Chapter XVIII: Part 18

Such is the substance of this curious information, which enables us at least to collect the ostensible motives of this singular prohibition. Proclamations had hitherto been considered little more than the news of the morning, and three days afterwards were as much read as the last week's newspapers. They were now, however, resolved to stretch forth the strong arm of law, and to terrify by an example. The constables were commanded to bring in a list of the names of strangers, and the time they proposed to fix their residence in their parishes. A remarkable victim on this occasion was a Mr. Palmer, a Sussex gentleman, who was brought _ore tenus_ into the Star Chamber for disobeying the proclamation for living in the country. Palmer was a squire of 1000_l._ per annum, then a considerable income. He appears to have been some rich bachelor; for in his defence he alleged that he had never been married, never was a housekeeper, and had no house fitting for a man of his birth to reside in, as his mansion in the country had been burnt down within two years. These reasons appeared to his judges to aggravate rather than extenuate his offence; and after a long reprimand for having deserted his tenants and neighbours, they heavily fined him in one thousand pounds.[241]

The condemnation of this Sussex gentleman struck a terror through a wide circle of sojourners in the metropolis. I find accounts, pathetic enough, of their "packing away on all sides for fear of the worst;" and gentlemen "grumbling that they should be confined to their houses:" and this was sometimes backed too by a second proclamation, respecting "their wives and families, and also widows," which was "_durus sermo_ to the women. It is nothing pleasing to all," says the letter-writer, "but least of all to the women." "To encourage gentlemen to live more willingly in the country," says another letter-writer, "all game-fowl, as pheasants, partridges, ducks, as also hares, are this day by proclamation forbidden to be dressed or eaten in any inn." Here we find realized the argument of Mr. Justice Best in favour of the game-laws.

It is evident that this severe restriction must have produced great inconvenience to certain persons who found a residence in London necessary for their pursuits. This appears from the manuscript diary of an honest antiquary, Sir Symonds D'Ewes; he has preserved an opinion which, no doubt, was spreading fast, that such prosecutions of the Attorney-General were a violation of the liberty of the subject. "Most men wondered at Mr. Noy, the Attorney-General, being accounted a great lawyer, that so strictly _took away men's liberties at one blow, confining them to reside at their own houses_, and not permitting them freedom to live where they pleased within the king's dominions. I was myself a little startled upon the first coming out of the proclamation; but having first spoken with the Lord Coventry, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, at Islington, when I visited him; and afterwards with Sir William Jones, one of the King's Justices of the Bench, about my condition and residence at the said town of Islington, and they both agreeing that I was not within the letter of the proclamation, nor the intention of it neither, I rested satisfied, and thought myself secure, laying in all my provisions for housekeeping for the year ensuing, and never imagined myself to be in danger, till this unexpected censure of Mr. Palmer passed in the Star Chamber; so, having advised with my friends, I resolved for a remove, being much troubled not only with my separation from Recordes, but with my wife, being great with child, fearing a winter journey might be dangerous to her."[242] He left Islington and the records in the Tower to return to his country-seat, to the great disturbance of his studies.

It is, perhaps, difficult to assign the cause of this marked anxiety of the government for the severe restriction of the limits of the metropolis, and the prosecution of the nobility and gentry to compel a residence on their estates. Whatever were the motives, they were not peculiar to the existing sovereign, but remained transmitted from cabinet to cabinet, and were even renewed under Charles the Second. At a time when the plague often broke out, a close and growing metropolis might have been considered to be a great evil; a terror expressed by the manuscript-writer before quoted, complaining of "this deluge of building, that we shall be all poisoned with breathing in one another's faces." The police of the metropolis was long imbecile, notwithstanding their "strong watches and guards" set at times; and bodies of the idle and the refractory often assumed some mysterious title, and were with difficulty governed. We may conceive the state of the police, when "London apprentices," growing in number and insolence, frequently made attempts on Bridewell, or pulled down houses. One day the citizens, in proving some ordnance, terrified the whole court of James the First with a panic that there was "a rising in the city." It is possible that the government might have been induced to pursue this singular conduct, for I do not know that it can be paralleled, of pulling down new-built houses by some principle of political economy which remains to be explained, or ridiculed, by our modern adepts. It would hardly be supposed that the present subject may be enlivened by a poem, the elegance and freedom of which may even now be admired. It is a great literary curiosity, and its length may be excused for several remarkable points.

AN ODE,

BY SIR RICHARD FANSHAW,

_Upon Occasion of his Majesty's Proclamation in the Year 1630, commanding the Gentry to reside upon their Estates in the Country._

Now war is all the world about,
And everywhere Erinnys reigns;
Or of the torch so late put out
The stench remains.
Holland for many years hath been
Of Christian tragedies the stage,
Yet seldom hath she played a scene
Of bloodier rage:
And France, that was not long compos'd,
With civil drums again resounds,
And ere the old are fully clos'd,
Receives new wounds.
The great Gustavus in the west
Plucks the imperial eagle's wing,
Than whom the earth did ne'er invest
A fiercer king.
Only the island which we sow,
A world without the world so far,
From present wounds, it cannot show
An ancient scar.
White peace, the beautifull'st of things,
Seems here her everlasting rest
To fix and spread the downy wings
Over the nest.
As when great Jove, usurping reign,
From the plagued world did her exile,
And tied her with a golden chain
To one blest isle,
Which in a sea of plenty swam,
And turtles sang on every bough,
A safe retreat to all that came,
As ours is now;
Yet we, as if some foe were here,
Leave the despised fields to clowns,
And come to save ourselves, as 'twere
In walled towns.
Hither we bring wives, babes, rich clothes,
And gems--till now my soveraign
The growing evil doth oppose:
Counting in vain
His care preserves us from annoy
Of enemies his realms to invade,
Unless he force us to enjoy
The peace he made,
To roll themselves in envied leisure;
He therefore sends the landed heirs,
Whilst he proclaims not his own pleasure
So much was theirs.
The sap and blood of the land, which fled
Into the root, and choked the heart,
Are bid their quick'ning power to spread
Through every part.
O 'twas an act, not for my muse
To celebrate, nor the dull age,
Until the country air infuse
A purer rage.
And if the fields as thankful prove
For benefits received, as seed,
They will to 'quite so great a love
A Virgil breed.
Nor let the gentry grudge to go
Into those places whence they grew,
But think them blest they may do so.
Who would pursue
The smoky glory of the town,
That may go till his native earth,
And by the shining fire sit down
Of his own hearth,
Free from the griping scrivener's bands,
And the more biting mercer's books;
Free from the bait of oiled hands,
And painted looks?
The country too even chops for rain;
You that exhale it by your power,
Let the fat drops fall down again
In a full shower.
And you bright beauties of the time,
That waste yourselves here in a blaze,
Fix to your orb and proper clime
Your wandering rays.
Let no dark corner of the land
Be unembellish'd with one gem,
And those which here too thick do stand
Sprinkle on them.
Believe me, ladies, you will find
In that sweet light more solid joys,
More true contentment to the mind
Than all town-toys.
Nor Cupid there less blood doth spill,
But heads his shafts with chaster love,
Not feather'd with a sparrow's quill,
But of a dove.
There you shall hear the nightingale,
The harmless syren of the wood,
How prettily she tells a tale
Of rape and blood.
The lyric lark, with all beside
Of Nature's feather'd quire, and all
The commonwealth of flowers in 'ts pride
Behold you shall.
The lily queen, the royal rose,
The gilly-flower, prince of the blood!
The courtier tulip, gay in clothes,
The regal bud;
The violet purple senator,
How they do mock the pomp of state,
And all that at the surly door
Of great ones wait.
Plant trees you may, and see them shoot
Up with your children, to be served
To your clean boards, and the fairest fruit
To be preserved;
And learn to use their several gums;
'Tis innocence in the sweet blood
Of cherry, apricocks, and plums,
To be imbrued.

FOOTNOTES:

[238] _Morning Chronicle_, January 23, 1820.

[239] A proclamation was issued in the first year of King James,
"commanding gentlemen to depart the court and city," because it
hinders hospitality and endangers the people near their own
residences, "who had from such houses much comfort and ease toward
their living." The King graciously says:--"He tooke no small
contentment in the resort of gentlemen, and other our subjects
coming to visit us, holding their affectionate desire to see our
person to be a certaine testimonie of their inward love;" but he
says he must not "give way to so great a mischiefe as the continuall
resort may breed," and that therefore all that have no special cause
of attendance must at once go back until the time of his coronation,
when they may "returne until the solemnity be passed;" but only for
that time, for if the proclamation be slighted he shall "make them
an example of contempt if we shall finde any making stay here
contrary to this direction." Such proclamations were from time to
time issued, and though sometimes evaded, were frequently enforced
by fines, so that living in London was a risk and danger to country
gentlemen of fortune.

[240] Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 288.

[241] From a manuscript letter from Sir George Gresley to Sir Thomas
Puckering, Nov. 1632.

[242] Harl. MSS. 6. fo. 152.

ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS.

The satires and the comedies of the age have been consulted by the historian of our manners, and the features of the times have been traced from those amusing records of folly. Daines Barrinton enlarged this field of domestic history in his very entertaining "Observations on the Statutes." Another source, which to me seems not to have been explored, is the proclamations which have frequently issued from our sovereigns, and were produced by the exigencies of the times.

These proclamations or royal edicts in our country were never armed with the force of laws--only as they enforce the execution of laws already established; and the proclamation of a British monarch may become even an illegal act, if it be in opposition to the law of the land. Once, indeed, it was enacted under the arbitrary government of Henry the Eighth, by the sanction of a pusillanimous parliament, that the force of acts of parliament should be given to the king's proclamations; and at a much later period the chancellor, Lord Ellesmere, was willing to have advanced the king's proclamations into laws, on the sophistical maxim that "all precedents had a time when they began;" but this chancellor argued ill, as he was told with spirit by Lord Coke, in the presence of James the First,[243] who probably did not think so ill of the chancellor's logic. Blackstone, to whom on this occasion I could not fail to turn, observes, on the statute under Henry the Eighth, that it would have introduced the most despotic tyranny, and must have proved fatal to the liberties of this kingdom, had it not been luckily repealed in the minority of his successor, whom he elsewhere calls an amiable prince--all our young princes, we discover, were amiable! Blackstone has not recorded the subsequent attempt of the lord chancellor under James the First, which tended to raise proclamations to the nature of an ukase of the autocrat of both the Russias. It seems that our national freedom, notwithstanding our ancient constitution, has had several narrow escapes.

Royal proclamations, however, in their own nature are innocent enough; for since the manner, time, and circumstances of putting laws in execution must frequently be left to the discretion of the executive magistrate, a proclamation that is not adverse to existing laws need not create any alarm; the only danger they incur is that they seem never to have been attended to, and rather testified the wishes of the government than the compliance of the subjects. They were not laws, and were therefore considered as sermons or pamphlets, or anything forgotten in a week's time!

These proclamations are frequently alluded to by the letter-writers of the times among the news of the day, but usually their royal virtue hardly kept them alive beyond the week. Some on important subjects are indeed noticed in our history. Many indications of the situation of affairs, the feelings of the people, and the domestic history of our nation, may be drawn from these singular records. I have never found them to exist in any collected form, and they have been probably only accidentally preserved.[244]

The proclamations of every sovereign would characterize his reign, and open to us some of the interior operations of the cabinet. The despotic will, yet vacillating conduct of Henry the Eighth, towards the close of his reign, may be traced in a proclamation to abolish the translations of the scriptures, and even the reading of Bibles by the people; commanding all printers of English books and pamphlets to affix their names to them, and forbidding the sale of any English books printed abroad.[245] When the people were not suffered to publish their opinions at home, all the opposition flew to foreign presses, and their writings were then smuggled into the country in which they ought to have been printed. Hence, many volumes printed in a foreign type at this period are found in our collections. The king shrunk in dismay from that spirit of reformation which had only been a party business with him, and making himself a pope, decided that nothing should be learnt but what he himself deigned to teach!

The antipathies and jealousies which our populace too long indulged, by their incivilities to all foreigners, are characterised by a proclamation issued by Mary, commanding her subjects to behave themselves peaceably towards the strangers coming with King Philip; that noblemen and gentlemen should warn their servants to refrain from "strife and contention, either by outward deeds, taunting words, unseemly countenance, by mimicking them, &c." The punishment not only "her grace's displeasure, but to be committed to prison without bail or mainprise."

The proclamations of Edward the Sixth curiously exhibit the unsettled state of the reformation, where the rites and ceremonies of Catholicism were still practised by the new religionists, while an opposite party, resolutely bent on an eternal separation from Rome, were avowing doctrines which afterwards consolidated themselves into puritanism, and while others were hatching up that demoralising fanaticism which subsequently shocked the nation with those monstrous sects, the indelible, disgrace of our country! In one proclamation the king denounces to the people "those who despise the sacrament by calling it _idol_, or such other vile name." Another is against such "as innovate any ceremony," and who are described as "certain private preachers and other laiemen, who rashly attempt of _their own and singular wit and mind_, not only to persuade the people from the old and accustomed rites and ceremonies, but also themselves bring in _new and strange orders according to their phantasies_. The which, as it is an evident token of pride and arrogancy, so it tendeth both to confusion and disorder." Another proclamation, to press "a godly conformity throughout his realm," where we learn the following curious fact, of "divers unlearned and indiscreet priests of a devilish mind and intent, teaching that a man may forsake his wife and marry another, his first wife yet living; likewise that the wife may do the same to the husband. Others, that a man may have _two wives or more_ at once, for that these things are not prohibited by God's law, but by the Bishop of Rome's law; so that by such evil and fantastical opinions some have not been afraid indeed to marry and keep _two wives_." Here, as in the bud, we may unfold those subsequent scenes of our story which spread out in the following century; the branching out of the non-conformists into their various sects; and the indecent haste of our reformed priesthood, who, in their zeal to cast off the yoke of Rome, desperately submitted to the liberty of having "two wives or more!" There is a proclamation to abstain from flesh on Fridays and Saturdays; exhorted on the principle, not only that "men should abstain on those days, and forbear their pleasures and the meats wherein they have more delight, to the intent to subdue their bodies to the soul and spirit, but also for _worldly policy_. To use _fish_, for the benefit of the commonwealth, and profit of many who be _fishers_ and men using that trade, unto the which this realm, in every part environed with the seas, and so plentiful of fresh waters, be increased the nourishment of the land by saving flesh." It did not seem to occur to the king in council that the butchers might have had cause to petition against this monopoly of two days in the week granted to the fishmongers; and much less, that it was better to let the people eat flesh or fish as suited their conveniency. In respect to the religious rite itself, it was evidently not considered as an essential point of faith, since the king enforces it on the principle, "for the profit and commodity of his realm." Burnet has made a just observation on religious fasts.[246]

A proclamation against excess of apparel, in the reign of Elizabeth, and renewed many years after, shows the luxury of dress, which was indeed excessive.[247] There is a curious one against the _iconoclasts, or image-breakers and picture-destroyers_, for which the antiquary will hold her in high reverence. Her majesty informs us, that "several persons, ignorant, malicious, or covetous, of late years, have spoiled and broken ancient monuments, erected only _to show a memory to posterity_, and not to nourish any kind of _superstition_." The queen laments that what is broken and spoiled would be now hard to recover, but advises her good people to repair them; and commands them in future to desist from committing such injuries. A more extraordinary circumstance than the proclamation itself was the manifestation of her majesty's zeal, in subscribing her name with her own hand to every proclamation dispersed throughout England. These image-breakers first appeared in Elizabeth's reign; it was afterwards that they flourished in all the perfection of their handicraft, and have contrived that these monuments of art shall carry down to posterity the _memory of their_ SHAME _and of their age_. These image-breakers, so famous in our history, had already appeared under Henry the Eighth, and continued their practical zeal, in spite of proclamations and remonstrances, till they had accomplished their work. In 1641 an order was published by the Commons, that they should "take away all scandalous pictures out of churches:" but more was intended than was expressed; and we are told that the people did not at first carry their barbarous practice against all Art to the lengths which they afterwards did, till they were instructed by _private information!_ Dowsing's Journal has been published, and shows what the _order_ meant! He was their giant destroyer! Such are the Machiavelian secrets of revolutionary governments; they give a _public_ order in moderate _words_, but the _secret_ one, for the _deeds_, is that of extermination! It was this sort of men who discharged their prisoners by giving a secret sign to lead them to their execution!

The proclamations of James the First, by their number, are said to have sunk their value with the people.[248] He was fond of giving them gentle advice; and it is said by Wilson that there was an intention to have this king's printed proclamations bound up in a volume, that better notice might be taken of the matters contained in them. There is more than one to warn the people against "speaking too freely of matters above their reach," prohibiting all "undutiful speeches." I suspect that many of these proclamations are the composition of the king's own hand; he was often his own secretary. There is an admirable one against private duels and challenges. The curious one respecting Cowell's "Interpreter" is a sort of royal review of some of the arcana of state: I refer to the quotation.[249]

I will preserve a passage of a proclamation "against excess of lavish and licentious speech." James was a king of words!

"Although the commixture of nations, confluence of ambassadors, and
the relation which the affairs of our kingdoms have had towards the
business and interests of foreign states have caused, during our
regiment (government) a greater openness and liberty of discourse,
even concerning MATTERS OF STATE (which are _no themes or subjects
fit for vulgar persons or common meetings_), than hath been in former
times used or permitted; and although in our own nature and judgment
we do well allow of _convenient freedom of speech_, esteeming any
over-curious or restrained hands carried in that kind rather as a
weakness, or else over-much severity of government than otherwise;
yet for as much as it is come to our ears, by common report, that
there is at this time a more licentious passage of _lavish discourse
and bold censure in matters of state_ than is fit to be suffered: We
give this warning, &c., to take heed _how they intermeddle by pen or
speech with causes of state and secrets of empire_, either at home or
abroad, but contain themselves within that modest and reverent regard
of matters above their reach and calling; nor to give any manner of
applause to such discourse, without acquainting one of our privy
council within the space of twenty-four hours."

It seems that "the bold speakers," as certain persons were then denominated, practised an old artifice of lauding his majesty, while they severely arraigned the counsels of the cabinet; on this James observes, "Neither let any man mistake us so much as to think that by giving fair and specious attributes to our person, they cover the scandals which they otherwise lay upon our government, but conceive that we make no other construction of them but as fine and artificial glosses, the better to give passage to the rest of their imputations and scandals."

This was a proclamation in the eighteenth year of his reign; he repeated it in the nineteenth, and he might have proceeded to "the crack of doom" with the same effect!

Rushworth, in his second volume of Historical Collections, has preserved a considerable number of the proclamations of Charles the First, of which many are remarkable; but latterly they mark the feverish state of his reign. One regulates access for cure of the king's evil--by which his majesty, it appears, "hath had good success therein;" but though ready and willing as any king or queen of this realm ever was to relieve the distresses of his good subjects, "his majesty commands to change the seasons for his 'sacred touch' from Easter and Whitsuntide to Easter and Michaelmas, as times more convenient for the temperature of the season," &c. Another against "departure out of the realm without license." One to erect an office "for the suppression of cursing and swearing," to receive the forfeitures; against "libellous and seditious pamphlets and discourses from Scotland," framed by factious spirits, and republished in London--this was in 1640; and Charles, at the crisis of that great insurrection in which he was to be at once the actor and the spectator, fondly imagined that the possessors of these "scandalous" pamphlets would bring them, as he proclaimed "to one of his majesty's justices of peace, to be by him sent to one of his principal secretaries of state!"

On the Restoration, Charles the Second had to court his people by his domestic regulations. He early issued a remarkable proclamation, which one would think reflected on his favourite companions, and which strongly marks the moral disorders of those depraved and wretched times. It is against "vicious, debauched, and profane persons!" who are thus described:--

"A sort of men of whom we have heard much, and are sufficiently
ashamed; who spend their time in taverns, tippling-houses and
debauches; giving no _other evidence of their affection to us but in
drinking our health_, and inveighing against all others who are not
of their own dissolute temper; and who, in truth, have _more
discredited our cause_, by the license of their manners and lives,
than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We
hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far
assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and
shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not;
and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the
laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against; there
being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved
nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties in practice
and manners, which _laws cannot well describe, and consequently not
enough provide against_, which may, by the example and severity of
virtuous men, be easily discountenanced, and by degrees suppressed."

Surely the gravity and moral severity of Clarendon dictated this proclamation! which must have afforded some mirth to the gay, debauched circle, the loose cronies of royalty!

It is curious that, in 1660, Charles the Second issued a long proclamation for the strict observance of Lent, and alleges for it the same reason as we found in Edward the Sixth's proclamation, "for the good it produces in the employment of _fishermen_" No ordinaries, taverns, &c., to make any supper _on Friday nights, either in Lent or out of Lent_.

Charles the Second issued proclamations "to repress the excess of gilding of coaches and chariots," to restrain the waste of gold, which, as they supposed, by the excessive use of gilding, had grown scarce. Against "the exportation and the buying and selling of gold and silver at higher rates than in our mint," alluding to a statute made in the ninth year of Edward the Third, called the Statute of Money. Against building in and about London and Westminster, in 1661: "The inconveniences daily growing by increase of new buildings are, that the people increasing in such great numbers, are not well to be governed by the wonted officers: the prices of victuals are enhanced; the health of the subject inhabiting the cities much endangered, and many good towns and boroughs unpeopled, and in their trades much decayed--frequent fires occasioned by timber-buildings." It orders to build with brick and stone, "which would beautify, and make an uniformity in the buildings; and which are not only more durable and safe against fire, but by experience are found to be of _little more if not less charge than the building with timber_." We must infer that, by the general use of timber, it had considerably risen in price, while brick and stone not then being generally used, became as cheap as wood![250]

The most remarkable proclamations of Charles the Second are those which concern the regulations of coffee-houses, and one for putting them down;[251] to restrain the spreading of false news, and licentious talking of state and government, the speakers and the hearers were made alike punishable. This was highly resented as an illegal act by the friends of civil freedom; who, however, succeeded in obtaining the freedom of the coffee-houses, under the promise of not sanctioning treasonable speeches. It was urged by the court lawyers, as the high Tory, Roger North, tells us, that the retailing coffee might be an innocent trade, when not used in the nature of a common assembly to discourse of matters of state news and great persons, as a means "to discontent the people." On the other side, Kennet asserted that the discontents existed before they met at the coffee-houses, and that the proclamation was only intended to suppress an evil which was not to be prevented. At this day we know which of those two historians exercised the truest judgment. It was not the coffee-houses which produced political feeling, but the reverse. Whenever government ascribes effects to a cause quite inadequate to produce them, they are only seeking means to hide the evil which they are too weak to suppress.

FOOTNOTES:

[243] The whole story is in 12 Co. 746. I owe this curious fact to
the author of Eunomus, ii. 116.

[244] A quarto volume was published by Barker, the king's printer,
and is entitled "A Booke of Proclamations Published since the
beginning of his Majestie's most happy Reign over England, until
this present month of Feb. 1609." It contains 110 in all. The
Society of Antiquaries of London possesses at the present time the
largest and most perfect collection of royal proclamations in
existence, brought together since the above was written. They are on
separate broadsheets, as issued.

[245] In 1529 the king had issued a proclamation for resisting and
withstanding of most dampnable heresyes sowen within the realme by
the discyples of Luther and other "heretykes, perverters of Christes
relygyon." In June, 1530, this was followed by the proclamation "for
dampning (or condemning) of erronious bokes and heresies, and
prohibitinge the havinge of holy scripture translated into the
vulgar tonges of englishe, frenche, or dutche," he notes many bookes
"printed beyonde the see" which he will not allow, "that is to say,
the boke called the wicked Mammona, the boke named the Obedience of
a Christen Man, the Supplication of Beggars, and the boke called the
Revelation of Antichrist, the Summary of Scripture, and divers other
bokes made in the Englishe tongue," in fact all books in the
vernacular not issued by native printers. "And that having respect
to the malignity of this present tyme, with the inclination of
people to erronious opinions, the translation of the newe testament
and the old into the vulgar tonge of englysshe, shulde rather be the
occasion of contynuance or increase of errours amonge the said
people, than any benefit or commodite toward the weale of their
soules," and he determines therefore that the scriptures shall only
be expounded to the people as heretofore, and that these books "be
clerely extermynate and exiled out of this realme of Englande for
ever."

[246] History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 96, folio.

[247] In June, 1574, the queen issued from her "Manour of Greenwich"
this proclamation against "excesse of apparel, and the superfluitie
of unnecessarye foreign wares thereto belonginge," which is declared
to have "growen by sufferance to such an extremetie, that the
manifest decay, not only of a great part of the wealth of the whole
realme generally, is like to follow by bringing into the realme such
superfluities of silkes, clothes of gold, sylver, and other most
vaine devices, of so greate coste for the quantitie thereof; as of
necessitie the moneyes and treasure of the realme is, and must be,
yeerely conveyed out of the same." This is followed by three folio
leaves minutely describing what may be worn on the dresses of every
grade of persons; descending to such minutiae as to note what classes
are not to be allowed to put lace, or fringes, or borders of velvet
upon their gowns and petticoats, under pain of fine or punishment,
because improper for their station, and above their means. The order
appears to have been evaded, for it was followed by another in
February, 1580, which recapitulates these prohibitions, and renders
them more stringent.

[248] The list of a very few of those issued at the early part of
his reign may illustrate this. In 1604 was published a "Proclamation
for the true winding or folding of wools," as well as one "For the
due regulation of prices of victuals within the verge of Kent." In
1605, "Against certain calumnious surmises concerning the church
government of Scotland." In 1608, "A proclamation against making
starch." In 1612, "That none buy or sell any bullion of gold and
silver at higher prices than is appointed to be paid for the same."
Another against dying silk with _slip_ or any corrupt stuff. In
1613, for "Prohibiting the untimely bringing in of wines," as well
as for "Prohibiting the publishing of any reports or writings of
duels," and also "The importation of felt hats or caps." In 1615,
"Prohibiting the making of glass with timber or wood," because "of
late yeeres the waste of wood and timber hath been exceeding great
and intolerable, by the glassehouses and glasseworkes of late in
divers parts erected," and which his majesty fears may have the
effect of depriving England of timber to construct her navy!

[249] I have noticed it in Calamities of Authors.

[250] Lilly, the astrologer, in his memoirs, notes that Thomas
Howard, Earl of Arundel (the famous collector of the Arundelian
marbles now at Oxford), "brought over the new way of building with
brick in the city, greatly to the safety of the city, and
preservation of the wood of this nation."

[251] This proclamation "for the suppression of coffee-houses" bears
date December 20, 1675, and is stated to have been issued because
"the multitude of coffee-houses, lately set up and kept within this
kingdom, and the great resort of idle and dissipated persons to
them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects," particularly
in spreading of rumours, and inducing tradesmen to neglect their
calling, tending to the danger of the commonweal, by the idle waste
of time and money. It therefore orders all coffee-house keepers
"that they, or any of them, do not presume from and after the tenth
day of January next ensuing, to keep any publick coffee-house, or
utter, or sell by retail, in his, her, or their house, or houses (to
be spent or consumed within the same), any coffee, chocolate,
sherbett, or tea; as they will answer it at their utmost peril."

TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY.

This is a subject which has been hitherto but imperfectly comprehended even by some historians themselves; and has too often incurred the satire, and even the contempt, of those volatile spirits who play about the superficies of truth, wanting the industry to view it on more than one side, and those superficial readers who imagine that every tale is told when it is written.

Secret history is the supplement of history itself, and is its great corrector; and the combination of secret with public history has in itself a perfection, which each taken separately has not. The popular historian composes a plausible rather than an accurate tale; researches too fully detailed would injure the just proportions, or crowd the bold design, of the elegant narrative; and facts, presented as they occurred, would not adapt themselves to those theoretical writers of history who arrange events not in a natural, but in a systematic order. But in secret history we are more busied in observing what passes than in being told of it. We are transformed into the contemporaries of the writers, while we are standing on the "vantage ground" of their posterity; and thus what to them appeared ambiguous, to us has become unquestionable; what was secret to them has been confided to us. They mark the beginnings, and we the ends. From the fulness of their accounts we recover much which had been lost to us in the general views of history, and it is by this more intimate acquaintance with persons and circumstances that we are enabled to correct the less distinct, and sometimes the fallacious appearances in the page of the popular historian. He who _only_ views things in masses will have no distinct notion of any one particular; he may be a fanciful or a passionate historian, but he is not the historian who will enlighten while he charms.

But as secret history appears to deal in minute things, its connexion with great results is not usually suspected. The circumstantiality of its story, the changeable shadows of its characters, the redundance of its conversations, and the many careless superfluities which egotism or vanity may throw out, seem usually confounded with that small-talk familiarly termed _gossiping_. But the _gossiping_ of a profound politician or a vivacious observer, in one of their letters, or in their memoirs, often, by a spontaneous stroke, reveals the individual, or by a simple incident unriddles a mysterious event. We may discover the value of these pictures of human nature, with which secret history abounds, by an observation which occurred between two statesmen in office. Lord Raby, our ambassador, apologised to Lord Bolingbroke, then secretary of state, for troubling him with the minuter circumstances which occurred in his conferences; in reply, the minister requests the ambassador to continue the same manner of writing, and alleges an excellent reason: "Those _minute circumstances_ give very great light to the general scope and design of the _persons_ negotiated with. And I own that nothing pleases me more in that valuable collection of the Cardinal D'Ossat's letters, than the _naive_ descriptions which he gives of the looks, gestures, and even tones of voice, of the persons he conferred with." I regret to have to record the opinions of another noble author, who recently has thrown out some degrading notions of secret history, and particularly of the historians. I would have silently passed by a vulgar writer, superficial, prejudiced, and uninformed, but as so many are yet deficient in correct notions of _secret history_, it is but justice that their representative should be heard before they are condemned.

His lordship says, that "Of late the appetite for _Remains_ of all kinds has surprisingly increased. A story repeated by the Duchess of Portsmouth's waiting-woman to Lord Rochester's valet forms the subject of investigation for a philosophical historian; and you may hear of an assembly of scholars and authors discussing the validity of a piece of scandal invented by a maid of honour more than two centuries ago, and repeated to an obscure writer by Queen Elizabeth's housekeeper. It is a matter of the greatest interest to see the _letters_ of every busy trifler. Yet who does not laugh at such men?" This is the attack! but as if some half truths, like light through the cranny in a dark room, had just darted in a stream of atoms over this scoffer at secret history, he suddenly views his object with a very different appearance--for his lordship justly concludes that "It must be confessed, however, that knowledge of this kind is very entertaining; and here and there among the rubbish we find hints that may give the philosopher a clue to important facts, and afford to the moralist a better analysis of the human mind than a whole library of metaphysics!" The philosopher may well abhor all intercourse with wits! because the faculty of judgment is usually quiescent with them; and in their orgasm they furiously decry what in their sober senses they as eagerly laud! Let me inform his lordship, that "the waiting-woman and the valet" of eminent persons are sometimes no unimportant personages in history. By the _Memoires de Mons. de la Porte, premier valet-de-chambre de Louis XIV._, we learn what before "the valet" wrote had not been known--the shameful arts which Mazarin allowed to be practised, to give a bad education to the prince, and to manage him by depraving his tastes. _Madame de Motteville_, in her Memoirs, "the waiting lady" of our Henrietta, has preserved for our own English history some facts which have been found so essential to the narrative, that they are referred to by our historians. In _Gui Joly_, the humble dependant of Cardinal de Retz, we discover an unconscious but a useful commentator on the memoirs of his master; and the most affecting personal anecdotes of Charles the First have been preserved by _Thomas Herbert_, his gentleman in waiting; _Clery_, the valet of Louis the Sixteenth, with pathetic faithfulness, has shown us the man in the monarch whom he served!

Of SECRET HISTORY there are obviously two species; it is positive, or it is relative. It is _positive_, when the facts are first given to the world; a sort of knowledge which can only be drawn from our own personal experience, or from contemporary documents preserved in their manuscript state in public or in private collections; or it is _relative_, in proportion to the knowledge of those to whom it is communicated, and will be more or less valued according to the acquisitions of the reader; and this inferior species of secret history is drawn from rare and obscure books and other published authorities, often as scarce as manuscripts.

Some experience I have had in those literary researches, where cusiosity, ever wakeful and vigilant, discovers among contemporary manuscripts new facts; illustrations of old ones; and sometimes detects, not merely by conjecture, the concealed causes of many events; often opens a scene in which some well-known personage is exhibited in a new character; and thus penetrates beyond those generalising representations which satisfy the superficial, and often cover the page of history with delusion and fiction.

It is only since the latter institution of national libraries that these immense collections of manuscripts have been formed; with us they are an undescribable variety, usually classed under the vague title of "state-papers."[252] The instructions of ambassadors, but more particularly their own dispatches; charters and chronicles brown with antiquity, which preserve a world which had been else lost for us, like the one before the deluge; series upon series of private correspondence, among which we discover the most confidential communications, designed by the writers to have been destroyed by the hand which received them; memoirs of individuals by themselves or by their friends, such as are now published by the pomp of vanity, or the faithlessness of their possessors; and the miscellaneous collections formed by all kinds of persons, characteristic of all countries and of all eras, materials for the history of man!--records of the force or of the feebleness of the human understanding, and still the monuments of their passions.

The original collectors of these dispersed manuscripts were a race of ingenious men, silent benefactors of mankind, to whom justice has not yet been fully awarded; but in their fervour of accumulation, everything in a manuscript state bore its spell; acquisition was the sole point aimed at by our early collectors, and to this these searching spirits sacrificed their fortunes, their ease, and their days; but life would have been too short to have decided on the intrinsic value of the manuscripts flowing in a stream to the collectors; and suppression, even of the disjointed reveries of madmen, or the sensible madness of projectors, might have been indulging a capricious taste, or what has proved more injurious to historical pursuits, that party-feeling which has frequently annihilated the memorials of their adversaries.[253]

These manuscript collections now assume a formidable appearance. A toilsome march over these "Alps rising over Alps!" a voyage in "a sea without a shore!" has turned away most historians from their severer duties; those who have grasped at early celebrity have been satisfied to have given a new form to, rather than contributed to the new matter of history. The very sight of these masses of history has terrified some modern historians. When Pere Daniel undertook a history of France, the learned Boivin, the king's librarian, opened for his inspection an immense treasure of charters, and another of royal autograph letters, and another of private correspondence; treasures reposing in fourteen hundred folios! The modern historian passed two hours impatiently looking over them, but frightened at another plunge into the gulf, this Curtius of history would not immolate himself for his country! He wrote a civil letter to the librarian for his "supernumerary kindness," but insinuated that he could write a very readable history without any further aid of such _paperasses_ or "paper-rubbish." Pere Daniel, therefore, "quietly sat down to his history," copying others--a compliment which was never returned by any one: but there was this striking novelty in his "readable history," that according to the accurate computation of Count Boulainvilliers, Pere Daniel's history of France contains ten thousand blunders! The same circumstance has been told me by a living historian of the late Gilbert Stuart; who, on some manuscript volumes of letters being pointed out to him when composing his history of Scotland, confessed that "what was already printed was more than he was able to read!" and thus much for his theoretical history, written to run counter to another theoretical history, being Stuart versus Robertson! They equally depend on the simplicity of their readers, and the charms of style! Another historian, Anquetil, the author of _L'Esprit de la Ligue_, has described his embarrassment at an inspection of the contemporary manuscripts of that period. After thirteen years of researches to glean whatever secret history printed books afforded, the author, residing in the country, resolved to visit the royal library at Paris. Monsieur Melot receiving him with that kindness which is one of the official duties of the public librarian towards the studious, opened the cabinets in which were deposited the treasures of French history.--"This is what you require! come here at all times, and you shall be attended!" said the librarian to the young historian, who stood by with a sort of shudder, while he opened cabinet after cabinet. The intrepid investigator repeated his visits, looking over the mass as chance directed, attacking one side, and then flying to another. The historian, who had felt no weariness during thirteen years among printed books, discovered that he was now engaged in a task apparently always beginning, and never ending! The "Esprit de la Ligue" was however enriched by labours which at the moment appeared so barren.

The study of these _paperasses_ is not perhaps so disgusting as the impatient Pere Daniel imagined; there is a literary fascination in looking over the same papers which the great characters of history once held and wrote on; catching from themselves their secret sentiments; and often detecting so many of their unrecorded actions! By habit the toil becomes light; and with a keen inquisitive spirit even delightful! For what is more delightful to the curious than to make fresh discoveries every day? Addison has a true and pleasing observation on such pursuits. "Our employments are converted into amusements, so that even in those objects which were indifferent, or even displeasing to us, the mind not only gradually loses its aversion, but conceives a certain fondness and affection for them." Addison illustrates this case by one of the greatest geniuses of the age, who by habit took incredible pleasure in searching into rolls and records, till he preferred them to Virgil and Cicero! The faculty of curiosity is as fervid, and even as refined in its search after truth, as that of taste in the objects of imagination; and the more it is indulged, the more exquisitely it is enjoyed!

The popular historians of England and of France have, in truth, made little use of manuscript researches. Life is very short for long histories; and those who rage with an avidity of fame or profit will gladly taste the fruit which they cannot mature. Researches too remotely sought after, or too slowly acquired, or too fully detailed, would be so many obstructions in the smooth texture of a narrative. Our theoretical historians write from some particular and preconceived result; unlike Livy, and De Thou, and Machiavel, who describe events in their natural order, these cluster them together by the fanciful threads of some political or moral theory, by which facts are distorted, displaced, and sometimes altogether omitted! One single original document has sometimes shaken into dust their Palladian edifice of history. At the moment Hume was sending some sheets of his history to press, Murdin's State Papers appeared. And we are highly amused and instructed by a letter of our historian to his rival, Robertson, who probably found himself often in the same forlorn situation. Our historian discovered in that collection what compelled him to retract his preconceived system--he hurries to stop the press, and paints his confusion and his anxiety with all the ingenuous simplicity of his nature. "We are all in the wrong!" he exclaims. Of Hume I have heard that certain manuscripts at the State Paper Office had been prepared for his inspection during a fortnight, but he never could muster courage to pay his promised visit. Satisfied with the common accounts, and the most obvious sources of history, when librarian at the Advocates' Library, where yet may be examined the books he used, marked by his hand, he spread the volumes about the sofa, from which he rarely rose to pursue obscure inquiries, or delay by fresh difficulties the page which every day was growing under his charming pen. A striking proof of his careless happiness I discovered in his never referring to the perfect edition of "Whitelocke's Memorials" of 1732, but to the old truncated and faithless one of 1682.

Dr. Birch was a writer with no genius for composition, but one to whom British history stands more indebted than to any superior author; his incredible love of labour, in transcribing with his own hand a large library of manuscripts from originals dispersed in public and in private repositories, has enriched the British Museum by thousands of the most authentic documents of genuine secret history. He once projected a collection of original historical letters, for which he had prepared a preface, where I find the following passage:--"It is a more important service to the public to contribute _something not before known_ to the general fund of history, than to give new form and colour to what we are already possessed of, by superadding refinement and ornament, which too often tend _to disguise the real state of the facts_; a fault not to be atoned for by the pomp of _style_, or even the fine _eloquence_ of the historian." This was an oblique stroke aimed at Robertson, to whom Birch had generously opened the stores of history, for the Scotch historian had needed all his charity; but Robertson's attractive inventions and highly-finished composition seduce the public taste; and we may forgive the latent spark of envy in the honest feelings of the man, who was profoundly skilled in delving in the native beds of ore, but not in fashioning it; and whose own neglected historical works, constructed on the true principles of secret history, we may often turn over to correct the erroneous, the prejudiced, and the artful accounts of those who have covered their faults by "the pomp of style, and the eloquence of the historian."

The large manuscript collections of original documents, from whence may be drawn what I have called _positive secret history_, are, as I observed, comparatively of modern existence. Formerly they were widely dispersed in private hands; and the nature of such sources of historic discovery but rarely occurred to our writers. Even had they sought them, their access must have been partial and accidental. Lord Hardwicke has observed, that there are still many untouched manuscript collections within these kingdoms, which, through the ignorance or inattention of their owners, are condemned to dust and obscurity; but how valuable and essential they may be to the interests of authentic history and of sacred truth, cannot be more strikingly demonstrated than in the recent publications of the Marlborough and the Shrewsbury Papers by Archdeacon Coxe.[254] The editor was fully authorised to observe, "It is singular that those transactions should either have been passed over in silence, or imperfectly represented by most of our national historians." Our modern history would have been a mere political romance, without the astonishing picture of William and his ministers, exhibited in those unquestionable documents. Burnet was among the first of our modern historians who showed the world the preciousness of such materials, in his "History of the Reformation," which he largely drew from the Cottonian collection. Our early historians only repeated a tale ten times told. Milton, who wanted not for literary diligence, had no fresh stores to open for his "History of England;" while Hume despatches, comparatively in a few pages, a subject which has afforded to the fervent diligence of my learned friend Sharon Turner volumes precious to the antiquary, the lawyer, and the philosopher.