great and highly diverting detail how this remarkable event was really the work not so much of Monk as of the Chief Butler.

Richard Cromwell having slipped the collar, the officers assumed command, as they were only too ready to do, and recalled the old, dishonoured, but pertinacious Rump Parliament, which, though mustering at first but forty-two members, at once began to talk and keep journals as if nothing had happened since the day ten years before, when it was sent about its business. Old Speaker Lenthall was routed out of obscurity, and much against his will, and despite his protests, clapped once more into the chair. Dr. John Owen, an old parliamentary preaching hand, was once again requisitioned to preach before the House, which he did at enormous length one fine Sunday in May.

The Rump did not prove a popular favourite. It was worse than Old Noll himself, who could at least thrash both Dutchman and Spaniard, and be even more feared abroad than he was hated at home. The City of London, then almost an Estate of the Realm, declared for a Free Parliament, and it soon became apparent to every one that the whole country was eager to return as soon as possible to the old mould. Nothing now stood between Charles and his own but half a dozen fierce old soldiers and their dubious, discontented, unpaid men.

It was once commonly supposed (it is so no longer), that the Restoration party was exclusively composed of dispossessed Cavaliers, bishops in hiding, ejected parsons, high-flying _jure divino_ Episcopalians, talkative toss-pots, and the great pleasure-loving crowd, cruelly repressed under the rule of the saints. Had it been left to these ragged regiments, the issue would have been doubtful, and the result very different. The Presbyterian ministers who occupied the rectories and vicarages of the Church of England and their well-to-do flocks in both town and country were, with but few exceptions, all for King Charles and a restored monarchy. In this the ministers may have shown a sound political instinct, for none of them had any more mind than the Anglican bishops to tolerate Papists, Socinians, Quakers, and Fifth Monarchy men, but in their management of the business of the Restoration these divines exposed themselves to the same condemnation that Clarendon in an often-quoted passage passed upon his own clerical allies. When read by the light of the Act of "Uniformity," the "Corporation," the "Five Mile," and the "Conventicle" Acts, the conduct of the Presbyterians seems recklessness itself, whilst the ignorance their ministers displayed of the temper of the people they had lived amongst all their lives, and whom they adjured to cry _God save the King_, but not to drink his Majesty's health (because health-drinking was forbidden in the Old Testament), would be startling were it not so eminently characteristic.[82:1]

The Rump, amidst the ridicule and contempt of the populace, was again expelled by military force on the 13th of October 1659. The officers were divided in opinion, some supporting, others, headed by Lambert, opposing the Parliament; but _vis major_, or superior cunning, was on the side of Lambert, who placed his soldiers in the streets leading to Westminster Hall, and when the Speaker came in his coach, his horses were turned, and he was conducted very civilly home. The regiments that should have resisted, "observing that they were exposed to derision," peaceably returned to their quarters.

Monk, in the meanwhile, was advancing with his army from Edinburgh, and affected not to approve of the force put upon Parliament. The feeling for a Free Parliament increased in strength and violence every day. The Rump was for a third time restored in December by the section of the London army that supported its claim. Lenthall was once more in the chair, and the journals were resumed without the least notice of past occurrences. Monk, having reached London amidst great excitement, went down to the House and delivered an ambiguous speech. Up to the last Monk seems to have remained uncertain what to do. The temper of the City, which was fiercely anti-Rump, may have decided him. At all events he invited the secluded, that is the expelled, members of the old Long Parliament to take their seats along with the others, and in a formal declaration addressed to Parliament, dated the 21st of February 1660, he counselled it among other things to dissolve legally "in order to make way for a succession of Parliaments." In a word, Monk declared for a Free Parliament. Great indeed were the national rejoicings.

On the 16th of March 1660 a Bill was read a third time dissolving the Parliament begun and holden at Westminster, 3rd November 1640, and for the calling and holding of a Parliament at Westminster on the 25th of April 1660. This time an end was really made of the Rump, though for many a long day there were parliamentary pedants to be found in the land ready to maintain that the Long Parliament had never been legally dissolved and still _de jure_ existed; so long, I presume, as any single member of it remained alive.

Marvell was not a "Rumper," but on the 2nd of April 1660 he was again elected for Hull to sit in what is usually called the Convention Parliament. John Ramsden was returned at the head of the poll with 227 votes, Marvell receiving 141. There were four defeated candidates.

With this Convention Parliament begins Marvell's remarkable correspondence, on fine folio sheets of paper, with the corporation of Hull, whose faithful servant he remained until death parted them in 1678.

This correspondence, which if we include in it, as we well may, the letters to the Worshipful Society of Masters and Pilots of the Trinity House in Hull, numbers upwards of 350 letters, and with but one considerable gap (from July 1663 to October 1665) covers the whole period of Marvell's membership, is, I believe, unique in our public records. The letters are preserved at Hull, where I hope care is taken to preserve them from the autograph hunter and the autograph thief. Captain Thompson printed a great part of this correspondence in 1776, and Mr. Grosart gave the world the whole of it in the second volume of his edition of Marvell's complete works.

An admission may as well be made at once. This correspondence is not so interesting as it might have been expected to prove. Marvell did not write letters for his biographer, nor to instruct posterity, nor to serve any party purpose, nor even to exhibit honest emotion, but simply to tell his employers, whose wages he took, what was happening at Westminster. He kept his reflections either to himself or for his political broadsheets, and indeed they were seldom of the kind it would have been safe to entrust to the post.

Good Mr. Grosart fusses and frets terribly over Marvell's astonishing capacity for chronicling in sombre silence every kind of legislative abomination. It is at times a little hard to understand it, for Hull was what may be called a Puritan place. No doubt caution dictated some of the reticence--but the reserve of Marvell's character is one of the few traits of his personality that has survived. He was a satirist, not an enthusiast.

I will give the first letter _in extenso_ to serve as a specimen, and a very favourable one, of the whole correspondence:--

"_Nov. 17, 1660._

"GENTLEMEN, MY WORTHY FRIENDS,--Although during the necessary absence
of my partner, Mr. Ramsden, I write with but halfe a penn, and can
scarce perswade myselfe to send you so imperfect an account of your
own and the publick affairs, as I needs must for want of his
assistance; yet I had rather expose mine own defects to your good
interpretation, then excuse thereby a totall neglect of my duty, and
that trust which is divided upon me. At my late absence out of Town I
had taken such order that if you had commanded me any thing, I might
soon haue received it, and so returned on purpose to this place to
haue obeyed you. But hearing nothing of that nature howeuer, I was
present the first day of the Parliament's sitting, and tooke care to
write to Mr. Maior what work we had cut out. Since when, we have had
little new, but onely been making a progresse in those things I then
mentioned. There is yet brought in an Act in which of all others your
corporation is the least concerned: that is, where wives shall refuse
to cohabit with their husbands, that in such case the husband shall
not be liable to pay any debts which she may run into, for clothing,
diet, lodging, or other expenses. I wish with all my heart you were no
more touched in a vote that we haue made for bringing in an Act of a
new Assessment for six moneths, of 70,000li. _per mensem_, to begin
next January. The truth is, the delay ere monyes can be got in, eats
up a great part of all that is levying, and that growing charge of the
Army and Navy doubles upon us. And that is all that can be said for
excuse of ourselues to the Country, to whom we had giuen our own hopes
of no further sessment to be raised, but must now needs incurre the
censure of improvidence before or prodigality now, though it becomes
no private member, the resolution having passed the House, to
interpose further his own judgment in a thing that can not be
remedied; and it will be each man's ingenuity not to grudge an
after-payment for that settlement and freedome from Armyes and Navyes,
which before he would haue been glad to purchase with his whole
fortune. There remain some eight Regiments to be disbanded, but those
all horse in a manner, and some seauenteen shipps to be payd of, that
haue laid so long upon charge in the harbour, beside fourscore shipps
which are reckoned to us for this Winter guard. But after that, all
things are to go upon his Majestye's own purse out of the Tunnage and
Poundage and his other revenues. But there being so great a provision
made for mony, I doubt not but ere we rise, to see the whole army
disbanded, and according to the Act, hope to see your Town once more
ungarrisond, in which I should be glad and happy to be instrumentall
to the uttermost. For I can not but remember, though then a child,
those blessed days when the youth of your own town were trained for
your militia, and did, methought, become their arms much better than
any soldiers that I haue seen there since. And it will not be amisse
if you please (now that we are about a new Act of regulating the
Militia, that it may be as a standing strength, but not as ill as a
perpetuall Army to the Nation) to signify to me any thing in that
matter that were according to your ancient custome and desirable for
you. For though I can promise little, yet I intend all things for your
service. The Act for review of the Poll bill proceeds, and that for
making this Declaration of his Majesty a Law in religious matters.
Order likewise is giuen for drawing up all the votes made during our
last sitting, in the businesse of Sales of Bishops' and Deans' and
Chapters' lands into an Act, which I should be glad to see passed. The
purchasers the other day offerd the house 600,000li. in ready mony,
and to make the Bishops', etc., revenue as good or better then before.
But the House thought it not fit or seasonable to hearken to it. We
are so much the more concernd to see that great interest of the
purchasers satisfyed and quieted, at least in that way which our own
votes haue propounded. On Munday next we are to return to the
consideration of apportioning 100,000li. per annum upon all the lands
in the nation, in lieu of the Court of Wards. The debate among the
Countyes, each thinking it self overrated, makes the successe of that
businesse something casuall, and truly I shall not assist it much for
my part, for it is little reason that your Town should contribute in
that charge. The Excise bill for longer continuance (I wish it proue
not too long) will come in also next weeke. And I foresee we shall be
called upon shortly to effect our vote made the former sitting, of
raising his Majestie's revenue to 1,200,000li. per Annum. I do not
love to write so much of this mony news. But I think you haue observed
that Parliaments have been always made use of to that purpose, and
though we may buy gold too deare, yet we must at any rate be glad of
Peace, Freedom, and a good Conscience. Mr. Maior tells me, your
duplicates of the Poll are coming up. I shall go with them to the
Exchequer and make your excuse, if any be requisite. My long silence
hath made me now trespasse on the other hand in a long letter, but I
doubt not of your good construction of so much familiarity and trouble
from, Gentlemen, your most affectionate friend and servant,

"ANDR: MARVELL.

"WESTMINSTER, _Nov. 17, 1660._"

Although this first letter of the Hull correspondence is dated the 17th of November 1660, the Convention Parliament began its sittings on the 25th of April.

In composition this Convention Parliament was very like Richard Cromwell's, and indeed it contained many of the same members, whose loyalty, however, was less restrained than in 1659. All the world knew what brought this Parliament together. It was to make the nation's peace with its king, either on terms or without terms. "We are all Royalists now" are words which must often have been on the lips of the members of this House. One can imagine the smiles, half grim, half ironical, that would accompany their utterance. Such a right-about-face could never be dignified. It is impossible not to be reminded of schoolboys at the inevitable end of "a barring out." The sarcastic comment of Clarendon has not lost its sting. "From this time there was such an emulation and impatience in Lords, Commons, and City, and generally over the Kingdom, who should make the most lively expressions of their duty and of their joy, that a man could not but wonder where those people dwelt who had done all the mischief and kept the King so many years from enjoying the comfort and support of such excellent subjects."[88:1]

The most significant sentence in Marvell's first letter to his constituents is that in which he refers to the Bill for making Charles's declaration in religious matters the law of the land. Had the passing of any such Bill been possible, how different the history of England would have been!

The declaration Marvell is referring to was contained in the famous message from Breda, which was addressed by Charles to all his loving subjects of what degree or quality, and was expressed as follows:--

"And because the passion and uncharitableness of the times have
produced several opinions in Religion by which men are engaged in
parties and animosities against each other (which, when they shall
hereafter unite in a freedom of conversation, will be composed or
better understood) we do declare a liberty to tender Consciences, and
that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences
of opinion in matters of Religion which do not disturb the peace of
the Kingdom; and that we shall be ready to consent to such an Act of
Parliament as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to us for the
full granting of that indulgence."

It is only doing the king bare justice to say that he was always ready and willing to keep this part of his royal word--but it proved an impossibility.

A Roman Catholic as a matter of creed, a Hobbist in conversation, a sensualist in practice, and the shrewdest though most indolent of cynics in council, Charles, in this matter of religious toleration, would gladly have kept his word, not indeed because it was his word, for on the point of honour he was indifferent, but because it jumped with his humour, and would have mitigated the hard lot of the Catholics. Charles was not a theorist, all his tastes being eminently practical, not to say scientific. He was not a tyrant, but a _de facto_ man from head to heel. For the _jure divino_ of the English Episcopate he cared as little as Oliver had ever done for the _jure divino_ of the English Crown. Oliver once said, and he was not given to _braggadocio_, that he would fire his pistol at the king "as soon as at another if he met him in battle," and the second Charles would have thought no more of beheading an Anglican bishop than he did of sending Sir Harry Vane to the scaffold. Honesty and virtue, on the rare occasions Charles encountered them, he admired much as a painter admires the colours of a fine sunset. Above everything else Charles was determined never again, if he could help it, to be sent on his travels, to be snubbed and starved in foreign courts.

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, the first and best translator of Rabelais, is said to have died of laughing on hearing of the Restoration; Charles did not die, but he must have laughed inwardly at the spectacle that met his eyes everywhere as he made his often-described progress from Dover to London, and examined the gorgeous beds and quilts, fine linen and carpets, couches, horses and liveries, his faithful Commons had been at the pains and at the expense of providing for his comfort.

A few years afterwards Marvell wrote the following lines:--

"Of a tall stature and of sable hue,
Much like the son of Kish, that lofty Jew;
Twelve years complete he suffered in exile
And kept his father's asses all the while.
At length, by wonderful impulse of fate,
The people called him home to help the state,
And what is more they sent him money too
To clothe him all from head to foot anew;
Nor did he such small favours then disdain,
Who in his thirtieth year began his reign."[90:1]

The "small favours" grew in size year by year.

Why it was impossible for Charles to keep his word may be read in Clarendon's _Life_, and in the history of the Savoy Conference, and need not be restated here. In the opinion of the Anglican clergy, the king's divine right stood no higher than their own. They too had suffered in exile. They had been "robbed" of their tithes, and turned out of their palaces, rectories and vicarages, and excluded from the churches they still called "theirs." Their Book of Common Prayer was no longer in common use, having been banished by the "Directory of Public Worship" since 1645. So late as July 1, 1660, Pepys records attending a service in the Abbey, and adds "No Common Prayer yet." If we find ourselves wondering why the Anglican party should have been so powerful in 1660, our wonder ought not to be greater than is excited by the power of the Puritan party when Laud was put to death. Both parties were, on each occasion, in a minority. Though England has never been long priest-ridden, it has often been priest-led.

The Convention Parliament did all that was expected of it. It was, however irregularly summoned, a truly representative assembly. Its members all swore--what will not members of Parliament swear?--that the king was supreme in Church and State, the only rightful king of the realm and of all other his dominions, and that from their hearts they abhorred, detested, and abjured the damnable doctrine that princes, excommunicated or deprived of the Pope, might be murdered by their subjects. They proceeded to pass a very useful Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, agreeing to let bygones be bygones, except in certain named cases. They ordered Mr. John Milton to be taken into custody, and prosecuted (which he never was) by the Attorney-General. Later on the poet was released from custody, and we find Mr. Marvell complaining to the House that their sergeant had extracted L150 in fees before he would let Mr. Milton go. On which Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Lord Chancellor, laconically observed that Milton deserved hanging. He certainly got off easily, but, as he lived to publish _Paradise Lost_, _Paradise Regained_, and _Samson Agonistes_, he may be said to have earned his freedom. All his poetry put together never brought him in a third of the sum the sergeant got for letting him out of prison. General Monk, the man-midwife, who so skilfully assisted at that great Birth of Time, the Restoration, was made a duke, and Cromwell's army, so long the force behind the supreme power, was paid its arrears and (two regiments excepted) disbanded. "Fifty thousand men," says Macaulay, "accustomed to the profession of arms, were thrown upon the world ... in a few months there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed in the mass of the community."[92:1]

After this the House of Commons fell to discussing religion, and made the sad discovery that differences of opinion still existed. In these circumstances they decided to refer the matter to their pious king, and to such divines as he might choose. They then voted large sums of money for the royal establishment, and, it being the very end of August, adjourned till the 6th of November. As for making constitutional terms with the king, they never attempted it, though Sir Matthew Hale is credited with an attempt to induce them to do so. Any proposals of the kind must have failed. The people were in no mood for making constitutions.

Having met again on the 6th of November, Marvell, in a letter to the Mayor and Aldermen of Hull, dated the 27th of the month, reports that "the House fell upon the making out of the King's revenue to L1,200,000 a year." "The Customs are estimated toward L500,000 per annum in the revenue. His lands and fee farms L250,000. The Excise of Beer and Ale L300,000, the rest arise out of the Post Office, Wine Licenses, Stannaries Court, Probate of Wills, Post-fines, Forests, and other rights of the Crown. The excise of Foreign Commodities is to be continued apart until satisfaction of public debts and engagements secured upon the excise."

This settlement of revenue marks "the beginning of a time." Cromwell, as Cowley puts it in his _Discourse_, by far the ablest indictment of Oliver ever penned, "took armes against two hundred thousand pounds a year, and raised them himself to above two millions." It is true. Cromwell spent the money honestly and efficiently, and chiefly on a navy that enabled him to wrest the command of the sea from the Dutch, to secure the carrying trade, and to challenge the world for supremacy in the Indies, both East and West. In doing this, he had the instinct of the whole nation behind him. But it was expensive.

Had Charles been the most honest and thrifty of men, instead of one of the most dishonest and extravagant, he must have found his financial position a very difficult one. He was poorer than Cromwell. The feudal taxation had fallen into desuetude. To revive wardships, etc., was impossible, to recover arrears hopeless. There was nothing for it but scientific taxation. One of his first Acts contains a schedule of taxed articles extending over fifteen double-columned pages of a quarto volume. To raise this revenue was difficult--in fact impossible, and the amount actually obtained was always far below the estimates.

Marvell's letter concludes thus:--

"To-morrow is the Bill for enacting his Majesty's declaration in
religious matters and to have its first reading. It is said that on
Sunday next Doctor Reynolds shall be created Bishop of Norwich."

The rumour about Reynolds's bishopric proved to be true. The new bishop was a very "moderate" Anglican indeed, and his appointment was meant as a sop to the Presbyterians. Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy refused similar preferment.

On the 29th of November Marvell's letter contains the following passage:--

"Yesterday the Bill of the King's Declaration in religious matters
was read for the first time; but upon the question for a second
reading 'twas carried 183 against 157 in the negative, so there is an
end of that Bill and for those excellent things therein. We must
henceforth rely only upon his Majesty's goodness, who, I must needs
say, hath hitherto been more ready to give than we to receive."

It is a noticeable feature of this correspondence that Marvell seldom mentions which way he voted himself.

The letter of the 4th of December contains some interesting matter:--

"GENTLEMEN,--Since my last, upon Thursday, the Bill for Vicarages
hath been carryed up to the Lords; and a Message to them from our
House that they would expedite the Bill for confirmation of Magna
Charta, that for confirmation of marriages, and other bills of
publick concernment, which haue laid by them euer since our last
sitting, not returned to us. We had then the Bill for six moneths
assesment in consideration, and read the Bill for taking away Court
of Wards and Purveyance, and establishing the moiety of the Excise
of Beere and ale in perpetuum, about which we sit euery afternoon in
a Grand Committee. Upon Sunday last were consecrated in the Abby at
Westminster, Doctor Cossins, Bishop of Durham, Sterne of Carlile,
Gauden of Exeter, Ironside of Bristow, Loyd of Landaffe, Lucy of St.
Dauids, Lany, the seuenth, whose diocese I remember not at present,
and to-day they keep their feast in Haberdasher's hall, in London.
Dr. Reinolds was not of the number, who is intended for Norwich. A
Congedelire is gone down to Hereford for Dr. Monk, the Generall's
brother, at present Provost of Eaton. 'Tis thought that since our
throwing out the Bill of the King's Declaration, Mr. Calamy, and
other moderate men, will be resolute in refusing of Bishopricks....
To-day our House was upon the Bill of Attainder of those that haue
been executed, those that are fled, and of Cromwell, Bradshaw,
Ireton, and Pride, and 'tis ordered that the carkasses and coffins
of the four last named, shall be drawn with what expedition
possible, upon an hurdle to Tyburn, there (to) be hanged up for a
while, and then buryed under the gallows....

"WESTMINSTER, _Dec. 4, 1660_."

Marvell's cool reporting of the hideous indignity inflicted upon his old master, and allowing it to pass _sub silentio_, is one of the many occasions that stirred Mr. Grosart's wonder. Nerves were tough in those days. Pepys tells us unconcernedly enough how, after seeing Lord Southampton sworn in at the Court of Exchequer as Lord Treasurer, he noticed "the heads of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton set up at the further end of Westminster Hall." It is quite possible Lady Fauconberg may have seen the same sight.[95:1]

The Convention Parliament was dissolved on the 29th of December 1660.

On 1st April 1661 Marvell was returned for the third and last time for Hull, for Charles the Second's first Parliament was of unconscionable long duration, not being dissolved till January 1679, after Marvell's death. It is known in history as the Pensionary or Long Parliament. The election figures were as below:--

Colonel Gilbey, 294
Mr. Andrew Marvell, 240
Mr. Edward Barnard, 195
Mr. John Ramsden, 122

Marvell was not present at or before the election, for on the 6th of April he writes:--

"I perceive by Mr. Mayor that you have again (as if it were grown a
thing of course) made choice of me now, the third time, to serve for
you in Parliament, which as I cannot attribute to anything but your
constancy, so shall I, God willing, as in gratitude obliged, with no
less constancy and vigour continue to execute your commands and study
your service."

A word may here be said about payment of borough members. The members' fee was 6s. 8d. for every day the Parliament lasted. The wages were paid by the corporation out of the borough funds. It was never a popular charge. Burgesses in many places cared as little for M.P.'s as do some of their successors for free libraries. Prynne, perhaps the greatest parliamentary lawyer that ever lived, told Pepys one day, as they were driving to the Temple, that the number of burgesses to be returned to Parliament for any particular borough was not, for aught Prynne could find, fixed by law, but was at first left to the discretion of the sheriff, and that several boroughs had complained of the sheriff's putting them to the charge of sending up burgesses.

In August 1661 the corporation paid Marvell L28 for his fee as one of their burgesses, being 6s. 8d. a day for eighty-four days, the length of the Convention Parliament. Marvell continued to take his wages until the end of his days; but it is perhaps a mistake to suppose he was the very last member to do so. It was, however, unusual in Marvell's time.[96:1]

This Pensionary Parliament, though of a very decided "Church and King" complexion, was not in its original composition a body lacking character or independence, but it steadily deteriorated in both respects. Vacancies, as they occurred, and they occurred very frequently in those days of short lives, were filled up by courtiers and pensioners.

In the small tract, entitled _Flagellum Parliamentum_, which is a highly libellous "Dod," often attributed to Marvell, a record is preserved of more than two hundred members of this Parliament in 1675. Despite some humorous touches, this _Flagellum Parliamentum_ is still disagreeable to read. But the most graphic picture we have of this Parliament is to be found in one of Lord Shaftesbury's political tracts entitled "A letter from a Parliament man to his Friend" (1675):--

"SIR,--I see you are greatly scandalized at our slow and confused
Proceedings. I confess you have cause enough; but were you but
within these walls for one half day, and saw the strange make and
complexion that this house is of, you would wonder as much that ever
you wondered at it; for we are such a pied Parliament, that none can
say of what colour we are; for we consist of Old Cavaliers, Old
Round-Heads, Indigent-Courtiers, and true Country Gentlemen: the two
latter are most numerous, and would in probability bring things to
some issue were they not clogged with the numerous uncertainties of
the former. For the Old Cavalier, grown aged, and almost past his
vice, is damnable godly and makes his doting piety more a plague to
the world than his debauchery was, for he is so much a by-got to the
B(ishop) that he forces his Loyalty to strike sail to his Religion,
and could be content to pare the nails a little of the Civil
Government, so you would but let him sharpen the Ecclesiastical
Talons: which behaviour of his so exasperates the Round-Head, that
he on the other hand cares not what increases the Interest of the
Crown receives, so he can but diminish that of the miter: so that
the Round-Head had rather enslave the Man than the Conscience: the
Cavalier rather the Conscience than the Man; there being a
sufficient stock of animosity as proper matter to work upon. Upon
these, therefore, the Courtier mutually plays, for if any Ante-court
motion be made he gains the Round-Head either to oppose or absent by
telling them, If they will join him now he will join them for
Liberty of Conscience. And when any affair is started on behalf of
the Country he assures the Cavaliers, If they will then stand by him
he will then join with them in promoting a Bill against the
fanatics. Thus play they on both hands.... Wherefore it were happy
that he had neither Round-Head nor Cavalier in the House, for they
are each of them so prejudicate against the other that their sitting
here signifies nothing but their fostering their old venom and lying
at catch to stop every advantage to bear down each other, though it
be in the destruction of their country. For if the Round-Heads bring
in a good bill the Old Cavalier opposes it, for no other reason but
because they brought it in."[98:1]

Such was the theatre of Marvell's public actions for the rest of his days, and if at times he may need forgiveness for the savagery of his satire, it ought to be found easy to forgive him.

The two members for Hull were soon immersed in matters of much local importance. They began by quarrelling with one another, Marvell writing "the bond of civility betwixt Col. Gilby and myself being unhappily snappt in pieces, and in such manner that I cannot see how it is possible ever to knit them again." House of Commons quarrels are usually soon made up, and so was this one. The custom was for _both_ members to sign these letters, though they are all written in Marvell's hand--but if this was for any reason inconvenient, Marvell signed alone. No letters, unless in Marvell's writing, are preserved at Hull, which is a curious fact.

One of these bits of local business related to a patent alleged to have been granted by the Crown to certain persons, authorising them to erect and maintain _ballast wharfs_ in the various ports, and to make charges in respect of them. This was resented by the members for the ports, and on Marvell's motion the matter was referred to the Committee of Grievances, before whom the patentees were summoned. When they came it appeared that the patent warranted none of the exactions that had been demanded, and also that the warrant sent down to Hull naming these charges was nothing more than a draft framed by the patentees themselves, and not authorised in any way. The patent was at once suspended. Marvell, like a true member of Parliament, wishes to get any little local credit that may be due for such prompt action, and writes:--

"In this thing (although I count all things I can do for your service
to be mere trifles, and not worth taking notice of in respect of what
I owe you) I must do myself that right to let you know that I, and I
alone, have had the happiness to do that little which hitherto is
effected."

The matter required delicate handling, for a reason Marvell gives: "Because, if the King's right in placing such impositions should be weakened, neither should he have power to make a grant of them to you."

Another much longer business related to a lighthouse, which some outsiders were anxious to build in the Humber. The corporation of Hull, acting on Marvell's advice, had petitioned the Privy Council, and were asked by their business-like member "to send us up a dormant credit for an hundred pound, which we yet indeed have no use of, but if need be must have ready at hand to reward such as will not otherwise befriend your business." Some months later Marvell forwards an account, not of the L100, but of the legal expenses about the lighthouse. He wishes it were less, but hopes that the "vigorous resistance" will discourage the designers from proceeding farther. This it did not do. As a member of the bar, I find two or three of the items in this old-world Bill of Costs interesting:--

To Mr. Scroggs to attend the Council, L3 6 0
" " " again for the same, 3 6 0
Spent on Mr. Scroggs at dinner, 18 0
To Mr. Scroggs again, 3 0 0
Fees of the Council Table, 1 10 0
Fee to Clerk of the Council, 2 0 0
For dinner for Mr. Scroggs and wine after, 1 0 0
To Mr. Cresset (the Solicitor), 20 0 0
To Mr. Scroggs for a dinner, 1 0 0

The barrister who was so frequently "refreshed" by Marvell lived to become "the infamous Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" of all school histories.

A week before the prorogation of Parliament, which happened on the 19th of May 1662, Marvell went to Holland and remained there for nine months, for he did not return until the very end of March 1663, more than a month after the reassembling of the House.

What took him there nobody knows. Writing to the Trinity House about the lighthouse business on the 8th of May 1662, Marvell says:--

"But that which troubles me is that by the interest of some persons
too potent for me to refuse, and who have a great direction and
influence upon my counsels and fortune, I am obliged to go beyond
sea before I have perfected it (_i.e._ the lighthouse business). But
first I do thereby make my Lord Carlisle (who is a member of the
Privy Council and one of them to whom your business is referred)
absolutely yours. And my journey is but into Holland, from whence I
shall weekly correspond as if I were at London with all the rest of
my friends, towards the affecting your business. Then I leave Col.
Gilbey there, whose ability for business and affection to yours is
such that I cannot be wanted though I am missing."

It is plain from this that Lord Carlisle is one of the powerful persons referred to--but beyond this we cannot go.

Whilst in Holland Marvell wrote both to the Trinity House and to the corporation on business matters.

In March 1663 Marvell came back in a hurry, some complaints having been made in Hull about his absence. He begins his first letter after his return as follows:--

"Being newly arrived in town and full of business, yet I could not
neglect to give you notice that this day (2nd April 1663) I have been
in the House and found my place empty, though it seems, as I now
hear, that some persons would have been so courteous as to have
filled it for me."

In none of these letters is any reference made to the debates in the House on the unhappy Bill of Uniformity, nor does any record of those discussions anywhere exist. The Savoy Conference proved a failure, and no lay reader of Baxter's account of it can profess wonder. Not a single point in difference was settled. In the meantime the restored Houses of Convocation, from which the Presbyterian members were excluded, had completed their revision of the Book of Common Prayer and presented it to Parliament.

In considering the Bill for Uniformity, the House of Lords, where Presbyterianism was powerfully represented, showed more regard for those "tender consciences" to which the king (by the new Prayer Book called for the first time "our most religious King") had referred in his Breda Declaration than did the House of Commons. "The Book, the whole Book, and nothing but the Book" was, in effect, the cry of the lower House, and on the 19th of May, ten days after Marvell had left for the Continent, the Act of Uniformity became law, and by the 24th of August 1662 all beneficed ministers and schoolmasters had to make the celebrated subscription and profession, or go out into the wilderness.

There has always been a dispute as to the physical possibility of perusing the compilation in question before the day fixed by the Statute. The Book was advertised for sale in London on the 6th of August, but how many copies were actually available on that day is not known.

The Dean and Chapter of Peterborough did not get their copies until the 17th of August. When the new folios reached the lonely parsonages of Cumberland and Durham--who would care to say? The Act required a verbal avowal of "unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer, and administrations of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England, together with the Psalter, and the form of manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons" to be made after the service upon "some Lord's day" before the Feast of St. Bartholomew, _i.e._ the 24th of August 1662. The Act also required subscription within the same time-limit to a declaration of (_inter alia_) uniformity to the Liturgy of the Church of England "as it is now by law established."

That this haste was indecent no layman is likely to dispute, but that it wrought practical wrong is doubtful. The Vicar of Bray needed no time to read his new Folio to enable him to make whatever avowal concerning it the law demanded; and as for signing the declaration, all he required for that purpose was pen and ink. Neither had the incumbent, who was a good churchman at heart, any doubts to settle. He rejoiced to know that his side was once more uppermost, and that it would be no longer necessary for him, in order to retain his living, to pretend to tolerate a Presbyterian, or to submit to read in his church the Directory of Public Worship. Convocation had approved the new Prayer Book, which was in substance the old one, and what more did any churchman require? As for the Presbyterians and others who were in possession of livings, the failure of the Savoy Conference must have made it plain to them that the Church of England had not allowed the king to keep his word, that compromise and comprehension had failed, and that if they were to remain where they were, it could only be on terms of completely severing themselves from all other Protestant bodies in the world, and becoming thorough Episcopalians. No Presbyterian of any eminence was prepared to make the statutory avowal. Painful as it always must be to give up any good thing by a fixed date, it is hard to see what advantage would have accrued from delay.

When the day came, some two thousand parsons were turned out of the Church of England. Among them were included many of the most devout and some of the most learned of our divines. Their "coming in" had been irregular, their "going out" was painful.

Save so far as it turned these men out, the Act was a failure. It did not procure that uniformity in the public worship of God which it declared was so desirable; it prevented no scandal; it arrested no decay; it allayed no distemper, and it certainly did not settle the peace of the Church. Inside the Church the bishops were supine, the parochial clergy indifferent, and the worshippers, if such a name can properly be bestowed upon the congregations, were grossly irreverent. Nor was any improvement in the conduct of the Church service noticeable until after the Revolution, and when legislation had conceded a somewhat shabby measure of toleration to those who by that time had become rigid, traditional, and hereditary dissenters. Then indeed some attempts began to be made to secure a real uniformity of ritual in the public worship of the Church of England.[104:1] How far success has rewarded these exertions it is not for me to say.

Marvell did not remain long at home after his return from Holland. A strange adventure lay before him. He thus introduces it in a letter dated 20th June 1663:--