Chapter XXIII: Part 23

Charles has been censured, even by Hume, for his "evasions and delays" in granting his assent to the "Petition of Right;" but now, either the parliament had conquered the royal unwillingness, or the king was zealously inclined on reconciliation. Yet the joy of the commons did not outlast the bonfires in the streets; they resumed their debates as if they had never before touched on the subjects: they did not account for the feelings of the man whom they addressed as the sovereign. They sent up a "Remonstrance" against the duke,[315] and introduced his mother into it, as a patroness of popery. Charles declared, that after having granted the famous "Petition," he had not expected such a return as this "Remonstrance." "How acceptable it is," he afterwards said, "every man may judge; no wise man can justify it." After the reading of the Remonstrance, the duke fell on his knees, desiring to answer for himself; but Charles no way relaxed in showing his personal favour.[316]

The duke was often charged with actions and with expressions of which, unquestionably, he was not always guilty; and we can more fairly decide on some points relating to Charles and the favourite, for we have a clearer notion of them than his contemporaries. The active spirits in the commons were resolved to hunt down the game to the death: for they now struck at, as the king calls it, "one of the chief maintenances of my crown," in tonnage and poundage, the levying of which, they now declared, was a violation of the liberties of the people. This subject again involved legal discussions, and another "Remonstrance." They were in the act of reading it, when the king suddenly came down to the house, sent for the Speaker, and prorogued the parliament. "I am forced to end this session," said Charles, "some few hours before I meant, being not willing to receive any more Remonstrances, to which I must give a harsh answer." There was at least as much of sorrow as of anger in this closing speech.

Buckingham once more was to offer his life for the honour of his master--and to court popularity! It is well known with what exterior fortitude Charles received the news of the duke's assassination; this imperturbable majesty of his mind--insensibility it was not--never deserted him on many similar occasions. There was no indecision--no feebleness in his conduct; and that extraordinary event was not suffered to delay the expedition. The king's personal industry astonished all the men in office. One writes that the king had done more in six weeks than in the duke's time had been done in six months. The death of Buckingham caused no change; the king left every man to his own charge, but took the general direction into his own hands.[317] In private, Charles deeply mourned the loss of Buckingham; he gave no encouragement to his enemies: the king called him "his martyr," and declared "the world was greatly mistaken in him; for it was thought that the favourite had ruled his majesty, but it was far otherwise; for that the duke had been to him a faithful and an obedient servant."[318] Such were the feelings and ideas of the unfortunate Charles the First, which it is necessary to become acquainted with to judge of; few have possessed the leisure or the disposition to perform this historical duty, involved as it is in the history of our passions. If ever the man shall be viewed, as well as the monarch, the private history of Charles the First will form one of the most pathetic of biographies.[319]

All the foreign expeditions of Charles the First were alike disastrous: the vast genius of Richelieu, at its meridian, had paled our ineffectual star! The dreadful surrender of Rochelle had sent back our army and navy baffled and disgraced; and Buckingham had timely perished, to save one more reproach, one more political crime, attached to his name. Such failures did not improve the temper of the times; but the most brilliant victory would not have changed the fate of Charles, nor allayed the fiery spirits in the commons, who, as Charles said, "not satisfied in hearing complainers, had erected themselves into inquisitors after complaints."

Parliament met. The king's speech was conciliatory. He acknowledged that the exaction of the duties of the customs was not a right which he derived from his hereditary prerogative, but one which he enjoyed as the gift of his people. These duties as yet had not indeed been formally confirmed by parliament, but they had never been refused to the sovereign. The king closed with a fervent ejaculation that the session, begun with confidence, might end with a mutual good understanding.[320]

The shade of Buckingham was no longer cast between Charles the First and the commons. And yet we find that "their dread and dear sovereign" was not allowed any repose on the throne.

A new demon of national discord, Religion, in a metaphysical garb, reared its distracted head. This evil spirit had been raised by the conduct of the court divines, whose political sermons, with their attempts to return to the more solemn ceremonies of the Romish church, alarmed some tender consciences; it served as a masked battery for the patriotic party to change their ground at will, without slackening their fire. When the king urged for the duties of his customs, he found that he was addressing a committee sitting for religion. Sir John Eliot threw out a singular expression. Alluding to some of the bishops, whom he called "masters of ceremonies," he confessed that some ceremonies were commendable, such as "that we should stand up at the repetition of the creed, to testify the resolution of our hearts to defend the religion we profess, and in some churches they did not only stand upright, but _with their swords drawn_." His speech was a spark that fell into a well-laid train; scarcely can we conceive the enthusiastic temper of the House of Commons at that moment, when, after some debate, they entered into _a vow_ to preserve "the articles of religion established by parliament in the _thirteenth year of our late Queen Elizabeth_!" and this _vow_ was immediately followed up by a petition to the king for _a fast_ for the increasing miseries of the reformed churches abroad. Parliaments are liable to have their passions! Some of these enthusiasts were struck by a panic, not perhaps warranted by the danger, of "Jesuits and Armenians." The king answered them in good-humour; observing, however, on the state of the reformed abroad; "that fighting would do them more good than fasting." He granted them their fast, but they would now grant no return; for now they presented "a Declaration" to the king, that tonnage and poundage must give precedency to religion! The king's answer still betrays no ill temper. He confessed that he did not think that "religion was in so much danger as they affirmed." He reminds them of tonnage and poundage; "I do not so much desire it out of greediness of the thing, as out of a desire to put an end to those questions that arise between me and some of my subjects."

Never had the king been more moderate in his claims, or more tender in his style; and never had the commons been more fierce, and never, in truth, so utterly inexorable! Often kings are tyrannical, and sometimes are parliaments! A body corporate, with the infection of passion, may perform acts of injustice equally with the individual who abuses the power with which he is invested. It was insisted that Charles should give up the receivers of the customs, who were denounced as capital enemies to the king and kingdom; while those who submitted to the duties were declared guilty as accessories. When Sir John Eliot was pouring forth invectives against some courtiers--however they may have merited the blast of his eloquence--he was sometimes interrupted and sometimes cheered, for the stinging personalities. The timid Speaker, refusing to put the question, suffered a severe reprimand from Selden: "If you will not put it, we must sit still, and thus we shall never be able to do anything!" The house adjourned in great heat; the dark prognostic of their next meeting, which Sir Symonds D'Ewes has remarked in his Diary as "the most gloomy, sad, and dismal day for England that happened for five hundred years!"

On this fatal day,[321] the Speaker still refusing to put the question, and announcing the king's command for an adjournment, Sir John Eliot stood up! The Speaker attempted to leave the chair, but two members, who had placed themselves on each side, forcibly kept him down--Eliot, who had prepared "a short declaration," flung down a paper on the floor, crying out that it might be read! His party vociferated for the reading--others that it should not. A sudden tumult broke out; Coriton, a fervent patriot, struck another member, and many laid their hands on their swords.[322] "Shall we," said one, "be sent home as we were last sessions, turned off like scattered sheep?" The weeping, trembling Speaker, still persisting in what he held to be his duty, was dragged to and fro by opposite parties; but neither he nor the clerk would read the paper, though the Speaker was bitterly reproached by his kinsman, Sir Peter Hayman, "as the disgrace of his country, and a blot to a noble family." Eliot, finding the house so strongly divided, undauntedly snatching up the paper, said, "I shall then express that by my tongue which this paper should have done." Denzil Holles assumed the character of Speaker, putting the question: it was returned by the acclamations of the party. The doors were locked and the keys laid on the table. The king sent for the serjeant and mace, but the messenger could obtain no admittance--the usher of the black rod met no more regard. The king then ordered out his guard--in the meanwhile the protest was completed. The door was flung open, the rush of the members was so impetuous that the crowd carried away among them the serjeant and the usher in the confusion and riot. Many of the members were struck by horror amidst this conflict, it was a sad image of the future! Several of the patriots were committed to the Tower. The king on dissolving this parliament, which was the last till the memorable "Long Parliament," gives us, at least, his idea of it:--"It is far from me to judge all the House alike guilty, for there are there as dutiful subjects as any in the world; it being but some few vipers among them that did cast this mist of undutifulness over most of their eyes."[323]

Thus have I traced, step by step, the secret history of Charles the First and his early Parliaments. I have entered into their feelings, while I have supplied new facts, to make everything as present and as true as my faithful diligence could repeat the tale. It was necessary that I should sometimes judge of the first race of our patriots as some of their contemporaries did; but it was impossible to avoid correcting these notions by the more enlarged views of their posterity. This is the privilege of an historian and the philosophy of his art. There is no apology for the king, nor any declamation for the subject. Were we only to decide by the final results of this great conflict, of which what we have here narrated is but the faint beginning, we should confess that Sir John Eliot and his party were the first fathers of our political existence; and we should not withhold from them the inexpressible gratitude of a nation's freedom! But human infirmity mortifies us in the noblest pursuits of man; and we must be taught this penitential and chastising wisdom. The story of our patriots is involved; Charles appears to have been lowering those high notions of his prerogative, which were not peculiar to him, and was throwing himself on the bosom of his people. The severe and unrelenting conduct of Sir John Eliot, his prompt eloquence and bold invective, well fitted him for the leader of a party. He was the lodestone, drawing together the looser particles of iron. Never sparing, in the monarch, the errors of the man, never relinquishing his royal prey, which he had fastened on, Eliot, with Dr. Turner and some others, contributed to make Charles disgusted with all parliaments. Without any dangerous concessions, there was more than one moment when they might have reconciled the sovereign to themselves, and not have driven him to the fatal resource of attempting to reign without a parliament![324]

FOOTNOTES:

[286] From manuscript letters of the times.

[287] Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 317.

[288] The king had said in his speech to parliament, "I must let you
know I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned among you,
much less such as are of eminent place, and near unto me;" hence the
security of Buckingham, who showed the most perfect contempt for the
speakers who thus violently attacked him.

[289] Our printed historical documents, Kennett, Frankland, &c., are
confused in their details, and facts seem misplaced for want of
dates. They all equally copy Rushworth, the only source of our
history of this period. Even Hume is involved in the obscurity. The
king's speech was on the _eleventh_ of May. As Rushworth has not
furnished dates, it would seem that the two orators had been sent to
the Tower _before the king's speech_ to the lords.

[290] The king attended the House of Lords to explain his intentions
verbally, taking the minister with him, though under impeachment.
"Touching the matters against him," said the king, "I myself can be
a witness to clear him in every one of them."

[291] They decided on stopping all business till satisfaction was
given them, which ended in the release of Digges and Eliot in a few
days.

[292] Frankland, an inveterate royalist, in copying Rushworth, inserts
"their _pretended_ liberties;" exactly the style of catholic writers
when they mention protestantism by "la religion _pretendue
reformee_." All party writers use the same style!

[293] The strength of the popular hatred may be seen in the articles
on Buckingham and Felton in vol. ii. Satires in manuscript abounded,
and by their broad-spoken pungency rendered the duke a perfect _bete
noir_ to the people.

[294] Manuscript letter.

[295] Rushworth, i. 400. Hume, vi. 221, who enters widely into the
views and feelings of Charles.

[296] The Radicals of that day differed from ours in the means,
though not in the end. They at least referred to their Bibles, and
rather more than was required; but superstition is as mad as
atheism! Many of the puritans confused their brains with the study
of the Revelations; believing Prince Henry to be prefigured in the
Apocalypse, some prophesied that he should overthrow "the beast."
Ball, our tailor, was this very prophet; and was so honest as to
believe in his own prophecy. Osborn tells, that Ball put out money
on adventure; _i.e._, to receive it back double or treble, when
King James should be elected pope! So that though he had no money
for a loan, he had to spare for a prophecy.

This Ball has been confounded with a more ancient radical, Ball, a
priest, and a principal mover in Wat Tyler's insurrection. Our Ball
must have been very notorious, for Jonson has noticed his "admired
discourses." Mr. Gifford, without any knowledge of my account of
this tailor-prophet, by his active sagacity has rightly indicated
him.--See Jonson's Works, vol. v. p. 241.

[297] It is curious to observe that the Westminster elections, in
the fourth year of Charles's reign, were exactly of the same
turbulent character as those which we witness in our days. The duke
had counted by his interest to bring in Sir Robert Pye. The contest
was severe, but accompanied by some of those ludicrous
electioneering scenes which still amuse the mob. Whenever Sir Robert
Pye's party cried--"A Pye! a Pye! a Pye!" the adverse party would
cry--"A pudding! a pudding! a pudding!" and others--"A lie! a lie! a
lie!" This Westminster election of two hundred years ago ended as we
have seen some others; they rejected all who had urged the payment
of the loans; and, passing by such men as Sir Robert Cotton, and
their last representative, they fixed on a brewer and a grocer for
the two members for Westminster.

[298] Extract from a manuscript letter:--"On Friday last I hear, but
as a secret, that it was debated at the council-table whether our
Essex men, who refused to take press-money, should not be punished
by martial-law, and hanged up on the next tree to their dwellings,
for an example of terror to others. My lord keeper, who had been
long silent, when, in conclusion, it came to his course to speak,
told the lords, that as far as he understood the law, _none were
liable to martial law but martial men_. If these had taken
press-money, and afterwards run from their colours, they might then
be punished in that manner; but yet they were no soldiers, and
refused to be. Secondly, he thought a subsidy, new by law, could not
be pressed against his will for a foreign service; it being
supposed, in law, the service of his purse excused that of his
person, unless his own country were in danger; and he appealed to my
lord treasurer, and my lord president, whether it was not so, who
both assented it was so, though some of them faintly, as unwilling
to have been urged to such an answer. So it is thought that
proposition is dashed; and it will be tried what may be done in the
Star-chamber against these refractories."

[299] A member of the house, in James the First's time, called this
race of divines "Spaniels to the court and wolves to the people."
Dr. Mainwaring, Dr. Sibthorpe, and Dean Bargrave were seeking for
ancient precedents to maintain absolute monarchy, and to inculcate
passive obedience. Bargrave had this passage in his sermon: "It was
the speech of a man renowned for wisdom in our age, that if he were
_commanded_ to put forth to sea in a ship that had neither mast nor
tackling, he would do it:" and being asked what wisdom that were,
replied, "The wisdom must be in him that hath power to command, not
in him that conscience binds to obey." Sibthorpe, after he published
his sermon, immediately had his house burnt down. Dr. Mainwaring,
says a manuscript letter-writer, "sent the other day to a friend of
mine, to help him to all the ancient precedents he could find, to
strengthen his opinion (for absolute monarchy), who answered him he
could help him in nothing but only to hang him, and that if he lived
till a parliament, or, &c., he should be sure of a halter."
Mainwaring afterwards submitted to parliament; but after the
dissolution got a free pardon. The panic of popery was a great evil.
The divines, under Laud, appeared to approach to Catholicism; but it
was probably only a project of reconciliation between the two
churches, which Elizabeth, James, and Charles equally wished. Mr.
Cosins, a letter-writer, is censured for "superstition" in this
bitter style: "Mr. Cosins has impudently made three editions of his
prayer-book, and one which he gives away in private, different from
the published ones. An audacious fellow, whom my Lord of Durham
greatly admireth. I doubt if he be a sound protestant: he was so
blind at even-song on Candlemas-day, that he could not see to read
prayers in the minster with less than three hundred and forty
candles, whereof sixty he caused to be placed about the high altar;
besides he caused the picture of our Saviour, supported by two
angels, to be set in the choir. The committee is very hot against
him, and no matter if they trounce him." This was Cosins, who
survived the revolution, and returning with Charles the Second, was
raised to the see of Durham: the charitable institutions he has left
are most munificent.

[300] Rushworth's Collections, i. 514.

[301] I deliver this fact as I find it in a private letter; but it
is noticed in the Journals of the House of Commons, 23 Junii, 4to.
Caroli Regis. "Sir Edward Coke reporteth that they find that,
enclosed in the letter, to be unfit for any subject's ear to hear.
Read but one line and a half of it, and could not endure to read
more of it. It was ordered to be sealed and delivered into the
king's hands by eight members, and to acquaint his majesty with the
place and time of finding it; particularly that upon the reading of
one line and a half at most, they would read no more, but sealed it
up, and brought it to the House."

[302] I have since discovered, by a manuscript letter, that this
_Dr. Turner_ was held in contempt by the king; that he was ridiculed
at court, which he haunted, for his want of veracity; in a word,
that he was a disappointed courtier!

[303] This circumstance is mentioned in a manuscript letter; what
Cooke declared to the House is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 525.

[304] I refer the critical student of our history to the duke's
speech at the council-table as it appears in Rushworth, i. 525: but
what I add respecting his personal sacrifices is from manuscript
letters. Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 490, &c.

[305] On this subject, see note to the brief article on Buckingham
in vol. i.

[306] Curiosities of Literature, First Series, vol. iii. p. 438, ed.
1817; vol. v. p. 277, ed. 1823; vol. iii. p. 429, ed. 1824; vol. iv.
p. 148 ed. 1834; p. 301, ed. 1840, or vol. ii. p. 357, of this
edition.

[307] I find this speech, and an account of its reception, in
manuscript letters; the fragment in Rushworth contains no part of
it. I. 526. Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 490, &c.

[308] Modern history would afford more instances than perhaps some
of us suspect. I cannot pass over an illustration of my principle,
which I shall take from two very notorious politicians--Wat Tyler
and Sir William Walworth!

Wat, when in servitude, had been beaten by his master, Richard
Lyons, a great merchant of wines, and a sheriff of London. This
chastisement, working on an evil disposition, appears never to have
been forgiven; and when this Radical assumed his short-lived
dominion, he had his old master beheaded, and his head carried
before him on the point of a spear! So Grafton tells us, to the
eternal obloquy of this arch-jacobin, who "was a crafty fellow, and
of an excellent wit, but wanting grace." I would not sully the
patriotic blow which ended the rebellion with the rebel; yet there
are secrets in history! Sir William Walworth, "the ever famous mayor
of London," as Stowe designates him, has left the immortality of his
name to one of our suburbs; but having discovered in Stowe's
"Survey," that Walworth was the landlord of the stews on the
Bank-side, which he farmed out to the Dutch _vrows_, and which Wat
had pulled down, I am inclined to suspect that private feeling first
knocked down the saucy ribald, and then thrust him through and
through with his dagger; and that there was as much of personal
vengeance as patriotism, which crushed the demolisher of so much
valuable property!

[309] I have formed my idea of Sir Francis Nethersole from some
strange incidents in his _political_ conduct, which I have read in
some contemporary letters. He was, however, a man of some eminence,
had been Orator for the University of Cambridge, agent for James I.
with the Princes of the Union in Germany, and also Secretary to the
Queen of Bohemia. He founded and endowed a free-school at Polesworth
in Warwickshire.

[310] Manuscript letter.

[311] These speeches are entirely drawn from those manuscript letters
to which I have frequently referred. Coke's may be substantially
found in Rushworth, but without a single expression as here given.

[312] The popular opinion is well expressed in the following lines
preserved in Sloane MS. 826:--

When only one doth rule and guide the ship,
Who neither card nor compass knew before,
The master pilot and the rest asleep,
The stately ship is split upon the shore;
But they awaking start up, stare, and cry,
"Who did this fault?"--"Not I,"--"Nor I,"--"Nor I."
So fares it with a great and wealthy state
Not govern'd by the master, but his mate.

[313] This last letter is printed in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 609.

[314] The king's answer is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 613.

[315] This eloquent state paper is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 619.

[316] This interview is taken from manuscript letters.

[317] Manuscript Letters: Lord Dorset to the Earl of Carlisle.--Sloane
MSS. 4178. Letter 519.

[318] Manuscript Letter.

[319] I have given (vol. ii. p. 336) the "Secret History of Charles
the First and his Queen," where I have traced the firmness and
independence of his character. In another article will be found as
much of the "Secret History of the Duke of Buckingham" as I have
been enabled to acquire.

[320] "To conclude," said the king; "let us not be jealous one of
the other's actions."

[321] Monday, 2nd of March, 1629.

[322] It was imagined out of doors that swords had been drawn; for a
Welsh page running in great haste, when he heard the noise, to the
door, cried out, "I pray you let hur in! let hur in! to give hur
master his sword!"--_Manuscript Letter._

[323] At the time many undoubtedly considered that it was a mere
faction in the house. Sir Symonds D'Ewes was certainly no
politician--but, unquestionably, his ideas were not peculiar to
himself. Of the last third parliament he delivers this opinion in
his Diary: "I cannot deem but the greater part of the house were
morally honest men; but these were the least guilty of the fatal
breach, being only misled by _some other Machiavelian politics, who
seemed zealous for the liberty of the commonwealth_, and by that
means, _in the moving of their outward freedom_, drew the votes of
those good men to their side."

[324] Since the publication of the present article, I have composed
my "Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First," in
five volumes.

482 THE RUMP.

Text and commentary! The French Revolution abounds with wonderful "explanatory notes" on the English. It has cleared up many obscure passages--and in the political history of Man, both pages must be read together.

The opprobrious and ludicrous nickname of "the Rump," stigmatised a faction which played the same part in the English Revolution as the "Montagne" of the Jacobins did in the French. It has been imagined that our English Jacobins were impelled by a principle different from that of their modern rivals; but the madness of avowed atheism, and the frenzy of hypocritical sanctity, in the circle of crimes meet at the same point. Their history forms one of those useful parallels where, with truth as unerring as mathematical demonstration, we discover the identity of human nature. Similarity of situation, and certain principles, producing similar personages and similar events, finally settle in the same results. The Rump, as long as human nature exists, can be nothing but the Rump, however it may be thrown uppermost.

The origin of this political by-name has often been inquired into; and it is somewhat curious, that, though all parties consent to reprobate it, each assigns for it a different allusion. In the history of political factions there is always a mixture of the ludicrous with the tragic; but, except their modern brothers, no faction like the present ever excited such a combination of extreme contempt and extreme horror.

Among the rival parties in 1659, the loyalists and the presbyterians acted as we may suppose the Tories and the Whigs would in the same predicament; a secret reconciliation had taken place, to bury in oblivion their former jealousies, that they might unite to rid themselves from that tyranny of tyrannies, a hydra-headed government; or, as Hume observes, that "all efforts should be used for the overthrow of the Rump; so they called the parliament, in allusion to that part of the animal body." The sarcasm of the allusion seemed obvious to our polished historian; yet, looking more narrowly for its origin, we shall find how indistinct were the notions of this nickname among those who lived nearer to the times. Evelyn says that "the Rump parliament was so called as containing some few rotten members of the other." Roger Coke describes it thus: "You must now be content with a piece of the Commons called 'the Rump.'" And Carte calls the Rump, "the carcass of a house," and seems not precisely aware of the contemptuous allusion. But how do "rotten members" and "a carcass" agree with the notion of "a Rump?" Recently the editor of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson has conveyed a novel origin. "The number of the members of the Long Parliament having been by seclusion, death, &c., very much reduced,"--a remarkable &c. this! by which our editor seems adroitly to throw a veil over the forcible transportation by the Rumpers of two hundred members at one swoop,--"the remainder was compared to the _rump of a fowl which was left_, all the rest being eaten." Our editor even considers this to be "a coarse emblem;" yet "the rump of a fowl" could hardly offend even a lady's delicacy! Our editor, probably, was somewhat anxious not to degrade _too lowly_ the anti-monarchical party, designated by this opprobrious term. Perhaps it is pardonable in Mrs. Macaulay, an historical lady, and a "Rumper," for she calls the "Levellers" a "brave and virtuous party," to have passed over in _her_ history any mention of the offensive term at all, as well as the ridiculous catastrophe which they underwent in the political revolution, which, however, we must beg leave not to pass by.

This party-coinage has been ascribed to Clement Walker, their bitter antagonist; who, having sacrificed no inconsiderable fortune to the cause of what he considered constitutional liberty, was one of the violent ejected members of the Long Parliament, and perished in prison, a victim to honest, unbending principles. His "History of Independency" is a rich legacy bequeathed to posterity, of all their great misdoings, and their petty villanies, and, above all, of their secret history. One likes to know of what blocks the idols of the people are sometimes carved out.

Clement Walker notices "the votes and acts of this _fag end_; this RUMP of a parliament, with corrupt maggots in it."[325] This hideous, but descriptive image of "The Rump" had, however, got forward before, for the collector of "the Rump Songs"[326] tells us, "If you ask who named it _Rump_, know 'twas so styled in an honest sheet of prayer, called 'The Bloody Rump,' written _before the trial_ of our late sovereign; but the word obtained not _universal notice_, till it flew from the mouth of Major-General Brown, at a public assembly in the days of Richard Cromwell." Thus it happens that a stinging nickname has been frequently applied to render a faction eternally odious; and the chance expression of a wit, when adopted on some public occasion, circulates among a whole people. The present nickname originated in derision on the expulsion of the majority of the Long Parliament by the usurping minority. It probably slept; for who would have stirred it through the Protectorate? and finally awakened at Richard's restored, but fleeting "Rump," to witness its own ridiculous extinction.

Our Rump passed through three stages in its political progress. Preparatory to the trial of the sovereign, the anti-monarchical party constituted the minority in "the _Long_ Parliament:" the very name by which this parliament is recognised seemed a grievance to an impatient people, vacillating with chimerical projects of government, and now accustomed, from a wild indefinite notion of political equality, to pull down all existing institutions. Such was the temper of the times, that an act of the most violent injustice, openly performed, served only as the jest of the day, a jest which has passed into history. The forcible expulsion of two hundred of their brother members, by those who afterwards were saluted as "The Rump," was called "Pride's Purge," from the activity of a colonel of that name, a military adventurer, who was only the blind and brutal instrument of his party; for when he stood at the door of the Commons, holding a paper with the names of the members, he did not personally know one! And his "Purge" might have operated a quite opposite effect, administered by his own unskilful hand, had not Lord Grey of Groby, and the door-keeper,--worthy dispersers of the British senate!--pointed out the obnoxious members, on whom our colonel laid his hand, and sent off by his men to be detained, if a bold member, or to be deterred from sitting in the house, if a frightened one. This colonel had been a drayman; and the contemptible knot of the Commons, reduced to fifty or sixty confederates, which assembled after his "Purge," were called "Colonel Pride's Dray-Horses."

It was this Rump which voted the death of the sovereign, and abolished the regal office, and the House of Peers--as "unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous!" Every office in parliament seemed "dangerous," but that of the "Custodes libertatis Angliae," the keepers of the liberties of England! or rather "the gaolers!" "The legislative half-quarter of the House of Commons!" indignantly exclaims Clement Walker--the "Montagne" of the French revolutionists!

The "Red-coats" as the military were nicknamed, soon taught their masters, "the Rumpers," silence and obedience: the latter having raised one colossal man for their own purpose, were annihilated by him at a single blow. Cromwell, five years after, turned them out of their house, and put the keys into his pocket. Their last public appearance was in the fleeting days of Richard Cromwell, when the comi-tragedy of "the Rump" concluded by a catastrophe as ludicrous as that of Tom Thumb's tragedy!

How such a faction used their instruments to gather in the common spoil, and how their instruments at length converted the hands which held them into instruments themselves, appears in their history. When "the Long Parliament" opposed the designs of Cromwell and Ireton, these chiefs cried up "the liberty of the people," and denied "the authority of parliament:" but when they had effectuated their famous "purge," and formed a House of Commons of themselves, they abolished the House of Lords, crying up the supreme authority of the House of Commons, and crying down the liberty of the people. Such is the history of political factions, as well as of statesmen! Charles the Fifth alternately made use of the Pope's authority to subdue the rising spirit of the Protestants of Germany, or raised an army of Protestants to imprison the Pope! who branded his German allies by the novel and odious name of Lutherans. A chain of similar facts may be framed out of modern history.

The "Rump," as they were called by every one but their own party, became a whetstone for the wits to sharpen themselves on; and we have two large collections of "Rump Songs," curious chronicles of popular feeling![327] Without this evidence we should not have been so well informed respecting the phases of this portentous phenomenon. "The Rump" was celebrated in verse, till at length it became "the Rump of a Rump of a Rump!" as Foulis traces them to their dwindled and grotesque appearance. It is pourtrayed by a wit of the times--

The Rump's an old story, if well understood,
'Tis a thing dress'd up in a parliament's hood,
And like it--but the tail stands where the head shou'd!
'Twould make a man scratch where it does not itch!
They say 'tis good luck when a body rises
With the rump upwards; but he that advises
To live in that posture, is none of the wisest.

Cromwell's hunting them out of the House by military force is alluded to--

Our politic doctors do us teach,
That a blood-sucking red-coat's as good as a leech
To relieve the head, if applied to the breech.

In the opening scene of the Restoration, Mrs. Hutchinson, an honest republican, paints with dismay a scene otherwise very ludicrous. "When the town of Nottingham, as almost all the rest of the island, began to grow mad, and declared themselves in their desires of the king;" or, as another of the opposite party writes, "When the soldiery, who had hitherto made _clubs trumps_, resolved now to turn up the _king of hearts_ in their affections," the rabble in town and country vied with each other in burning the "Rump;" and the literal emblem was hung by chains on gallowses, with a bonfire underneath, while the cries of "Let us burn the Rump! Let us roast the Rump!" were echoed everywhere. The suddenness of this universal change, which was said to have maddened the wise, and to have sobered the mad, must be ascribed to the joy at escaping from the yoke of a military despotism; perhaps, too, it marked the rapid transition of hope to a restoration which might be supposed to have implanted gratitude even in a royal breast! The feelings of the people expected to find an echo from the throne!

"The Rump," besides their general resemblance to the French anarchists, had also some minuter features of ugliness, which Englishmen have often exulted have not marked an English revolution--sanguinary proscriptions![328] We had thought that we had no revolutionary tribunals! no Septembrisers! no noyades! no moveable guillotines awaiting for carts loaded with human victims! no infuriated republican urging, in a committee of public safety, the necessity of a salutary massacre!

But if it be true that the same motives and the same principles were at work in both nations, and that the like characters were performing in England the parts which they did afterwards in France, by an argument _a priori_ we might be sure that the same revolting crimes and chimerical projects were alike suggested at London as at Paris. Human nature, even in transactions which appear unparalleled, will be found to preserve a regularity of resemblance not always suspected.

The first great tragic act was closely copied by the French: and if the popular page of our history appears unstained by their revolutionary axe, this depended only on a slight accident; for it became a question of "yea" and "nay!" and was only carried in the negative by _two voices_ in the council! It was debated among "the bloody Rump," as it was hideously designated, "whether to massacre and to put to the sword _all the king's party_!"[329] Cromwell himself listened to the suggestion; and it was only put down by the coolness of political calculation--the dread that the massacre would be _too general_! Some of the Rump not obtaining the blessedness of a massacre, still clung to the happiness of an immolation; and many petitions were presented, that "_two or three principal gentlemen_ of the royal party in EACH COUNTY might be sacrificed to justice, whereby the land might be saved from _blood-guiltiness_!" Sir Arthur Haslerigg, whose "passionate fondness of liberty" has been commended,[330] was one of the committee of safety in 1647--I too would commend "a passionate lover of liberty," whenever I do not discover that this lover is much more intent on the dower than on the bride. Haslerigg, "an absurd, bold man," as Clarendon, at a single stroke, reveals his character, was resolved not to be troubled with king or bishop, or with any power in the state superior to "the Rump's." We may safely suspect the patriot who can cool his vehemence in spoliation. Haslerigg would have no bishops, but this was not from any want of reverence for church lands, for he heaped for himself such wealth as to have been nicknamed "the Bishop of Durham!" He is here noticed for a political crime different from that of plunder. When, in 1647, this venerable radical found the parliament resisting his views, he declared that "Some heads must fly off!" adding, "the parliament cannot save England; we must look another way;"--threatening, what afterwards was done, to bring in the army! It was this "passionate lover of liberty" who, when Dorislaus, the parliamentary agent, was assassinated by some Scotchmen in Holland, moved in the house, that "six royalists of the best quality" should be immediately executed! When some northern counties petitioned the Commons for relief against a famine in the land, our Maratist observed, that "this _want of food_ would best defend those counties from Scottish invasion!"[331] The slaughter of Drogheda by Cromwell, and his frightening all London by what Walker calls "a butchery of apprentices," when he cried out to his soldiers, "to kill man, woman, and child, and fire the city!"[332] may be placed among those crimes which are committed to open a reign of terror--but Hugh Peters's solemn thanksgiving to Heaven that "none were spared!" was the true expression of the true feeling of these political demoniacs. Cromwell was cruel from politics, others from constitution. Some were willing to be cruel without "blood-guiltiness." One Alexander Rigby, a radical lawyer, twice moved in the Long Parliament, that those _lords and gentlemen_ who were "malignants," should be _sold as slaves to the Dey of Algiers_, or sent off to the new plantations in the West Indies. He had all things prepared; for it is added that he had contracted with two merchants to ship them off.[333] There was a most bloody-minded "maker of washing-balls," as one John Durant is described, appointed a lecturer by the House of Commons, who always left out of the Lord's Prayer, "As we forgive them that trespass against us," and substituted, "Lord, since thou hast now drawn out thy sword, let it not be sheathed again till it be glutted in the blood of the malignants." I find too many enormities of this kind. "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently, and keepeth back his sword from blood!" was the cry of the wretch, who, when a celebrated actor and royalist sued for quarter, gave no other reply than that of "fitting the action to the word."[334] Their treatment of the Irish may possibly be admired by a true Machiavelist: "they permitted forty thousand of the Irish to enlist in the service of the kings of Spain and France"--in other words, they expelled them at once, which, considering that our Rumpers affected such an abhorrence of tyranny, may be considered as an act of mercy! satisfying themselves only with dividing the forfeited lands of the aforesaid forty thousand among their own party, by lot and other means. An universal confiscation, after all, is a bloodless massacre. They used the Scotch soldiers, after the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, a little differently--but equally efficaciously--for they sold their Scotch prisoners for slaves to the American planters.[335]

The Robespierres and the Marats were as extraordinary beings, and in some respects the Frenchmen were working on a more enlarged scheme. These discovered that "the generation which had witnessed the preceding one would always regret it; and for the security of the Revolution, it was necessary that every person who was thirty years old in 1788 should perish on the scaffold!" The anarchists were intent on reducing the French people to eight millions, and on destroying the great cities of France.[336]

Such monstrous persons and events are not credible--but this is no proof that they have not occurred. Many incredible things will happen!

Another disorganising feature in the English _Rumpers_ was also observed in the French _Sans-culottes_--their hatred of literature and the arts. Hebert was one day directing his satellites towards the _Bibliotheque Nationale_, to put an end to all that human knowledge had collected for centuries on centuries--in one day! alleging, of course, some good reason. This hero was only diverted from the enterprise by being persuaded to postpone it for a day or two, when luckily the guillotine intervened; the same circumstance occurred here. The burning of the records in the Tower was certainly proposed; a speech of Selden's, which I cannot immediately turn to, put a stop to these incendiaries. It was debated in the Rump parliament, when Cromwell was general, whether they should _dissolve the universities_? They concluded that no university was necessary; that there were no ancient examples of such education, and that scholars in other countries did study at _their own cost and charges_, and therefore they looked on them as unnecessary, and thought them fitting _to be taken away for the public use_!--How these venerable asylums escaped from being sold with the king's pictures, as stone and timber, and why their rich endowments were not shared among such inveterate ignorance and remorseless spoliation, might claim some inquiry.

The Abbe Morellet, a great political economist, imagined that the source of all the crimes of the French Revolution was their violation of the sacred rights of property. The perpetual invectives of the _Sans-culottes_ of France _against proprietors and against property_ proceeded from demoralised beings who formed panegyrics on all crimes; crimes, to explain whose revolutionary terms, a new dictionary was required. But even these anarchists, in their mad expressions against property, and in their wildest notions of their "egalite," have not gone beyond the daring of our own "Rumpers!"

Of those revolutionary journals of the parliament of 1649, which in spirit so strongly resemble the diurnal or hebdomadal effusions of the redoubtable French Hebert, Marat, and others of that stamp, one of the most remarkable is, "The Moderate, impartially communicating Martial Affairs to the _Kingdom_ of England;" the monarchical title our commonwealth men had not yet had time enough to obliterate from their colloquial style. This writer called himself, in his barbarous English, _The Moderate_! It would be hard to conceive the meanness and illiteracy to which the English language was reduced under the pens of the rabble-writers of these days, had we not witnessed in the present time a parallel to their compositions. "The Moderate!" was a title assumed on the principle on which Marat denominated himself "l'Ami du Peuple." It is curious that the most ferocious politicians usually assert their moderation. Robespierre, in his justification, declares that Marat "m'a souvent accuse de _Moderantisme_." The same actors, playing the same parts, may be always paralleled in their language and their deeds. This "Moderate" steadily pursued one great principle--the overthrow of all property. Assuming that _property_ was the original cause of _sin_! an exhortation to the people for this purpose is the subject of the present paper:[337] the illustration of his principle is as striking as the principle itself.

It is an apology for, or rather a defence of, robbery! Some moss-troopers had been condemned to be hanged for practising their venerable custom of gratuitously supplying themselves from the flocks and herds of their weaker neighbours: our "Moderate" ingeniously discovers that the loss of these men's lives is to be attributed to nothing but _property_. They are necessitated to offend the laws in order to obtain a livelihood!

On this he descants; and the extract is a political curiosity in the French style! "_Property_ is the original cause of any _sin_ between party and party as to civil transactions. And since the _tyrant_ is taken off, and the government altered _in nomine_, so ought it really to redound to the good of the people _in specie_; which, though they cannot expect it in few years, by reason of _the multiplicity of the gentlemen in authority_, command, &c. who drive on all designs for support of the old government, and consequently their own interest and the _people's slavery_, yet they doubt not but _in time_ the people will herein discern their own blindness and folly."

In September, he advanced with more depth of thought. "_Wars_ have ever been clothed with the most gracious pretences--viz., reformation of religion, the laws of the land, the liberty of the subject, &c.; though the effects thereof have proved most destructive to every nation; making the sword, and not _the people_, the original of all authorities for many hundred years together, taking away _each man's birthright_, and _settling upon a few_ A CURSED PROPRIETY; the ground of all civil offences, and the greatest cause of most sins against the heavenly Deity. _This tyranny and oppression_ running through the veins of many of our predecessors, and being too long maintained by the sword upon a royal foundation, at last became so customary, as _to the vulgar it seemed most natural_--the only reason why the _people_ of this time are so _ignorant of their birthright_, their only freedom," &c.

"The birthright" of citoyen _Egalite_ to "_a cursed propriety settled on a few_," was not, even among the French Jacobins, urged with more amazing force. Had things proceeded according to our "Moderate's" plan, "the people's slavery" had been something worse. In a short time the nation would have had more proprietors than property. We have a curious list of the spoliations of those members of the House of Commons, who, after their famous _self-denying ordinances_, appropriated among themselves sums of money, offices, and lands, for services "done or to be done."

The most innocent of this new government of "the Majesty of the People," were those whose talents had been limited by Nature to peddle and purloin; puny mechanics, who had suddenly dropped their needles, their hammers, and their lasts, and slunk out from behind their shop-counters; those who had never aspired beyond the constable of the parish, were now seated in the council of state; where, as Milton describes them, "they fell to huckster the commonwealth:" there they met a more rabid race of obscure lawyers, and discontented men of family, of blasted reputations; adventurers, who were to command the militia and navy of England,--governors of the three kingdoms! whose votes and ordinances resounded with nothing else but new impositions, new taxes, excises, yearly, monthly, weekly sequestrations, compositions, and universal robbery!

Baxter vents one deep groan of indignation, and presciently announces one future consequence of _Reform_! "In all this appeared the severity of God, the mutability of worldly things, and the fruits of error, pride, and selfishness, _to be charged hereafter upon reformation and religion_." As a statesman, the sagacity of this honest prophet was narrowed by the horizon of his religious views; for he ascribes the whole as "prepared by Satan to the injury of the Protestant cause, and the advantage of the Papists!" But dropping his particular application to the devil and the Papists, honest Richard Baxter is perfectly right in his general principle concerning "Rumpers,"--"Sans-culottes," and "Radicals."

FOOTNOTES:

[325] History of Independency, Part II. p. 32.

[326] First collected and published in 1661, and afterwards reprinted
in two small vols. 1731.

[327] The first collection ever formed of these political satires
was printed in 1660, with the quaint title of "Ratts rhimed to
Death; or, the Rump-parliament hang'd up in the Shambles."

[328] In one of the popular political songs of the day, "The Rump"
is aptly compared to

"The foxes of Samson, that carried a brand
In their tails, to destroy and to burn up the land."

[329] Clement Walker's History of Independency, part II. p. 130.
Confirmed by Barwick in his Life, p. 163.

[330] The Rev. Mark Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of
Cromwell, i. 405.

[331] Clement Walker's History of Independency, Part II. 173.

[332] Ib., Part I. 160.

[333] Mercurius Rusticus, xii. 115. Barwick's Life, p. 42.

[334] This actor was a comedian named Robinson, of the Blackfriars
Theatre; the performers there being termed "the king's servants." In
the civil wars most of the young actors, deprived of living by their
profession, all theatres being closed by order of the Parliament,
went into the king's army. Robinson was fighting at the siege of
Basing House, in Hampshire, October, 1645, when after an obstinate
defence his party was defeated, he laid down his arms, suing for
quarter, but was shot through the head by Colonel Harrison, as he
repeated the words quoted above.

[335] The following account is drawn from Sir William Dugdale's
interleaved Pocket-book for 1648.--"Aug. 17. The Scotch army, under
the command of Duke Hamilton, defeated at Preston in Lancashire.
24th. The Moorlanders rose upon the Scots and stript some of them.
The Scotch prisoners miserably used; exposed to eat cabbage-leaves
in Ridgley (Staffordshire), and carrot-tops in Coleshill
(Warwickshire). The soldiers who guarded them sold the victuals
which were brought in for them from the country."

[336] Desodoard's Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France,
iv. 5. When Lyons was captured in 1793, the revolutionary army
nearly reduced this fine city to a heap of ruins, in obedience to
the decree of the Montagne, who had ordered its name to be effaced,
that it should henceforth be termed, "Commune affranchie," and upon
its ruins a column erected and inscribed, "Lyon fit la guerre a la
liberte; Lyon n'est plus."

[337] The _Moderate_, from Tuesday, July 31, to August 7, 1649.

LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.--OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS.