Chapter XXII: Part II (5)

The four bills were founded on four propositions (for which I refer to Hume or the _Parliamentary History_, not to Clarendon, who has mis-stated them) sent down from the Lords. The lower house voted to agree with them by 115 to 106; Sidney and Evelyn tellers for the ayes, Martin and Morley for the noes. The increase of the minority is remarkable, and shows how much the king's refusal of the terms offered him in September, and his escape from Hampton Court, had swollen the commonwealth party; to which, by the way, Colonel Sidney at this time seems not to have belonged. Ludlow says, that party hoped the king would not grant the four bills (i. 224). The Commons published a declaration of their reasons for making no further addresses to the king, wherein they more than insinuate his participation in the murder of his father by Buckingham. _Parl. Hist._ 847.

[357] Clarendon, whose aversion to the Scots warps his judgment, says that this treaty contained many things dishonourable to the English nation. _Hist._ v. 532. The king lost a good deal in the eyes of this uncompromising statesman, by the concessions he made in the Isle of Wight. _State Papers_, 387. I cannot, for my own part, see anything derogatory to England in the treaty; for the temporary occupation of a few fortified towns in the north can hardly be called so. Charles, there is some reason to think, had on a former occasion made offers to the Scots far more inconsistent with his duty to this kingdom.

[358] Clarendon; May, "Breviate of the Hist. of the Parliament," in Maseres's _Tracts_, i. 113; Whitelock, 307, 317, etc. In a conference between the two houses, July 25, 1648, the Commons gave as a reason for insisting on the king's surrender of the militia as a preliminary to a treaty, that such was the disaffection to the parliament on all sides, that without the militia they could never be secure. Rush. Abr. vi. 444. "The chief citizens of London," says May, 122, "and others called presbyterians, though the presbyterian Scots abominated this army, wished good success to these Scots no less than the malignants did. Whence let the reader judge of the times." The fugitive sheets of this year, such as the "Mercurius Aulicus," bear witness to the exulting and insolent tone of the royalists. The chuckle over Fairfax and Cromwell, as if they had caught a couple of rats in a trap.

[359] April 28, 1648; _Parl. Hist._ 883.

[360] June 6. These peers were the Earls of Suffolk, Middlesex, and Lincoln, Lords Willoughby of Parham, Berkley, Hunsdon, and Maynard. They were impeached for sitting in the house during the tumults from 26th of July to 6th of August 1647. The Earl of Pembroke, who had also continued to sit, merely because he was too stupid to discover which party was likely to prevail, escaped by truckling to the new powers.

[361] June 8.

[362] See _Parl. Hist._ 823, 892, 904, 921, 924, 959, 996, for the different votes on this subject, wherein the presbyterians gradually beat the independent or republican party, but with very small and precarious majorities.

[363] Clarendon, vi. 155. He is very absurd in imagining that any of the parliamentary commissioners would have been satisfied with "an act of indemnity and oblivion."

That the parliament had some reason to expect the king's firmness of purpose to give way, in spite of all his haggling, will appear from the following short review of what had been done. 1. At Newmarket, in June 1642, he absolutely refused the nineteen propositions tendered to him by the Lords and Commons. 2. In the treaty of Oxford, March 1643, he seems to have made no concession, not even promising an amnesty to those he had already excluded from pardon. 3. In the treaty of Uxbridge, no mention was made on his side of exclusion from pardon; he offered to vest the militia for seven years in commissioners jointly appointed by himself and parliament, so that it should afterwards return to him, and to limit the jurisdiction of the bishops. 4. In the winter of 1645, he not only offered to disband his forces, but to let the militia be vested for seven years in commissioners to be appointed by the two houses, and afterwards to be settled by bill; also to give the nomination of officers of state and judges _pro hâc vice_ to the houses. 5. He went no farther in substance till May 1647; when he offered the militia for ten years, as well as great limitations of episcopacy, and the continuance of presbyterian government for three years; the whole matter to be afterwards settled by bill on the advice of the assembly of divines, and twenty more of his own nomination. 6. In his letter from Carisbrook, Nov. 1647, he gave up the militia for his life. This was in effect to sacrifice almost everything as to immediate power; but he struggled to save the church lands from confiscation, which would have rendered it hardly practicable to restore episcopacy in future. His further concessions in the treaty of Newport, though very slowly extorted, were comparatively trifling.

What Clarendon thought of the treaty of Newport may be imagined. "You may easily conclude," he writes to Digby, "how fit a counsellor I am like to be, when the best that is proposed is that which I _would not consent unto to preserve the kingdom from ashes_. I can tell you worse of myself than this; which is, that there may be some reasonable expedients which possibly might in truth restore and preserve all, in which I could bear no part."--P. 459. See also p. 351 and 416. I do not divine what he means by this. But what he could not have approved was, that the king had no thoughts of dealing sincerely with the parliament in this treaty, and gave Ormond directions to obey all his wife's commands, but not to obey any further orders he might send, nor to be startled at his great concessions respecting Ireland, for they would come to nothing. Carte's _Papers_, i. 185. See Mr. Brodie's remarks on this, iv. 143-146. He had agreed to give up the government of Ireland for twenty years to the parliament. In his answer to the propositions at Newcastle, sent in May 1647, he had declared that he would give full satisfaction with respect to Ireland. But he thus explains himself to the queen: "I have so couched that article that, if the Irish give me cause, I may interpret it enough to their advantage. For I only say that I will give them (the two houses) full satisfaction as to the management of the war, nor do I promise to continue the war; so that, if I find reason to make a good peace there, my engagement is at an end. Wherefore make this my interpretation known to the Irish." _Clar. State Papers._ "What reliance," says Mr. Laing, from whom I transcribe this passage (which I cannot find in the book quoted), "could parliament place at the beginning of the dispute, or at any subsequent period, on the word or moderation of a prince, whose solemn and written declarations were so full of equivocation?" _Hist. of Scotland_, iii. 409. It may here be added that, though Charles had given his parole to Colonel Hammond, and had the sentinels removed in consequence, he was engaged during most part of his stay at Carisbrook in schemes for an escape. See Col. Cooke's "Narrative," printed with Herbert's _Memoirs_; and in Rushw. Abr. vi. 534. But his enemies were apprised of this intention, and even of an attempt to escape by removing a bar of his window, as appears by the letters from the committee of Derby House, Cromwell, and others, to Col. Hammond, published in 1764.

[364] Clarendon mentions an expression that dropped from Henry Martin in conversation, not long after the meeting of the parliament: "I do not think one man wise enough to govern us all." This may doubtless be taken in a sense perfectly compatible with our limited monarchy. But Martin's republicanism was soon apparent; he was sent to the Tower in August 1643, for language reflecting on the king. _Parl. Hist._ 161. A Mr. Chillingworth had before incurred the same punishment for a like offence, December 1, 1641. Nalson, ii. 714. Sir Henry Ludlow, father of the regicide, was also censured on the same account. As the opposite faction grew stronger, Martin was not only restored to his seat, but the vote against him was expunged. Vane, I presume, took up republican principles pretty early; perhaps also Haslerig. With these exceptions, I know not that we can fix on any individual member of parliament the charge of an intention to subvert the constitution till 1646 or 1647.

[365] Pamphlets may be found as early as 1643 which breathe this spirit; but they are certainly rare till 1645 and 1646. Such are "Plain English," 1643; "The Character of an Anti-malignant," 1645; "Last Warning to all the Inhabitants of London," 1647.

[366] Charles Louis, elector palatine, elder brother of the Princes Rupert and Maurice, gave cause to suspect that he was looking towards the throne. He left the king's quarters where he had been at the commencement of the war, and retired to Holland; whence he wrote, as well as his mother, the Queen of Bohemia, to the parliament, disclaiming and renouncing Prince Rupert, and begging their own pensions might be paid. He came over to London in August 1644, took the covenant, and courted the parliament. They showed, however, at first, a good deal of jealousy of him; and intimated that his affairs would prosper better by his leaving the kingdom. Whitelock, 101; Rush. Abr. xv. 359. He did not take this hint, and obtained next year an allowance of £8000 per annum. _Id._ 145. Lady Ranelagh, in a letter to Hyde, March 1644, conjuring him by his regard for Lord Falkland's memory to use all his influence to procure a message from the king for a treaty, adds: "Methinks what I have informed my sister, and what she will inform you, of the posture of the prince elector's affairs are in here, should be a motive to hasten away this message." _Clar. State Papers_, ii. 167. Clarendon himself, in a letter to Nicholas, Dec. 12, 1646 (where he gives his opinion that the independents look more to a change of the king and his line than of the monarchy itself, and would restore the full prerogative of the Crown to one of their own choice), proceeds in these remarkable words: "And I pray God they have not such a nose of wax ready for their impression. This it is makes me tremble more than all their discourses of destroying monarchy; and that towards this end, they find assistance from those who from their hearts abhor their confusions." P. 308. These expressions seem more applicable by far to the elector than to Cromwell. But the former was not dangerous to the parliament, though it was deemed fit to treat him with respect. In March 1647, we find a committee of both houses appointed to receive some intelligence which the prince elector desired to communicate to the parliament of great importance to the protestant religion. Whitelock, 241. Nothing farther appears about this intelligence; which looks as if he was merely afraid of being forgotten. He left England in 1649, and died in 1680.

[367] Baxter's _Life_, 50. He ascribes the increase of enthusiasm in the army to the loss of its presbyterian chaplains, who left it for their benefices, on the reduction of the king's party and the new-modelling of the troops. The officers then took on them to act as preachers. _Id._ 54; and Neal, 183. I conceive that the year 1645 is that to which we must refer the appearance of a republican party in considerable numbers, though not yet among the House of Commons.

[368] These passed against the royalist members separately, and for the most part in the first months of the war.

[369] "The best friends of the parliament were not without fears what the issue of the new elections might be; for though the people durst not choose such as were open enemies to them, yet probably they would such as were most likely to be for a peace on any terms, corruptly preferring the fruition of their estates and sensual enjoyments before the public interest," etc. Ludlow, i. 168. This is a fair confession how little the commonwealth party had the support of the nation.

[370] C. Journals; Whitelock, 168. The borough of Southwark had just before petitioned for a new writ, its member being dead or disabled.

[371] That the House of Commons, in December 1645, entertained no views of altering the fundamental constitution, appears from some of their resolutions as to conditions of peace: "That Fairfax should have an earldom, with £5000 a year; Cromwell and Waller baronies, with half that estate; Essex, Northumberland, and two more be made dukes; Manchester and Salisbury marquises, and other peers of their party be elevated to higher ranks; Haslerig, Stapylton, and Skippon to have pensions." _Parl. Hist._ 403; Whitelock, 182. These votes do not speak much for the magnanimity and disinterestedness of that assembly, though it may suit political romancers to declaim about it.

[372] Commons' Journals, May 4 and 18, 1647. This minority were not, in general, republican; but were unwilling to increase the irritation of the army by so strong a vote.

[373] Commons' Journals; Whitelock, 271; _Parl. Hist._ 781. They had just been exasperated by his evasion of their propositions. _Id._ 778. By the smallness of the numbers, and the names of the tellers, it seems as if the presbyterian party had been almost entirely absent; which may be also inferred from other parts of the Journals. See October 9, for a long list of absentees. Haslerig and Evelyn, both of the army faction, told the Ayes, Martin and Sir Peter Wentworth the Noes. The house had divided the day before on the question for going into a committee to take this matter into consideration, 84 to 34; Cromwell and Evelyn telling the majority, Wentworth and Rainsborough the minority. I suppose it is from some of these divisions that Baron Maseres has reckoned the republican party in the house not to exceed thirty.

It was resolved on Nov. 6, 1647, that the King of England, for the time being, was bound in justice and by the duty of his office, to give his assent to all such laws as by the Lords and Commons in parliament shall be adjudged to be for the good of the kingdom, and by them tendered unto him for his assent. But the previous question was carried on the following addition: "And in case the laws, so offered unto him, shall not thereupon be assented unto by him, that nevertheless they are as valid to all intents and purposes as if his assent had been thereunto had and obtained, which they do insist upon as an undoubted right."--Com. Jour.

[374] Ludlow says that Cromwell, "finding the king's friends grow strong in 1648, began to court the commonwealth's party. The latter told him he knew how to cajole and give them good words, when he had occasion to make use of them; whereat, breaking out into a rage, he said they were a proud sort of people, and only considerable in their own conceits."--P. 240. Does this look as if he had been reckoned one of them?

[375] Clarendon says that there were many consultations among the officers about the best mode of disposing of the king; some were for deposing him, others for poison or assassination, which, he fancies, would have been put in practice, if they could have prevailed on Hammond. But this is not warranted by our better authorities.

It is hard to say at what time the first bold man dared to talk of bringing the king to justice. But in a letter of Baillie to Alexander Henderson, May 19, 1646, he says, "If God have hardened him, so far as I can perceive, this people will strive to have him in their power, and make an example of him; _I abhor to think what they speak of execution_!"--ii. 20. Published also in Dalrymple's _Memorials of Charles I._, p. 166. Proofs may also be brought from pamphlets by Lilburne and others in 1647, especially towards the end of that year; and the remonstrance of the Scots parliament, dated Aug. 13, alludes to such language. Rushw. Abr. vi. 245. Berkley indeed positively assures us, that the resolution was taken at Windsor in a council of officers, soon after the king's confinement at Carisbrook; and this with so much particularity of circumstance that, if we reject his account, we must set aside the whole of his memoirs at the same time. Maseres's _Tracts_, i. 383. But it is fully confirmed by an independent testimony, William Allen, himself one of the council of officers and adjutant-general of the army, who, in a letter addressed to Fleetwood, and published in 1659, declares that after much consultation and prayer at Windsor Castle, in the beginning of 1648, they had "come to a very clear and joint resolution that it was their duty to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's cause and people in these poor nations." This is to be found in _Somers Tracts_, vi. 499. The only discrepancy, if it is one, between him and Berkley, is as to the precise time, which the other seems to place in the end of 1647. But this might be lapse of memory in either party; nor is it clear, on looking attentively at Berkley's narration, that he determines the time. Ashburnham says, "For some days before the king's remove from Hampton Court, there was scarcely a day in which several alarms were not brought him by and from several considerable persons, both well affected to him and likely to know much of what was then in agitation, of the resolution which a violent party in the army had to take away his life. And that such a design there was, there were strong insinuations to persuade." See also his _Narrative_, published in 1830.

[376] _Somers Tracts_, v. 160, 162.

[377] Sept. 11. _Parl. Hist._ 1077; May's "Breviate" in Maseres's _Tracts_, vol. i. p. 127; Whitelock, 335.

[378] Nov. 17. _Parl. Hist._ 1077; Whitelock, p. 355. A motion, Nov. 30, that the house do now proceed on the remonstrance of the army, was lost by 125 to 58 (printed, 53 in _Parl. Hist._). Commons' Journals. So weak was still the republican party. It is indeed remarkable that this remonstrance itself is rather against the king, than absolutely against all monarchy; for one of the proposals contained in it is that kings should be chosen by the people, and have no negative voice.

[379] The division was on the previous question, which was lost by 129 to 83.

[380] No division took place on any of the votes respecting the king's trial.

[381] Ludlow, i. 267.

[382] Hutchinson, p. 303.

[383] The king's manners were not good. He spoke and behaved to ladies with indelicacy in public. See Warburton's _Notes on Clarendon_, vii. 629, and a passage in Milton's _Defensio pro populo Anglicano_, quoted by Harris and Brodie. He once forgot himself so far as to cane Sir Henry Vane for coming into a room of the palace reserved for persons of higher rank. Carte's _Ormond_, i. 366, where other instances are mentioned by that friendly writer. He had in truth none who loved him, till his misfortunes softened his temper, and excited sympathy.

An anecdote, strongly intimating the violence of Charles's temper, has been rejected by his advocates. It is said that Burnet, in searching the Hamilton papers, found that the king, on discovering the celebrated letter of the Scots covenanting lords to the King of France, was so incensed that he sent an order to Sir William Balfour, lieutenant-governor of the Tower, to cut off the head of his prisoner, Lord Loudon; but that the Marquis of Hamilton, to whom Balfour immediately communicated this, urged so strongly on the king that the city would be up in arms on this violence, that with reluctance he withdrew the warrant. This story is told by Oldmixon, _Hist. of the Stuarts_, p. 140. It was brought forward on Burnet's authority, and also on that of the Duke of Hamilton, killed in 1712, by Dr. Birch, no incompetent judge of historical evidence; it seems confirmed by an intimation given by Burnet himself in his _Memoirs of the Duke of Hamilton_, p. 161. It is also mentioned by Scott of Scotstarvet, a contemporary writer. Harris, p. 350, quotes other authorities, earlier than the anecdote told by Burnet; and upon the whole, I think the story deserving credit, and by no means so much to be slighted as the Oxford editor of Burnet has thought fit to do.

[384] Clement Walker, _Hist. of Independency_, Part II. p. 55.

[385] Clarendon, Collier, and the high church writers in general, are very proud of the superiority they fancy the king to have obtained in a long argumentation held at Newcastle with Henderson, a Scots minister, on church authority and government. This was conducted in writing, and the papers afterwards published. They may be read in the King's Works, and in Collier, p. 842. It is more than insinuated that Henderson died of mortification at his defeat. He certainly had not the excuse of the philosopher who said he had no shame in yielding to the master of fifty legions. But those who take the trouble to read these papers, will probably not think one party so much the stronger as to shorten the other's days. They show that Charles held those extravagant tenets about the authority of the church and of the fathers, which are irreconcilable with protestantism in any country where it is not established, and are likely to drive it out where it is so.

[386] The note on this passage, which, on account of its length, was placed at the end of the volume in the two first editions, is withdrawn in this, as relating to a matter of literary controversy, little connected with the general objects of this work. It is needless to add, that the author entertains not the smallest doubt about the justness of the arguments he had employed.--_Note to the Third Edition._

[387] _Parl. Hist._ 349. The council of war more than once, in the year 1647, declared their intention of preserving the rights of the peerage. Whitelock, 288, and Sir William Waller's _Vindication_, 192.

[388] Commons' Journal, 13th and 19th May 1646.

[389] Lords' Journals.

[390] Commons' Journals. It had been proposed to continue the House of Lords as a court of judicature, or as a court of consultation, or in some way or other to keep it up. The majority, it will be observed, was not very great; so far was the democratic scheme from being universal even within the house. Whitelock, 377. Two divisions had already taken place; one on Jan. 9, when it was carried by thirty-one to eighteen, that "a message from the Lords should be received;" Cromwell strongly supporting the motion, and being a teller for it; and again on Jan. 18, when, the opposite party prevailing, it was negatived by twenty-five to eighteen, to ask their assent to the vote of the 4th instant, that the sovereignty resides in the Commons; which doubtless, if true, could not require the Lords' concurrence.

[391] Whitelock, 396. They voted that Pembroke, as well as Salisbury and Howard of Escrick, who followed the ignominious example, should be added to all committees.

[392] Commons' Journals; Whitelock. It had been referred to a committee of five members, Lisle, Holland, Robinson, Scott, and Ludlow, to recommend thirty-five for a council of state; to whose nominations the house agreed, and added their own. Ludlow, i. 288. They were appointed for a year; but in 1650 the house only left out two of the former list, besides those who were dead. Whitelock, 441. In 1651 the change was more considerable. _Id._ 488.

[393] Six judges agreed to hold on their commissions, six refused. Whitelock, who makes a poor figure at this time on his own showing, consented to act still as commissioner of the great seal. Those who remained in office affected to stipulate that the fundamental laws should not be abolished; and the house passed a vote to this effect. Whitelock, 378.

[394] Whitelock, 444 _et alibi_. Baxter's _Life_, 64. A committee was appointed, April 1649, to enquire about ministers who asperse the proceedings of parliament in their pulpits. Whitelock, 395.

[395] _State Trials_, v. 43. Baxter says that Love's death hurt the new commonwealth more than would be easily believed, and made it odious to all the religious party in the land, except the sectaries. _Life of B._, 67. But "oderint dum metuant" is the device of those who rule in revolutions. Clarendon speaks, on the contrary, of Love's execution triumphantly. He had been distinguished by a violent sermon during the treaty of Uxbridge, for which the parliament, on the complaint of the king's commissioners, put him in confinement. Thurloe, i. 65; _State Trials_, 201; though the noble historian, as usual, represents this otherwise. He also misstates Love's dying speech.

[396] Whitelock, 516.

[397] The parliament had resolved, 24th July 1650, that Henry Stuart, son of the late king, and the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of the late king, be removed forthwith beyond the seas, out of the limits of this commonwealth. Yet this intention seems to have been soon changed; for it is resolved, Sept. 11, to give the Duke of Glocester £1500 per annum for his maintenance, so long as he should behave himself inoffensively. Whether this proceeded from liberality, or from a vague idea that they might one day make use of him, is hard to say. Clarendon mentions the scheme of making the Duke of Glocester king, in one of his letters (iii. 38, 11th Nov. 1651); but says, "Truly I do believe that Cromwell might as easily procure himself to be chosen king as the Duke of Glocester; for, as none of the king's party would assist the last, so I am persuaded both presbyterians and independents would have much sooner the former than any of the race of him whom they have murthered."

[398] _Id._ p. 548. Lord Orrery told Burnet that he had once mentioned to Cromwell a report that he was to bring in the king, who should marry his daughter, and observed, that he saw no better expedient. Cromwell, without expressing any displeasure, said, "the king cannot forgive his father's blood;" which the other attempted to answer. Burnet, i. 95. It is certain, however, that such a compromise would have been dishonourable for one party, and infamous for the other.

[399] Cromwell, in his letter to the parliament, after the battle of Worcester, called it a _crowning mercy_. This, though a very intelligible expression, was taken in an invidious sense by the republicans.

[400] Journals, _passim_.

[401] One of their most scandalous acts was the sale of the Earl of Craven's estate. He had been out of England during the war, and could not therefore be reckoned a delinquent. But evidence was offered that he had seen the king in Holland; and upon this charge, though he petitioned to be heard, and, as is said, indicted the informer for perjury, whereof he was convicted, they voted by 33 to 31 that his lands should be sold; Haslerig, the most savage zealot of the whole faction, being a teller for the ayes, Vane for the noes. Journals, 6th March 1651, and 22nd June 1652. _State Trials_, v. 323. On the 20th of July in the same year, it was referred to a committee to select thirty delinquents, whose estates should be sold for the use of the navy. Thus, long after the cessation of hostility, the royalists continued to stand in jeopardy, not only collectively but personally, from this arbitrary and vindictive faction. Nor were these qualities displayed against the royalists alone: one Josiah Primatt, who seems to have been connected with Lilburne, Wildman, and the levellers, having presented a petition complaining that Sir Arthur Haslerig had violently dispossessed him of some collieries, the house, after voting every part of the petition to be false, adjudged him to pay a fine of £3000 to the commonwealth, £2000 to Haslerig, and £2000 more to the commissioners for compositions. Journals, 15th Jan. 1651-2. There had been a project of erecting an university at Durham, in favour of which a committee reported (18th June 1651), and for which the chapter lands would have made a competent endowment. Haslerig, however, got most of them into his own hands; and thus frustrated, perhaps, a design of great importance to education and literature in this country. For had an university once been established, it is just possible, though not very likely, that the estates would not have reverted, on the king's restoration, to their former, but much less useful possessors.

[402] Mrs. Hutchinson speaks very favourably of the levellers, as they appeared about 1647, declaring against the factions of the presbyterians and independents, and the ambitious views of their leaders, and especially against the unreasonable privileges claimed by the houses of parliament collectively and personally. "Indeed, as all virtues are mediums and have their extremes, there rose up after in that house a people who endeavoured the levelling of all estates and qualities, which those sober levellers were never guilty of desiring; but were men of just and sober principles, of honest and religious ends, and were therefore hated by all the designing self-interested men of both factions. Colonel Hutchinson had a great intimacy with many of these; and so far as they acted according to the just, pious, and public spirit which they professed, owned them and protected them as far as he had power. These were they who first began to discover the ambition of Lieut.-Gen. Cromwell and his idolaters, and to suspect and dislike it."--P. 285.

[403] Whitelock, 399, 401. The levellers rose in arms at Banbury and other places; but were soon put down, chiefly through the energy of Cromwell, and their ringleaders shot.

[404] It was referred to a committee, 29th April 1652, to consider how a convenient and competent maintenance for a godly and able ministry may be settled, in lieu of tithes. A proposed addition, that tithes be paid as before till such maintenance be settled, was carried by 27 to 17.

[405] Journals, 19th Jan. 1652. Hale was the first named on this commission, and took an active part; but he was associated with some furious levellers, Desborough, Tomlinson, and Hugh Peters, so that it is hard to know how far he concurred in the alterations suggested. Many of them, however, seem to bear marks of his hand. Whitelock, 475, 517, 519, 820, _et alibi_. There had been previously a committee for the same purpose in 1650. See a list of the acts prepared by them in _Somers Tracts_, vi. 177; several of them are worthy of attention. Ludlow indeed blames the commission for slowness; but their delay seems to have been very justifiable, and their suggestions highly valuable. It even appears that they drew up a book containing a regular digest or code, which was ordered to be printed. Journals, 20th Jan. 1653.

[406] A committee was named, 15th May 1649, to take into consideration the settling of the succession of future parliaments and regulating their elections. Nothing more appears to have been done till Oct. 11th, when the committee was ordered to meet next day, and so _de die in diem_, and to give an account thereof to the house on Tuesday come fortnight; all that came to have voices, but the special care thereof commended to Sir Henry Vane, Colonel Ludlow, and Mr. Robinson. We find nothing farther till Jan. 3rd, 1650, when the committee is ordered to make its report the next Wednesday. This is done accordingly, Jan. 9, when Sir H. Vane reports the resolutions of the committee, one of which was, that the number in future parliaments should be 400. This was carried, after negativing the previous question in a committee of the whole house. They proceeded several days afterwards on the same business. See also Ludlow, pp. 313, 435.

[407] Two divisions had taken place, Nov. 14 (the first on the previous question), on a motion, that it is convenient to declare a certain time for the continuance of this parliament, 50 to 46, and 49 to 47. On the last division, Cromwell and St. John were tellers for the ayes.

[408] Whitelock was one of these; and being at that time out of Cromwell's favour, inveighs much against this destruction of the power from which he had taken his commission. Pp. 552, 554. St. John appears to have concurred in the measure. In fact, there had so long been an end of law that one usurpation might seem as rightful as another. But, while any House of Commons remained, there was a stock left from which the ancient constitution might possibly germinate. Mrs. Macauley, whose lamentations over the Rump did not certainly proceed from this cause, thus vents her wrath on the English nation: "An acquiescence thus universal in the insult committed on the guardians of the infant republic, and the first step towards the usurpation of Cromwell, fixes an indelible stain on the character of the English, as a people basely and incorrigibly attached to the sovereignty of individuals, and of natures too ignoble to endure an empire of equal laws."--Vol. v. p. 112.

[409] Harrison, when Ludlow asked him why he had joined Cromwell to turn out the parliament, said, he thought Cromwell would own and favour a set of men who acted on higher principles than those of civil liberty; and quoted from Daniel "that the saints shall take the kingdom and possess it." Ludlow argued against him; but what was argument to such a head? _Mem. of Ludlow_, p. 565. Not many months after, Cromwell sent his coadjutor to Carisbrook Castle.

[410] Hume speaks of this assembly as chiefly composed of the lowest mechanics. But this was not the case. Some persons of inferior rank there were, but a large proportion of the members were men of good family, or, at least, military distinction, as the list of the names in the _Parliamentary History_ is sufficient to prove; and Whitelock remarks, "it was much wondered at by some that these gentlemen, many of them being persons of fortune and knowledge, would at this summons, and from those hands, take upon them the supreme authority of this nation."--P. 559. With respect to this, it may be observed, that those who have lived in revolutions find it almost necessary, whether their own interest or those of their country are their aim, to comply with all changes, and take a greater part in supporting them, than men of inflexible consciences can approve. No one felt this more than Whitelock; and his remark in this place is a satire upon all his conduct. He was at the moment dissatisfied, and out of Cromwell's favour, but lost no time in regaining it.

[411] Journals, August 19. This was carried by 46 to 38 against Cromwell's party. Yet Cromwell, two years afterwards, published an ordinance for regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of chancery; which offended Whitelock so much that he resigned the great seal, not having been consulted in framing the regulations. This is a rare instance in his life; and he vaunts much of his conscience accordingly, but thankfully accepted the office of commissioner of the treasury instead. Pp. 621, 625. He does not seem, by his own account, to have given much satisfaction to suitors in equity (p. 548); yet the fault may have been theirs, or the system's.

[412] 4th October.

[413] This had been proposed by the commission for amendment of the law appointed in the long parliament. The great number of dissenters from the established religion rendered it a very reasonable measure.

[414] Thurloe, i. 369; iii. 132.

[415] Journals, 2nd and 10th Dec. 1653; Whitelock. See the sixth volume of the _Somers Tracts_, p. 266, for a long and rather able vindication of this parliament by one of its members. Ludlow also speaks pretty well of it (p. 471); and says, truly enough, that Cromwell frightened the lawyers and clergy, by showing what the parliament meant to do with them, which made them in a hurry to have it destroyed. See also _Parl. Hist._ 1412, 1414.

[416] See the instrument of government in Whitelock, p. 571; or _Somers Tracts_, vi. 257. Ludlow says, that some of the officers opposed this; but Lambert forced it down their throats. P. 276. Cromwell made good use of this temporary power. The union of Scotland with England was by one of these ordinances, April 12 (Whitelock, 586); and he imposed an assessment of £120,000 monthly, for three months, and £90,000 for the next three, instead of £70,000, which had been paid before (_Id._ 591), besides many other ordinances of a legislative nature. "I am very glad," says Fleetwood (Feb. 1655, Thurloe, iii. 183), "to hear his highness has declined the legislative power, which by the instrument of government, in my opinion, he could not exercise after this last parliament's meeting." And the parliament of 1656, at the Protector's desire, confirmed all ordinances made since the dissolution of the long parliament. Thurloe, vi. 243.

[417] I infer this from the report of a committee of privileges on the election for Lynn, Oct. 20, 1656. See also Journals, Nov. 26, 1654.

[418] It is remarkable that Clarendon seems to approve this model of a parliament, saying, "it was then generally looked upon as an alteration fit to be more warrantably made, and in a better time."

[419] Bordeaux, the French ambassador, says, "some were for Bradshaw as speaker, but the Protector's party carried it for Lenthall. By this beginning one may judge what the authority of the lord protector will be in this parliament. However it was observed that as often as he spoke in his speech of liberty or religion, the members did seem to rejoice with acclamations of joy." Thurloe, v. 588. But the election of Lenthall appears by Guibbon Goddard's Journal, lately published in the Introduction to Burton's _Diary_, to have been unanimous.

[420] Journals, 14th and 18th Sept.; _Parl. Hist._ 1445, 1459; Whitelock, 605, etc.; Ludlow, 499; Goddard's Journal, 32.

[421] This division is not recorded in the Journals, in consequence, I suppose, of its having been resolved in a committee of the whole house. But it is impossible to doubt the fact, which is referred to Oct. 19 by a letter of Bourdeaux, the French ambassador (Thurloe, ii. 681), who observes, "Hereby it is easily discerned that the nation is nowise affected to his family, nor much to himself. Without doubt he will strengthen his army, and keep that in a good posture." It is also alluded to by Whitelock, 609. They resolved to keep the militia in the power of the parliament, and that the Protector's negative should extend only to such bills as might alter the instrument; and in other cases, if he did not pass bills within twenty days, they were to become laws without his consent. Journals, Nov. 10, 1654; Whitelock, 608. This was carried against the court by 109 to 85.

Ludlow insinuates that this parliament did not sit out its legal term of five months; Cromwell having interpreted the months to be lunar instead of calendar. Hume has adopted this notion; but it is groundless, the month in law being always of twenty-eight days, unless the contrary be expressed. This seems, however, not to have been generally understood at the time; for Whitelock says that Cromwell's dissolution of the parliament, because he found them not so pliable to his purposes as he expected, caused much discontent in them and others; but that he valued it not, esteeming himself above those things. P. 618. He gave out that the parliament were concerned in the conspiracy to bring in the king.

[422] Exiles are seldom scrupulous: we find that Charles was willing to propose to the States, in return for their acknowledging his title, "such present and lasting advantages to them by this alliance as may appear most considerable to that nation and to their posterity, and a valuable compensation for whatever present advantages the king can receive by it." _Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 90. These intrigues would have justly made him odious in England.

[423] Ormond wrote strongly to this effect, after the battle of Worcester, convinced that nothing but foreign assistance could restore the king. "Amongst protestants there is none that hath the power, and amongst the catholics it is visible." Carte's _Letters_, i. 461.

[424] _Clarendon State Papers_, ii. 481 _et sæpe alibi_. The protestant zeal of Hyde had surely deserted him; and his veracity in one letter gave way also. See vol. iii. p. 158. But the great criminality of all these negotiations lay in this, that Charles was by them soliciting such a measure of foreign aid as would make him at once the tyrant of England and the vassal of Spain; since no free parliament, however royalist, was likely to repeal all the laws against popery. "That which the king will be ready and willing to do, is to give his consent for the repeal of all the penal laws and statutes which have been made in the prejudice of catholics, and to put them into the same condition as his other subjects." Cottington to Father Bapthorpe. _Id._ 541. These negotiations with Rome were soon known; and a tract was published by the parliament's authority, containing the documents. Notwithstanding the delirium of the restoration, this had made an impression which was not afterwards effaced.

[425] _Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 181.

[426] "The pope very well knows," says Hyde to Clement, an agent at the court of Rome, 2nd April 1656, "how far the king is from thoughts of severity against his catholic subjects; nay, that he doth desire to put them into the same condition with his other subjects, and that no man shall suffer in any consideration for being a Roman catholic." _Id._ 291.

[427] Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, b. 14; _State Papers_, iii. 265, 300, etc. Whitelock observes at this time, "Many sober and faithful patriots did begin to incline to the king's restoration;" and hints, that this was his opinion, which excited Cromwell's jealousy of him. P. 620.

[428] Clarendon's _History_, vii. 129; _State Papers_, iii. 265, etc. These levellers were very hostile to the interference of Hyde and Ormond, judging them too inflexibly attached to the ancient constitution; but this hostility recommended them to others of the banished king's court who showed the same sentiments.

[429] Pp. 315, 324, 343; Thurloe, i. 360, 510. In the same volume (p. 248) we find even a declaration from the king, dated at Paris, 3rd May 1654, offering £500 per annum to any one who should kill Cromwell, and pardon to any one who should leave that party, except Bradshaw, Lenthall, and Haslerig. But this seems unlikely to be authentic: Charles would not have avowed a design of assassination so openly; and it is strange that Lenthall and Haslerig, especially the former, should be thus exempted from pardon, rather than so many regicides.

[430] See what Clarendon says of Ascham's death. _State Papers_, ii. 542. In another place he observes: "It is a worse and a baser thing that any man should appear in any part beyond sea under the character of an agent from the rebels, and not have his throat cut." _Id._ iii. 144.

[431] _State Trials_, 518; Thurloe, ii. 416. Some of the malecontent commonwealth men were also eager to get rid of Cromwell by assassination; Wildman, Saxby, Titus. Syndercome's story is well known; he was connected in the conspiracy with those already mentioned. The famous pamphlet by Titus, "Killing no Murder," was printed in 1657. _Clarendon State Papers_, 315, 324, 343.

[432] A very reprehensible passage occurs in Clarendon's account of this transaction (vol. vii. p. 140), where he blames and derides the insurgents for not putting Chief Justice Rolle and others to death, which would have been a detestable and useless murder.

[433] Whitelock, 618, 620; Ludlow, 513; Thurloe, iii. 264, and through more than half the volume, _passim_. In the preceding volume we have abundant proofs how completely master Cromwell was of the royalist schemes. The "sealed knot" of the king's friends in London is mentioned as frequently as we find it in the _Clarendon Papers_ at the same time.

[434] Thurloe, iii. 371, etc. "Penruddock and Grove," Ludlow says, "could not have been justly condemned, if they had as sure a foundation in what they declared for, as what they declared against. But certainly it can never be esteemed by a wise man to be worth the scratch of a finger to remove a single person acting by an arbitrary power, in order to set up another with the same unlimited authority."--P. 518. This is a just and manly sentiment. Woe to those who do not recognise it! But is it fair to say that the royalists were contending to set up an unlimited authority?

[435] They were originally ten, Lambert, Desborough, Whalley, Goffe, Fleetwood, Skippon, Kelsey, Butler, Worseley, and Berry. Thurloe, iii. 701. Barkstead was afterwards added. "The major-generals," says Ludlow, "carried things with unheard-of insolence in their several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and interrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who pretended themselves aggrieved; threatening such as would not yield a ready submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica, or some other plantations in the West Indies," etc.--P. 559.

[436] Thurloe, vol. iv. _passim_. The unpopularity of Cromwell's government appears strongly in the letters of this collection. Duckinfield, a Cheshire gentleman, writes: "Charles Stuart hath 500 friends in these adjacent counties for every one friend to you amongst them." Vol. iii. 294.

[437] It may be fair towards Cromwell to give his own apology for the decimation of the royalists, in a declaration, published 1655. "It is a trouble to us to be still rubbing upon the old sore, disobliging those whom we hoped time and patience might make friends; but we can with comfort appeal to God, and dare also to their own consciences, whether this way of proceeding with them hath been the matter of our choice, or that which we have sought an occasion for; or whether, contrary to our own inclinations and the constant course of our carriage towards them, which hath been to oblige them by kindness to forsake their former principles, which God hath so often and so eminently bore witness against, we have not been constrained and necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof we should have been wanting to our duty to God and these nations.

"That character of difference between them and the rest of the people which is now put upon them is occasioned by themselves, not by us. There is nothing they have more industriously laboured in than this; to keep themselves distinguished from the well-affected of this nation: To which end they have kept their conversation apart; as if they would avoid the very beginnings of union, have bred and educated their children by the sequestered and ejected clergy, and very much confined their marriages and alliances within their own party, as if they meant to entail their quarrel, and prevent the means to reconcile posterity; which with the great pains they take upon all occasions to lessen and suppress the esteem and honour of the English nation in all their actions and undertakings abroad, striving withal to make other nations distinguish their interest from it, gives us ground to judge that they have separated themselves from the body of the nation; and therefore we leave it to all mankind to judge whether we ought not to be timely jealous of that separation, and to proceed so against them as they may be at the charge of those remedies which are required against the dangers they have bred."

[438] Ludlow, 528; Clarendon, etc. Clarendon relates the same story, with additional circumstances of Cromwell's audacious contempt for the courts of justice, and for the very name of magna charta.

[439] _State Trials_, vi.; Whitelock advised the protector to proceed according to law against Hewit and Slingsby; "but his highness was too much in love with the new way."--P. 673.

[440] The late editor of the _State Trials_, v. 935, has introduced a sort of episodical dissertation on the administration of justice during the commonwealth, with the view, as far as appears, of setting Cromwell in a favourable light. For this purpose he quotes several passages of vague commendation from different authors, and among others one from Burke, written in haste, to serve an immediate purpose, and evidently from a very superficial recollection of our history. It has been said that Cromwell sought out men of character from the party most opposite to his designs. The proof given is the appointment of Hale to be a puisné judge. But Hale had not been a royalist, that is, an adherent of Charles, and had taken the engagement as well as the covenant. It was no great effort of virtue to place an eminent lawyer and worthy man on the bench. And it is to be remembered that Hale fell under the usurper's displeasure for administering justice with an impartiality that did not suit his government; and ceased to go the circuit, because the criminal law was not allowed to have its course.

[441] Thurloe writes to Montague (Carte's _Letters_, ii. 110) that he cannot give him the reasons for calling this parliament, except in cipher. He says in the same place of the committal of Ludlow, Vane, and others, "There was a necessity not only for peace sake to do this, but to let the nation see those that govern are in good earnest, and intend not to quit the government wholly into the hands of the parliament, as some would needs make the world believe."--P. 112. His first direct allusion to the projected change is in writing to Henry Cromwell, 9th Dec. 1656. _Thurl. Papers_, v. 194. The influence exerted by his legates, the major-generals, appears in Thurloe, v. 299 _et post_. But they complained of the elections. _Id._ 302, 341, 371.

[442] Whitelock, 650; _Parl. Hist._ 1486. On a letter to the speaker from the members who had been refused admittance at the door of the lobby, Sept. 18, the house ordered the clerk of the commonwealth to attend next day with all the indentures. The deputy clerk came accordingly, with an excuse for his principal, and brought the indentures; but on being asked why the names of certain members were not returned to the house, answered that he had no certificate of approbation for them. The house on this sent to inquire of the council why these members had not been approved. They returned for answer, that whereas it is ordained by a clause in the instrument of government that the persons who shall be elected to serve in parliament shall be such and no other than such as are persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; that the council, in pursuance of their duty, and according to the trust reposed in them, have examined the said returns, and have not refused to approve any who have appeared to them to be persons of integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; and those who are not approved, his highness hath given order to some persons to take care that they do not come into the house. Upon this answer, an adjournment was proposed, but lost by 115 to 80: and it being moved that the persons, who have been returned from the several counties, cities, and boroughs to serve in this parliament, and have not been approved, be referred to the council for approbation, and that the house do proceed with the great affairs of the nation; the question was carried by 125 to 29. Journals, Sept. 22.

[443] _Clar. State Papers_, iii. 201, etc.