Chapter V: THE COMMONWEALTH (concluded) (4)

But at this point it was contended by the Royalists that the House of Lords was as much a House as themselves, and that they could not legally summon a new Parliament without them; but Monk would listen to nothing of this kind. He declared that as much had been conceded as the country would bear; and the Parliament was compelled to dissolve itself at the time fixed.

There could certainly be no longer any uncertainty as to whither things were tending. The Royalists were again in full power all over the kingdom, the very insurgents in the cause of Charles were liberated, freed from all penalties, and in many cases advanced to places of trust; yet Monk still dissembled. Ludlow, a staunch Republican, on the re-admission of the excluded members, went to Monk to sound him as to his intentions, and urged the necessity of supporting the Commonwealth, which had cost them so much. Monk replied with solemn hypocrisy, "Yea, we must live and die together for a Commonwealth." Yet Monk had now made up his mind: he saw that all was prepared, all perfectly safe, and during the recess he was busy arranging with the king's agents for his return. Immediately on Monk's joyful reception by the City, a Mr. Baillie, who had gone through Cheapside amongst the bonfires, and heard the king's health drunk in various places, and people talking of sending for the king, had posted off to Brussels, where Charles was. On this Sir John Grenville and a Mr. Morrice, a Devonshire Royalist, were instantly sent over to Monk, with propositions for the king's return. Clarendon assures us that so early as the beginning of April these gentlemen were in London, and in consultation with Monk, who told them that if the king would write a letter to Parliament containing the same statements, he would find a fit time to deliver it, or some other means to serve his Majesty; but that Charles must quit Flanders to give his partisans confidence that he was out of the power of the Spaniards, and would be free to act on their call; that he must go to Breda, and date his papers thence.

All this was done, and so little secrecy was observed by the Royalists on the Continent, that it was immediately known at all the courts that the king was about to be recalled, and Spaniards, Dutch, French princes and ministers, who had treated Charles with the utmost neglect and contempt, now overwhelmed him with compliments, invitations, flatteries, and offers. The Dutch Court, where was his sister, the mother of the young Stadtholder, had been as discourteous as the rest, but they now united in receiving him and doing him honour. Breda already swarmed with English Royalists, who flocked from every quarter to pay their respects.

This was observed in England with a complacency which sufficiently indicated that men's minds were made up to the restoration of the monarchy. The ultra-Republican party alone, whose zeal never condescended to measure the chances against them, endeavoured to raise the soldiers to oppose the menaced catastrophe. The army had on former occasions maintained the Commonwealth. The emissaries of the Republicans, therefore, spread themselves everywhere amongst the soldiers, warning them of the certainty of all their sacrifices, their labours, and their victories being in vain if they did not once more save the State. The old fire revived; the soldiers contemplated the loss of their arrears if the Royalists came into power, the officers the loss of their lands and their commands. They began to express vehement discontent, and the officers flocked into the capital and called on Monk to take measures for the maintenance of the Commonwealth. He professed to be bound to that object, though he had at the time in his pocket a commission from Charles constituting him Lord-General of all the military in the three kingdoms. He ordered the officers to return to their posts, and put an oath of obedience to the Parliament to the privates--all who refused it being discharged.

Disappointed in this quarter, the Republicans managed to effect the escape of Lambert, who had been committed to the Tower, and who now appeared in Warwickshire, where he induced six troops of horse and some infantry to accept his command. On the approach of General Ingoldsby, however, who was sent against him, his troops deserted him, he was captured, and conducted back to the Tower with every indignity.

On the 25th of April the new Parliament assembled; the Royalists showed a decided majority, and though the Presbyterian party managed to carry the election of Sir Harbottle Grimstone as Speaker, the Royalist tendency was overwhelming as to the main objects. Ten of the Peers assembled in their House, and elected the Earl of Manchester Speaker, and on beholding this the rest of the Peers hurried up to town, and soon there appeared a full House, excepting such Peers as had served in the king's Parliament at Oxford, or whose patents dated subsequently to the commencement of the civil war.

But all the interest was concentrated on the proceedings of the House of Commons. On the 1st of May Sir John Grenville presented himself at the door of the House, and requested to speak with the Lord-General. Monk went to him, and received, as a matter of which he knew nothing, a letter addressed to the Speaker. Looking at the seal, and affecting to discover that it bore the royal arms, he ordered the guards to take care that the bearer did not escape. Grenville was speedily called in, and asked how he became possessed of this letter, and on replying that he brought it from the king, he was ordered into custody as a traitor. But here Monk interfered, saying that this was unnecessary; he perceived that he was a kinsman of his, and would be security for him. The letters were now opened, and proved to be really from the king, one addressed to the Commons, another to the Lords, a third to the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and the fourth to Monk and Montague, lord-admirals. In the letter to the Commons Charles informed them that, in the present unhappy circumstances of the nation, he recommended them to consider whether the only way to restore peace and prosperity was not to return to the ancient and time-honoured constitution of king, Lords, and Commons, under whom the kingdom had flourished so many ages. He professed that no man had a more profound veneration for Parliament and its rights than himself, and that to convince them of it, he had endorsed a declaration of his views, in which he had left everything to their settlement.

This paper was the celebrated Declaration of Breda, to which the people afterwards so often called Charles's attention, and which he took the earliest opportunity to forget, and falsify by a return to all the Stuart despotisms, oppressions, and persecutions. In this paper he granted a free pardon to all who should accept it within forty days; the confirmation of all estates and titles, and in religion "liberty to tender consciences, and that no man should be disturbed or called in question in any way regarding religion." But these promises "on the word of a king" were rendered perfectly nugatory, by excepting such persons and such measures as Parliament should in its wisdom see fit to determine otherwise. This specious declaration, which had been drawn up by Hyde, Ormond, and Nicholas, in fact secured nothing, for once in power, a servile Parliament might undo everything, as it eventually did. Prynne, who was in the House, pointed all this out, and warned them that Charles had been too long under the counsels of his mother, and too long in France and in Flanders--"the most Jesuited place in the world"--to be in religion anything better than a Papist; that at best he would be found only a Prelatist, and that his word had already been proved, on various occasions, of no more value than his father's. The Royalists, he said, would never cease instilling into him that the Presbyterian religion, now the religion of the nation, had destroyed his great-grandmother, tormented his grandfather, and put to death his father; and that as certain as there was a restoration, there would be a destruction of all the liberties of England, civil and religious. The pious Sir Matthew Hale urged on them the necessity of some better guarantee than this declaration of constitutional rights before they readmitted the king.

But all warning was lost on the House: the crisis was come, Parliament and nation seemed smitten with a sudden oblivion of their past miseries and oppressions under the Stuarts, and every branch of the community seemed impatient to be the first to put its neck once more under their yoke, and under the foot of the most debauched, unprincipled, and scandalous member which the family had ever seen. Instead of sending Grenville to the Tower, the Commons voted him thanks and a present of five hundred pounds. The Speaker, in communicating these votes to Grenville, launched into the most extravagant terms of joy on the prospect "of having their king again." The Commons drew up a most glowing letter to his Majesty, in which they declared their thankfulness to God for putting the thoughts of returning into the king's mind, "to make him glorious in the eyes of his people;" protesting that "the persons of their kings had always been dear unto Parliaments," and that they "could not bear to think of that horrid act committed against the precious life of their late king," and so forth. They not only delivered this letter to Sir John Grenville, but appointed twelve of their members to wait on his Majesty at the Hague. The London Corporation were as enthusiastic and as profuse of their proffered devotion; they presented Grenville with three hundred pounds, also appointed some of their members to wait on the king, made haste to erect the royal statue in Guildhall, and to pull down the arms of the Commonwealth.

Montague had long been prepared to go over to the king on the first opportunity; and lest he might seem to be sent by the Parliament, and not by his own voluntary act, he set sail for the coast of Holland, leaving Lawson to bring over the deputations going to his Majesty. He lay to at Scheveling, and sent word to the king that his fleet was at his command. The Duke of York, whom Charles had made admiral, went on board, and was received with all respect and submission. Soon after came up the other ships with six members of the Peers, twelve of the Commons, fourteen from the City of London, and eight or ten of the most popular ministers in London of the Presbyterian party, including Reynolds, Calamy, Case, and Marten. These gentlemen entered zealously on the hopeless task of endeavouring to persuade Charles to leave their form of worship in the ascendant, and to abstain from the use of the Common Prayer Book and the surplices; but they got no further satisfaction than that he would leave all that to the wisdom of Parliament. On the 24th of May he embarked at Scheveling, in the _Naseby_, which the day before had been rechristened the _Royal Charles_, the rest of the ships at the same time having doffed their republican appellations of unpleasant memory, and assumed right royal ones. On the 26th he landed at Dover, where, amid the thunder of cannon, he was received by Monk at the head of a splendid assemblage of the nobility and gentry. From Dover to Canterbury, and thence to London, the journey was one triumphant procession. The crowds of gentry and of shouting people presented only the aspect of a most loyal nation, amongst whom it was hard to imagine that such a thing as a Commonwealth had ever existed. On Blackheath Charles was received by the army with acclamations. The Lord Mayor and Corporation invited him to a splendid collation in a tent prepared for the purpose. All the way to Whitehall, attended by the chief nobility and by his Life Guards, and several regiments of cavalry, the houses being hung with tapestry, and the windows crowded with applauding men and women, the king riding between his two brothers, beheld nothing but an enthusiastic people. When he dismissed the last of his congratulators from the hall where his father perished, he turned to one of his confidants and said, "It surely must have been my own fault that I did not come before, for I have met no one to-day who did not protest that he always wished for my restoration."