Chapter LX: The Commonwealth (1)

CONTEMPORARY MONARCHS.

EMP of GERM. K. OF FRANCE. K. or SPAIN.

Ferdinand III 1658 Lewis XIII. Philip IV.

{1649.} The confusions which overspread England after the murder of Charles I., proceeded as well from the spirit of refinement and innovation which agitated the ruling party, as from the dissolution of all that authority, both civil and ecclesiastical, by which the nation had ever been accustomed to be governed. Every man had framed the model of a republic; and, however new it was, or fantastical, he was eager in recommending it to his fellow-citizens, or even imposing it by force upon them. Every man had adjusted a system of religion, which, being derived from no traditional authority, was peculiar to himself; and being founded on supposed inspiration, not on any principles of human reason, had no means, besides cant and low rhetoric, by which it could recommend itself to others. The levellers insisted on an equal distribution of power and property, and disclaimed all dependence and subordination. The Millenarians, or Fifth Monarchy men, required, that government itself should be abolished, and all human powers be laid in the dust, in order to pave the way for the dominion of Christ, whose second coming they suddenly expected. The Antinomians even insisted, that the obligations of morality and natural law were suspended, and that the elect, guided by an internal principle more perfect and divine, were superior to the beggarly elements of justice and humanity. A considerable party declaimed against tithes and a hireling priesthood, and were resolved that the magistrate should not support by power or revenue any ecclesiastical establishment. Another party inveighed against the law and its professors; and, on pretence of rendering more simple the distribution of justice, were desirous of abolishing the whole system of English jurisprudence, which seemed interwoven with monarchical government. Even those among the republicans who adopted not such extravagancies, were so intoxicated with their saintly character, that they supposed themselves possessed of peculiar privileges; and all professions, oaths, laws, and engagements, had, in a great measure, lost their influence over them. The bands of society were every where loosened; and the irregular passions of men were encouraged by speculative principles, still more unsocial and irregular.

The royalists, consisting of the nobles and more considerable gentry, being degraded from their authority and plundered of their property, were inflamed with the highest resentment and indignation against those ignoble adversaries who had reduced them to subjection. The Presbyterians, whose credit had first supported the arms of the parliament, were enraged to find that, by the treachery or superior cunning of then associates, the fruits of all their successful labors were ravished from them. The former party, from inclination and principle, zealously attached themselves to the son of their unfortunate monarch, whose memory they respected, and whose tragical death they deplored. The latter cast their eye towards the same object; but they had still many prejudices to overcome, many fears and jealousies to be allayed, ere they could cordially entertain thoughts of restoring the family which they had so grievously offended, and whose principles they regarded with such violent abhorrence.

The only solid support of the republican independent faction, which, though it formed so small a part of the nation, had violently usurped the government of the whole, was a numerous army of near fifty thousand men. But this army, formidable from its discipline and courage, as well as its numbers, was actuated by a spirit that rendered it dangerous to the assembly which had assumed the command over it. Accustomed to indulge every chimera in politics, every frenzy in religion, the soldiers knew little of the subordination of citizens, and had only learned, from apparent necessity, some maxims of military obedience. And while they still maintained, that all those enormous violations of law and equity, of which they had been guilty, were justified by the success with which providence had blessed them; they were ready to break out into any new disorder, wherever they had the prospect of a like sanction and authority.

What alone gave some stability to all these unsettled humors was the great influence, both civil and military, acquired by Oliver Cromwell. This man, suited to the age in which he lived, and to that alone, was equally qualified to gain the affection and confidence of men, by what was mean, vulgar, and ridiculous in his character, as to command their obedience by what was great, daring, and enterprising. Familiar even to buffoonery with the meanest sentinel, he never lost his authority: transported to a degree of madness with religious ecstasies, he never forgot the political purposes to which they might serve. Hating monarchy while a subject, despising liberty while a citizen, though he retained for a time all orders of men under a seeming obedience to the parliament, he was secretly paving the way, by artifice and courage, to his own unlimited authority.

The parliament,--for so we must henceforth call a small and inconsiderable part of the house of commons,--having murdered their sovereign with so many appearing circumstances of solemnity and justice, and so much real violence, and even fury, began to assume more the air of a civil legal power, and to enlarge a little the narrow bottom upon which they stood. They admitted a few of the excluded and absent members, such as were liable to least exception; but on condition that these members should sign an approbation of whatever had been done in their absence with regard to the king's trial; and some of them were willing to acquire a share of power on such terms: the greater part disdained to lend their authority to such apparent usurpations. They issued some writs for new elections, in places where they hoped to have interest enough to bring in their own friends and dependents. They named a council of state, thirty-eight in number, to whom all addresses were made, who gave orders to all generals and admirals, who executed the laws, and who digested all business before it was introduced into parliament.[*] They pretended to employ themselves entirely in adjusting the laws, forms, and plan of a new representative; and as soon as they should have settled the nation, they professed their intention of restoring the power to the people, from whom they acknowledged they had entirely derived it.

* Their names were, the earls of Denbigh, Mulgrave,
Pembroke, Salisbury, Lords Grey and Fairfax, Lisle, Rolles,
St. John, Wilde, Bradshaw, Cromwell, Skippon, Pickering,
Massam, Haselrig, Harrington, Vane, Jun., Danvers, Armine,
Mildmay, Constable, Pennington, Wilson, Whitlocke, Martin,
Ludlow, Stapleton, Hevingham, Wallop, Hutchinson, Bond,
Popham, Valentine, Walton, Scott, Purefoy, Jones.

The commonwealth found every thing in England composed into a seeming tranquillity by the terror of their arms. Foreign powers, occupied in wars among themselves, had no leisure or inclination to interpose in the domestic dissensions of this island. The young king, poor and neglected, living sometimes in Holland, sometimes in France, sometimes in Jersey, comforted himself amidst his present distresses with the hopes of better fortune. The situation alone of Scotland and Ireland gave any immediate inquietude to the new republic.

After the successive defeats of Montrose and Hamilton, and the ruin of their parties, the whole authority in Scotland fell into the hands of Argyle and the rigid churchmen, that party which was most averse to the interests of the royal family. Their enmity, however, against the Independents, who had prevented the settlement of Presbyterian discipline in England, carried them to embrace opposite maxims in their political conduct. Though invited by the English parliament to model their government into a republican form, they resolved still to adhere to monarchy, which had ever prevailed in their country, and which, by the express terms of their covenant they had engaged to defend. They considered, besides, that as the property of the kingdom lay mostly in the hands of great families, it would be difficult to establish a common wealth; or without some chief magistrate, invested with royal authority, to preserve peace or justice in the community. The execution, therefore, of the king, against which they had always protested, having occasioned a vacancy of the throne, they immediately proclaimed his son and successor, Charles II.; but upon condition "of his good behavior, and strict observance of the covenant, and his entertaining no other persons about him but such as were godly men, and faithful to that obligation." These unusual clauses, inserted in the very first acknowledgment of their prince, sufficiently showed their intention of limiting extremely his authority. And the English commonwealth, having no pretence to interpose in the affairs of that kingdom, allowed the Scots, for the present, to take their own measures in settling their government.

The dominion which England claimed over Ireland, demanded more immediately their efforts for subduing that country. In order to convey a just notion of Irish affairs, it will be necessary to look backwards some years, and to relate briefly those transactions which had passed during the memorable revolutions in England. When the late king agreed to that cessation of arms with the Popish rebels,[*] which was become so requisite, as well for the security of the Irish Protestants as for promoting his interests in England, the parliament, in order to blacken his conduct, reproached him with favoring that odious rebellion, and exclaimed loudly against the terms of the cessation. They even went so far as to declare it entirely null and invalid, because finished without their consent; and in this declaration the Scots in Ulster, and the earl of Inchiquin, a nobleman of great authority in Munster, professed to adhere. By their means the war was still kept alive; but as the dangerous distractions in England hindered the parliament from sending any considerable assistance to their allies in Ireland, the marquis of Ormond, lord lieutenant, being a native of Ireland, and a person endowed with great prudence and virtue, formed a scheme for composing the disorders of his country, and for engaging the rebel Irish to support the cause of his royal master. There were many circumstances which strongly invited the natives of Ireland to embrace the king's party. The maxims of that prince had always led him to give a reasonable indulgence to the Catholics throughout all his dominions; and one principal ground of that enmity which the Puritans professed against him, was this tacit toleration. The parliament, on the contrary, even when unprovoked, had ever menaced the Papists with the most rigid restraint, if not a total extirpation; and immediately after the commencement of the Irish rebellion, they put to sale all the estates of the rebels, and had engaged the public faith for transferring them to the adventurers, who had already advanced money upon that security. The success, therefore, which the arms of the parliament met with at Naseby, struck a just terror into the Irish; and engaged the council of Kilkenny, composed of deputies from all the Catholic counties and cities, to conclude a peace with the marquis of Ormond.[**]

* 1643.

** 1646.

They professed to return to their duty and allegiance, engaged to furnish ten thousand men for the support of the king's authority in England, and were content with stipulating, in return, indemnity for their rebellion, and toleration of their religion. Ormond, not doubting but a peace, so advantageous and even necessary to the Irish, would be strictly observed, advanced with a small body of troops to Kilkenny, in order to concert measures for common defence with his new allies. The pope had sent over to Ireland a nuncio, Rinuccini, an Italian; and this man, whose commission empowered him to direct the spiritual concerns of the Irish, was emboldened, by their ignorance and bigotry, to assume the chief authority in the civil government. Foreseeing that a general submission to the lord lieutenant would put an end to his own influence, he conspired with Owen O'Neal, who commanded the native Irish, in Ulster, and who bore a great jealousy to Preston, the general chiefly trusted by the council of Kilkenny. By concert, these two malecontents secretly drew forces together, and were ready to fall on Ormond, who remained in security, trusting to the pacification so lately concluded with the rebels. He received intelligence of their treachery, made his retreat with celerity and conduct, and sheltered his small army in Dublin and the other fortified towns, which still remained in the hands of the Protestants.

The nuncio, full of arrogance, levity, and ambition, was not contented with this violation of treaty. He summoned an assembly of the clergy at Waterford, and engaged them to declare against that pacification which the civil council had concluded with their sovereign. He even thundered out a sentence of excommunication against all who should adhere to a peace so prejudicial, as he pretended, to the Catholic religion; and the deluded Irish, terrified with his spiritual menaces, ranged themselves every where on his side, and submitted to his authority. Without scruple, he carried on war against the lord lieutenant, and threatened with a siege the Protestant garrisons, which were all of them very ill provided for defence.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate king was necessitated to take shelter in the Scottish army; and being there reduced to close confinement, and secluded from all commerce with his friends, despaired that his authority, or even his liberty, would ever be restored to him. He sent orders to Ormond, if he could not defend himself, rather to submit to the English than to the Irish rebels; and accordingly the lord lieutenant, being reduced to extremities, delivered up Dublin, Tredah, Dundalk, and other garrisons, to Colonel Michael Jones, who took possession of them in the name of the English parliament. Ormond himself went over to England, was admitted into the king's presence, received a grateful acknowledgment for his past services, and during some time lived in tranquillity near London. But being banished, with the other royalists, to a distance from that city, and seeing every event turn out unfortunately for his royal master, and threaten him with a catastrophe still more direful, he thought proper to retire into France, where he joined the queen and the prince of Wales.

In Ireland, during these transactions, the authority of the nuncio prevailed without control among all the Catholics; and that prelate, by his indiscretion and insolence, soon made them repent of the power with which they had intrusted him. Prudent men likewise were sensible of the total destruction which was hanging over the nation from the English parliament, and saw no resource or safety but in giving support to the declining authority of the king. The earl of Clanricarde, a nobleman of an ancient family, a person too of merit, who had ever preserved his loyalty, was sensible of the ruin which threatened his countrymen, and was resolved, if possible, to prevent it. He secretly formed a combination among the Catholics; he entered into a correspondence with Inchiquin, who preserved great authority over the Protestants in Munster; he attacked the nuncio, whom he chased out of the island; and he sent to Paris a deputation, inviting the lord lieutenant to return and take possession of his government.

Ormond, on his arrival in Ireland, found the kingdom divided into many factions, among which either open war or secret enmity prevailed. The authority of the English parliament was established in Dublin, and the other towns which he himself had delivered into their hands. O'Neal maintained his credit in Ulster; and having entered into a secret correspondence with the parliamentary generals, was more intent on schemes for his own personal safety, than anxious for the preservation of his country or religion. The other Irish, divided between their clergy, who were averse to Ormond, and their nobility, who were attached to him, were very uncertain in their motions and feeble in their measures. The Scots in the north, enraged, as well as their other countrymen, against the usurpations of the sectarian army, professed their adherence to the king; but were still hindered by many prejudices from entering into a cordial union with his lieutenant. All these distracted councils and contrary humors checked the progress of Ormond, and enabled the parliamentary forces in Ireland to maintain their ground against him. The republican faction, meanwhile, in England, employed in subduing the revolted royalists, in reducing the parliament to subjection, in the trial, condemnation, and execution of their sovereign, totally neglected the supplying of Ireland, and allowed Jones and the forces in Dublin to remain in the utmost weakness and necessity. The lord lieutenant, though surrounded with difficulties, neglected not the favorable opportunity of promoting the royal cause. Having at last assembled an army of sixteen thousand men, he advanced upon the parliamentary garrisons. Dundalk, where Monk commanded, was delivered up by the troops, who mutinied against their governor. Tredah, Neury, and other forts, were taken. Dublin was threatened with a siege; and the affairs of the lieutenant appeared in so prosperous a condition, that the young king entertained thoughts of coming in person into Ireland.

When the English commonwealth was brought to some tolerable settlement, men began to cast their eyes towards the neighboring island. During the contest of the two parties, the government of Ireland had remained a great object of intrigue; and the Presbyterians endeavored to obtain the lieutenancy for Waller, the Independents for Lambert. After the execution of the king, Cromwell himself began to aspire to a command, where so much glory, he saw, might be won, and so much authority acquired. In his absence, he took care to have his name proposed to the council of state; and both friends and enemies concurred immediately to vote him into that important office: the former suspected, that the matter had not been proposed merely by chance, without his own concurrence; the latter desired to remove him to a distance, and hoped, during his absence, to gain the ascendant over Fairfax, whom he had so long blinded by his hypocritical professions. Cromwell himself, when informed of his election, feigned surprise, and pretended at first to hesitate with regard to the acceptance of the command. And Lambert, either deceived by his dissimulation, or, in his turn, feigning to be deceived, still continued, notwithstanding this disappointment his friendship and connections with Cromwell.

The new lieutenant immediately applied himself with his wonted vigilance to make preparations for his expedition. Many disorders in England it behoved him previously to compose. All places were full of danger and inquietude. Though men, astonished with the successes of the army, remained in seeming tranquillity, symptoms of the greatest discontent every where appeared. The English, long accustomed to a mild administration, and unacquainted with dissimulation, could not conform their speech and countenance to the present necessity, or pretend attachment to a form of government which they generally regarded with such violent abhorrence. It was requisite to change the magistracy of London, and to degrade, as well as punish, the mayor and some of the aldermen, before the proclamation for the abolition of monarchy could be published in the city. An engagement being framed to support the commonwealth without king or house of peers, the army was with some difficulty brought to subscribe it; but though it was imposed upon the rest of the nation under severe penalties, no less than putting all who refused out of the protection of law, such obstinate reluctance was observed in the people, that even the imperious parliament was obliged to desist from it. The spirit of fanaticism, by which that assembly had at first been strongly supported, was now turned, in a great measure, against them. The pulpits, being chiefly filled with Presbyterians or disguised royalists, and having long been the scene of news and politics, could by no penalties be restrained from declarations unfavorable to the established government. Numberless were the extravagancies which broke out among the people. Everard, a disbanded soldier, having preached that the time was now come when the community of goods would be renewed among Christians, led out his followers to take possession of the land; and being carried before the general, he refused to salute him, because he was but his fellow-creature.[*] What seemed more dangerous, the army itself was infected with like humors.[**] [21]

* Whitlocke.

** See note U, at the end of the volume.

Though the levellers had for a time been suppressed by the audacious spirit of Cromwell, they still continued to propagate their doctrines among the private men and inferior officers, who pretended a right to be consulted, as before, in the administration of the commonwealth. They now practised against their officers the same lesson which they had been taught against the parliament. They framed a remonstrance, and sent five agitators to present it to the general and council of war: these were cashiered with ignominy by sentence of a court martial. One Lockier, having carried his sedition further, was sentenced to death; but this punishment was so far from quelling the mutinous spirit, that above a thousand of his companions showed their adherence to him, by attending his funeral, and wearing in their hats black and sea-green ribbons by way of favors. About four thousand assembled at Burford, under the command of Thomson, a man formerly condemned for sedition by a court martial, but pardoned by the general. Colonel Reynolds, and afterwards Fairfax and Cromwell, fell upon them, while unprepared for defence, and seduced by the appearance of a treaty. Four hundred were taken prisoners; some of them capitally punished, the rest pardoned. And this tumultuous spirit, though it still lurked in the army, and broke, out from time to time, seemed for the present to be suppressed.

Petitions, framed in the same spirit of opposition, were presented to the parliament by Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn, the person who, for dispersing seditious libels, had formerly been treated with such severity by the star chamber. His liberty was at this time as ill relished by the parliament; and he was thrown into prison, as a promoter of sedition and disorder in the commonwealth. The women applied by petition for his release; but were now desired to mind their household affairs, and leave the government of the state to the men. From all quarters the parliament was harassed with petitions of a very free nature, which strongly spoke the sense of the nation, and proved how ardently all men longed for the restoration of their laws and liberties. Even in a feast which the city gave to the parliament and council of state, it was deemed a requisite precaution, if we may credit Walker and Dugdale, to swear all the cooks, that they would serve nothing but wholesome food to them.

The parliament judged it necessary to enlarge the laws of high treason beyond those narrow bounds within which they had been confined during the monarchy. They even comprehended verbal offences, nay, intentions, though they had never appeared in any overt act against the state. To affirm the present government to be a usurpation, to assert that the parliament or council of state were tyrannical or illegal, to endeavor subverting their authority, or stirring up sedition against them: these offences were declared to be high treason. The power of imprisonment, of which the petition of right had bereaved the king, it was now found necessary to restore to the council of state; and all the jails in England were filled with men whom the jealousies and fears of the ruling party had represented as dangerous.[*] The taxes continued by the new government, and which, being unusual, were esteemed heavy, increased the general ill will under which it labored. Besides the customs and excise, ninety thousand pounds a month were levied on land for the subsistence of the army. The sequestrations and compositions of the royalists, the sale of the crown lands, and of the dean and chapter lands, though they yielded great sums, were not sufficient to support the vast expenses, and, as was suspected, the great depredations, of the parliament and of their creatures.[*]

* History of Independency, part ii.

** Parl. History, vol. xix. p. 136, 176.

Amidst all these difficulties and disturbances, the steady mind of Cromwell, without confusion or embarrassment, still pursued its purpose. While he was collecting an army of twelve thousand men in the west of England, he sent to Ireland, under Reynolds and Venables, a reënforcement of four thousand horse and foot, in order to strengthen Jones, and enable him to defend himself against the marquis of Ormond, who lay at Finglass, and was making preparations for the attack of Dublin. Inchiquin, who had now made a treaty with the king's lieutenant, having, with a separate body, taken Tredah and Dundalk, gave a defeat to Offarrell, who served under O'Neal, and to young Coot, who commanded some parliamentary forces. After he had joined his troops to the main army, with whom for some time he remained united, Ormond passed the River Liffy, and took post at Rathmines, two miles from Dublin, with a view of commencing the siege of that city. In order to cut off all further supply from Jones, he had begun the reparation of an old fort which lay at the gates of Dublin; and being exhausted with continual fatigue for some days, he had retired to rest, after leaving orders to keep his forces under arms. He was suddenly awaked with the noise of firing; and starting from his bed, saw every thing already in tumult and confusion. Jones, an excellent officer, formerly a lawyer, had sallied out with the reënforcement newly arrived; and attacking the party employed in repairing the fort, he totally routed them, pursued the advantage, and fell in with the army, which had neglected Ormond's orders. These he soon threw into disorder; put them to flight, in spite of all the efforts of the lord lieutenant; chased them off the field; seized all their tents, baggage, ammunition; and returned victorious to Dublin, after killing a thousand men, and taking above two thousand prisoners.[*]

* Parl. Hist. vol. xix. p. 165.

This loss, which threw some blemish on the military character of Ormond, was irreparable to the royal cause. That numerous army, which, with so much pains and difficulty, the lord lieutenant had been collecting for more than a year, was dispersed in a moment. Cromwell soon after arrived in Dublin, where he was welcomed with shouts and rejoicings. He hastened to Tredah. That town was well fortified: Ormond had thrown into it a good garrison of three thousand men, under Sir Arthur Aston, an officer of reputation. He expected that Tredah, lying in the neighborhood of Dublin, would first be attempted by Cromwell, and he was desirous to employ the enemy some time in that siege, while he himself should repair his broken forces. But Cromwell knew the importance of despatch. Having made a breach, he ordered a general assault. Though twice repulsed with loss, he renewed the attack, and himself, along with Ireton, led on his men. All opposition was overborne by the furious valor of the troops. The town was taken sword in hand; and orders being issued to give no quarter, a cruel slaughter was made of the garrison. Even a few, who were saved by the soldiers, satiated with blood, were next day miserably butchered by orders from the general. One person alone of the garrison escaped to be a messenger of this universal havoc and destruction.

Cromwell pretended to retaliate by this severe execution the cruelty of the Irish massacre: but he well knew, that almost the whole garrison was English; and his justice was only a barbarous policy, in order to terrify all other garrisons from resistance. His policy, however, had the desired effect. Having led the army without delay to Wexford, he began to batter the town. The garrison, after a slight defence, offered to capitulate; but before they obtained a cessation, they imprudently neglected their guards; and the English army rushed in upon them. The same severity was exercised as at Tredah.

Every town before which Cromwell presented himself, now opened its gates without resistance. Ross, though strongly garrisoned, was surrendered by Lord Taffe. Having taken Estionage, Cromwell threw a bridge over the Barrow, and made himself master of Passage and Carrie. The English had no further difficulties to encounter than what arose from fatigue and the advanced season. Fluxes and contagious distempers crept in among the soldiers, who perished in great numbers. Jones himself, the brave governor of Dublin, died at Wexford. And Cromwell had so far advanced with his decayed army, that he began to find it difficult, either to subsist in the enemy's country, or retreat to his own garrisons. But while he was in these straits, Corke, Kinsale, and all the English garrisons in Munster deserted to him, and opening their gates, resolved to share the fortunes of their victorious countrymen.

This desertion of the English put an end to Ormond's authority, which was already much diminished by the misfortunes at Dublin, Tredah, and Wexford. The Irish, actuated by national and religious prejudices, could no longer be kept in obedience by a Protestant governor, who was so unsuccessful in all his enterprises. The clergy renewed their excommunications against him and his adherents, and added the terrors of superstition to those which arose from a victorious enemy. Cromwell, having received a reënforcement from England, again took the field early in the spring. He made himself master of Kilkenny and Clonmel, the only places where he met with any vigorous resistance. The whole frame of the Irish union being in a manner dissolved, Ormond soon after left the island, and delegated his authority to Clanricarde, who found affairs so desperate as to admit of no remedy. The Irish were glad to embrace banishment as a refuge, Above forty thousand men passed into foreign service; and Cromwell, well pleased to free the island from enemies who never could be cordially reconciled to the English, gave them full liberty and leisure for their embarkation.

While Cromwell proceeded with such uninterrupted success in Ireland, which in the space of nine months he had almost entirely subdued, fortune was preparing for him a new scene of victory and triumph in Scotland. Charles was at the Hague, when Sir Joseph Douglas brought him intelligence, that he was proclaimed king by the Scottish parliament. At the same time, Douglas informed him of the hard conditions annexed to the proclamation, and extremely damped that joy which might arise from his being recognized sovereign in one of his kingdoms. Charles too considered, that those who pretended to acknowledge his title, were at that very time in actual rebellion against his family, and would be sure to intrust very little authority in his hands, and scarcely would afford him personal liberty and security. As the prospect of affairs in Ireland was at that time not unpromising, he intended rather to try his fortune in that kingdom, from which he expected more dutiful submission and obedience.

Meanwhile he found it expedient to depart from Holland. The people in the United Provinces were much attached to his interests. Besides his connection with the family of Orange, which was extremely beloved by the populace, all men regarded with compassion his helpless condition, and expressed the greatest abhorrence against the murder of his father; a deed to which nothing, they thought, but the rage of fanaticism and faction could have impelled the parliament. But though the public in general bore great favor to the king, the states were uneasy at his presence. They dreaded the parliament, so formidable by their power, and so prosperous in all their enterprises. They apprehended the most precipitate resolutions from men of such violent and haughty dispositions. And after the murder of Dorislaus, they found it still more necessary to satisfy the English commonwealth, by removing the king to a distance from them.

{1650.} Dorislaus, though a native of Holland, had lived long in England; and being employed as assistant to the high court of justice which condemned the late king, he had risen to great credit and favor with the ruling party. They sent him envoy to Holland; but no sooner had he arrived at the Hague, than he was set upon by some royalists, chiefly retainers to Montrose. They rushed into the room where he was sitting with some company; dragged him from the table; put him to death as the first victim to their murdered sovereign f very leisurely and peaceably separated themselves; and though orders were issued by the magistrates to arrest them, these were executed with such slowness and reluctance, that the criminals had all of them the opportunity of making their escape.

Charles, having passed some time at Paris, where no assistance was given him, and even few civilities were paid him, made his retreat into Jersey, where his authority was still acknowledged. Here Winram, laird of Liberton, came to him as deputy from the committee of estates in Scotland, and informed him of the conditions to which he must necessarily submit before he could be admitted to the exercise of his authority. Conditions more severe were never imposed by subjects upon their sovereign; but as the affairs of Ireland began to decline, and the king found it no longer safe to venture himself in that island, he gave a civil answer to Winram, and desired commissioners to meet him at Breda, in order to enter into a treaty with regard to these conditions.

The earls of Cassilis and Lothian, Lord Burley, the laird of Liberton, and other commissioners, arrived at Breda; but without any power of treating: the king must submit without reserve to the terms imposed upon him. The terms were, that he should issue a proclamation, banishing from court all excommunicated persons, that is, all those who, either under Hamilton or Montrose, had ventured their lives for his family; that no English subject who had served against the parliament, should be allowed to approach him; that he should bind himself by his royal promise to take the covenant; that he should ratify all acts of parliament by which Presbyterian government, the directory of worship, the confession of faith, and the catechism were established; and that in civil affairs he should entirely conform himself to the direction of parliament, and in ecclesiastical to that of the assembly. These proposals the commissioners, after passing some time in sermons and prayers, in order to express the more determined resolution, very solemnly delivered to the king.

The king's friends were divided with regard to the part which he should act in this critical conjuncture. Most of his English counsellors dissuaded him from accepting conditions so disadvantageous and dishonorable. They said, that the men who now governed Scotland were the most furious and bigoted of that party which, notwithstanding his gentle government, had first excited a rebellion against the late king; after the most unlimited concessions, had renewed their rebellion, and stopped the progress of his victories in England; and after he had intrusted his person to them in his uttermost distress, had basely sold him, together with their own honor, to his barbarous enemies: that they had as yet shown no marks of repentance; and even in the terms which they now proposed, displayed the same anti-monarchical principles, and the same jealousy of their sovereign, by which they had ever been actuated: that nothing could be more dishonorable, than that the king, in his first enterprise, should sacrifice, merely for the empty name of royalty those principles for which his father had died a martyr, and in which he himself had been strictly educated: that by this hypocrisy he might lose the royalists, who alone were sincerely attached to him; but never would gain the Presbyterians, who were averse to his family and his cause, and would ascribe his compliance merely to policy and necessity: that the Scots had refused to give him any assurances of their intending to restore him to the throne of England; and could they even be brought to make such an attempt, it had sufficiently appeared, by the event of Hamilton's engagement, how unequal their force was to so great an enterprise: that on the first check which they should receive, Argyle and his partisans would lay hold of the quickest expedient for reconciling themselves to the English parliament, and would betray the king, as they had done his father, into the hands of his enemies: and that, however desperate the royal cause, it must still be regarded as highly imprudent in the king to make a sacrifice of his honor, where the sole purchase was to endanger his life or liberty.

The earl of Laneric, now duke of Hamilton, the earl of Lauderdale, and others of that party who had been banished their country for the late engagement, were then with the king; and being desirous of returning home in his retinue, they joined the opinion of the young duke of Buckingham, and earnestly pressed him to submit to the conditions required of him. It was urged, that nothing would more gratify the king's enemies than to see him fall into the snare laid for him, and by so scrupulous a nicety, leave the possession of his dominions to those who desired but a pretence for excluding him: that Argyle, not daring so far to oppose the bent of the nation as to throw off all allegiance to his sovereign, had embraced this expedient, by which he hoped to make Charles dethrone himself, and refuse a kingdom which was offered him: that it was not to be doubted but the same national spirit, assisted by Hamilton and his party, would rise still higher in favor of their prince after he had intrusted himself to their fidelity, and would much abate the rigor of the conditions now imposed upon him: that whatever might be the present intentions of the ruling party, they must unavoidably be engaged in a war with England, and must accept the assistance of the king's friends of all parties, in order to support themselves against a power so much superior: that how much soever a steady, uniform conduct might have been suitable to the advanced age and strict engagements of the late king, no one would throw any blame on a young prince for complying with conditions which necessity had extorted from him: that even the rigor of those principles professed by his father, though with some it had exalted his character, had been extremely prejudicial to his interests; nor could any thing be more serviceable to the royal cause, than to give all parties room to hope for more equal and more indulgent maxims of government; and that where affairs were reduced to so desperate a situation, dangers ought little to be regarded; and the king's honor lay rather in showing some early symptoms of courage and activity, than in choosing strictly a party among theological controversies, with which, it might be supposed, he was as yet very little acquainted.

These arguments, seconded by the advice of the queen mother and of the prince of Orange, the king's brother-in-law, who both of them thought it ridiculous to refuse a kingdom merely from regard to Episcopacy, had great influence on Charles. But what chiefly determined him to comply, was the account brought him of the fate of Montrose, who, with all the circumstances of rage and contumely, had been put to death by his zealous countrymen. Though in this instance the king saw more evidently the furious spirit by which the Scots were actuated, he had now no further resource, and was obliged to grant whatever was demanded of him.

Montrose, having laid down his arms at the command of the late king, had retired into France, and, contrary to his natural disposition, had lived for some time inactive at Paris. He there became acquainted with the famous Cardinal de Retz, and that penetrating judge celebrates him in his memoirs as one of those heroes, of whom there are no longer any remains in the world, and who are only to be met with in Plutarch. Desirous of improving his martial genius, he took a journey to Germany, was caressed by the emperor, received the rank of mareschal, and proposed to levy a regiment for the imperial service. While employed for that purpose in the Low Countries, he heard of the tragical death of the king; and at the same time received from his young master a renewal of his commission of captain-general in Scotland.[*] His ardent and daring spirit needed but this authority to put him in action. He gathered followers in Holland and the north of Germany whom his great reputation allured to him. The king of Denmark and duke of Holstein sent him some small supply of money; the queen of Sweden furnished him with arms; the prince of Orange with ships; and Montrose, hastening his enterprise, lest the king's agreement with the Scots should make him revoke his commission, set out for the Orkneys with about five hundred men, most of them Germans.

* Burnet. Clarendon.

These were all the preparations which he could make against a kingdom, settled in domestic peace, supported by a disciplined army, fully apprised of his enterprise, and prepared against him. Some of his retainers having told him of a prophecy, that "to him and him alone it was reserved to restore the king's authority in all his dominions," he lent a willing ear to suggestions which, however ill grounded or improbable, were so conformable to his own daring character.

He armed several of the inhabitants of the Orkneys, though an unwarlike people, and carried them over with him to Caithness; hoping that the general affection to the king's service, and the fame of his former exploits, would make the Highlanders flock to his standard. But all men were now harassed and fatigued with wars and disorders: many of those who formerly adhered to him, had been severely punished by the Covenanters: and no prospect of success was entertained in opposition to so great a force as was drawn together against him. But however weak Montrose's army, the memory of past events struck a great terror into the committee of estates. They immediately ordered Lesley and Holborne to march against him with an army of four thousand men. Strahan was sent before with a body of cavalry to check his progress. He fell unexpectedly on Montrose, who had no horse to bring him intelligence. The royalists were put to flight; all of them either killed or taken prisoners; and Montrose himself, having put on the disguise of a peasant, was perfidiously delivered into the hands of his enemies by a friend to whom he had intrusted his person.

All the insolence which success can produce in ungenerous minds, was exercised by the Covenanters against Montrose, whom they so much hated and so much dreaded. Theological antipathy further increased their indignities towards a person, whom they regarded as impious on account of the excommunication which had been pronounced against him. Lesley led him about for several days in the same low habit under which he had disguised himself. The vulgar, wherever he passed, were instigated to reproach and vilify him. When he came to Edinburgh, every circumstance of elaborate rage and insult was put in practice by order of the parliament. At the gate of the city he was met by the magistrates, and put into a new cart, purposely made with a high chair or bench, where he wus placed, that the people might have a full view of him. He was bound with a cord, drawn over his breast and shoulders, and fastened through holes made in the cart. The hangman then took off the hat of the noble prisoner, and rode himself before the cart in his livery, and with his bonnet on; the other officers, who were taken prisoners with the marquis, walking two and two before them.

The populace, more generous and humane, when they saw so mighty a change of fortune in this great man, so lately their dread and terror, into whose hands the magistrates, a few years before, had delivered on their knees the keys of the city, were struck with compassion, and viewed him with silent tears and admiration. The preachers next Sunday exclaimed against this movement of rebel nature, as they termed it; and reproached the people with their profane tenderness towards the capital enemy of piety and religion.

When he was carried before the parliament, which was then sitting, Loudon, the chancellor, in a violent declamation, reproached him with the breach of the national covenant, which he had subscribed; his rebellion against God, the king, and the kingdom; and the many horrible murders, treasons, and impieties for which he was now to be brought to condign punishment. Montrose, in his answer, maintained the same superiority above his enemies, to which, by his fame and great actions, as well as by the consciousness of a good cause, he was justly entitled. He told the parliament, that since the king, as he was informed, had so far avowed their authority as to enter into a treaty with them, he now appeared uncovered before their tribunal: a respect which, while they stood in open defiance to their sovereign, they would in vain have required of him: that he acknowledged, with infinite shame and remorse, the errors of his early conduct, when their plausible pretences had seduced him to tread with them the paths of rebellion, and bear arms against his prince and country: that his following services, he hoped, had sufficiently testified his repentance; and his death would now atone for that guilt, the only one with which he could justly reproach himself. That in all his warlike enterprises he was warranted by that commission which he had received from his and their master, against whose lawful authority they had erected their standard: that to venture his life for his sovereign was the least part of his merit: he had even thrown down his arms in obedience to the sacred commands of the king; and had resigned to them the victory, which, in defiance of all their efforts, he was still enabled to dispute with them: that no blood had ever been shed by him but in the field of battle; and many persons were now in his eye, many now dared to pronounce sentence of death upon him, whose life, forfeited by the laws of war, he had formerly saved from the fury of the soldiers: that he was sorry to find no better testimony of their return to allegiance than the murder of so faithful a subject, in whose death the king's commission must be at once so highly injured and affronted: that as to himself, they had in vain endeavored to vilify and degrade him by all their studied indignities: the justice of his cause, he knew, would ennoble any fortune; nor had he other affliction than to see the authority of his prince, with which he was invested, treated with so much ignominy: and that he now joyfully followed, by a like unjust sentence, his late sovereign; and should be happy, if in his future destiny he could follow him to the same blissful mansions, where his piety and humane virtues had already, without doubt, secured him an eternal recompense.

Montrose's sentence was next pronounced against him: "That he James Graham," (for this was the only name they vouchsafed to give him,) "should next day be carried to Edinburgh Cross, and there be hanged on a gibbet, thirty feet high, for the space of three hours: then be taken down, his head, he cut off upon a scaffold, and affixed to the prison: his legs and arms be stuck up on the four chief towns of the kingdom: his body be buried in the place appropriated for common malefactors; except the church, upon his repentance, should take off his excommunication."

The clergy, hoping that the terrors of immediate death had now given them an advantage over their enemy, flocked about him, and insulted over his fallen fortunes. They pronounced his damnation, and assured him that the judgment which he was so soon to suffer, would prove but an easy prologue to that which he must undergo hereafter. They next offered to pray with him; but he was too well acquainted with those forms of imprecation which they called prayers. "Lord, vouchsafe yet to touch the obdurate heart of this proud, incorrigible sinner; this wicked, perjured, traitorous, and profane person, who refuses to hearken to the voice of thy church." Such were the petitions which he expected they would, according to custom, offer up for him. He told them, that they were a miserably deluded and deluding people; and would shortly bring their country under the most insupportable servitude to which any nation had ever been reduced. "For my part," added he, "I am much prouder to have my head affixed to the place where it is sentenced to stand, than to have my picture hang in the king's bed-chamber. So far from being sorry that my quarters are to be sent to four cities of the kingdom, I wish I had limbs enow to be dispersed into all the cities of Christendom, there to remain as testimonies in favor of the cause for which I suffer." This sentiment, that very evening, while in prison, he threw into verse. The poem remains; a single monument of his heroic spirit, and no despicable proof of his poetical genius.

Now was led forth, amidst the insults of his enemies, and the tears of the people, this man of illustrious birth, and of the greatest renown in the nation, to suffer, for his adhering to the laws of his country, and the rights of his sovereign, the ignominious death destined to the meanest malefactor. Every attempt which the insolence of the governing party had made to subdue his spirit, had hitherto proved fruitless; they made yet one effort more, in this last and melancholy scene, when all enmity, arising from motives merely human, is commonly softened and disarmed. The executioner brought that book which had been published in elegant Latin, of his great military actions, and tied it with a cord about his neck. Montrose smiled at this new instance of their malice. He thanked them, however, for their officious zeal; and said, that he bore this testimony of his bravery and loyalty with more pride than he had ever worn the garter. Having asked whether they had any more indignities to put upon him, and renewing some devout ejaculations, he patiently endured the last act of the executioner.

Thus perished, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, the gallant marquis of Montrose; the man whose military genius both by valor and conduct had shone forth beyond any which, during these civil disorders, had appeared in the three kingdoms. The finer arts, too, he had in his youth successfully cultivated; and whatever was sublime, elegant, or noble touched his great soul. Nor was he insensible to the pleasures either of society or of love. Something, however, of the vast and unbounded characterized his actions and deportment; and it was merely by an heroic effort of duty, that he brought his mind, impatient of superiority, and even of equality, to pay such unlimited submission to the will of his sovereign.

The vengeance of the Covenanters was not satisfied with Montrose's execution. Urrey, whose inconstancy now led him to take part with the king, suffered about the same time: Spotiswood of Daersie, a youth of eighteen, Sir Francis Hay of Dalgetie, and Colonel Sibbald, all of them of birth and character, underwent a like fate. These were taken prisoners with Montrose. The marquis of Huntley, about a year before, had also fallen a victim to the severity of the Covenanters.

The past scene displays in a full light the barbarity of this theological faction: the sequel will sufficiently display their absurdity.

The king, in consequence of his agreement with the commissioners of Scotland, set sail for that country; and being escorted by seven Dutch ships of war, who were sent to guard the herring fishery, he arrived in the Frith of Cromarty. Before he was permitted to land, he was required to sign the covenant; and many sermons and lectures were made him, exhorting him to persevere in that holy confederacy.[*] Hamilton, Lauderdale, Dumfermling, and other noblemen of that party whom they called engagers, were immediately separated from him, and obliged to retire to their houses, where they lived in a private manner, without trust or authority. None of his English friends, who had served his father, were allowed to remain in the kingdom. The king himself found that he was considered as a mere pageant of state, and that the few remains of royalty which he possessed, served only to draw on him the greater indignities. One of the quarters of Montrose, his faithful servant, who had borne his commission, had been sent to Aberdeen, and was still allowed to hang over the gates when he passed by that place.[**]

* Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, p. 159.

** Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, p, 160.

The general assembly, and afterwards the committee of estates and the army, who were entirely governed by the assembly, set forth a public declaration, in which they protested, "that they did not espouse any malignant quarrel or party, but fought merely on their former grounds or principles; that they disclaimed all the sins and guilt of the king, and of his house; nor would they own him or his interest, otherwise than with a subordination to God, and so far as he owned and prosecuted the cause of God, and acknowledged the sins of his house, and of his former ways."[*]