[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 9.]
tone, and a gloominess of countenance, which showed, and probably was intended to show, that he acted with reluctance and with self-reproach.[1]
As soon as the posts and chains were removed, Monk suggested, in a letter to the speaker, that enough had been done to subdue the refractory spirit of the citizens. But the parliamentary leaders were not satisfied: they voted that he should execute his former orders; and the demolition of the gates and portcullises was effected. The soldiers loudly proclaimed their discontent: the general, mortified and ashamed, though he had been instructed to quarter them in the city, led them back to Whitehall.[2] There, on the review of these proceedings, he thought that he discovered proofs of a design, first to commit him with the citizens, and then to discard him entirely. For the house, while he was so ungraciously employed, had received, with a show of favour, a petition from the celebrated Praise-God Barebone, praying that no man might sit in parliament, or hold any public office, who refused to abjure the pretensions of Charles Stuart, or of any other single person. Now this was the very case of the general, and his suspicions were confirmed by the reasoning of his confidential advisers. With their aid, a letter to the speaker was prepared[a] the same evening, and approved the next morning by the council of officers. In it the latter were made to complain that they had been rendered the instruments of personal resentment against the citizens, and to require that by the following Friday every vacancy in the house should be filled up, preparatory to its
[Footnote 1: Journ. Feb. 9. Price, 761. Ludlow, ii. 336. Clar. Pap. iii. 674, 691. Gumble, 236. Skinner, 231-237.]
[Footnote 2: Journ. Feb. 9. Philips, 599.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 10.]
subsequent dissolution and the calling of a new parliament. Without waiting for an answer, Monk marched back into Finsbury Fields: at his request, a common council (that body had recently been dissolved by a vote of the parliament) was summoned; and the citizens heard from the mouth of the general that he, who yesterday had come among them as an enemy by the orders of others, was come that day as a friend by his own choice; and that his object was to unite his fortune with theirs, and by their assistance to obtain a full and free parliament for the nation. This speech was received with the loudest acclamations. The bells were tolled; the soldiers were feasted; bonfires were lighted; and among the frolics of the night was "the roasting of the rump," a practical joke which long lived in the traditions of the city. Scot and Robinson, who had been sent to lead back the general to Whitehall, slunk away in secrecy, that they might escape the indignation of the populace.[1]
At Westminster, the parliamentary leaders affected a calmness and intrepidity which they did not feel. Of the insult offered to their authority they took no notice; but, as an admonition to Monk, they brought in a bill[a] to appoint his rival, Fleetwood, commander-in-chief in England and Scotland. The intervention of the Sunday allowed more sober counsels to prevail.
[Footnote 1: Price, 765-768. Clar. Pap. iii. 681, 692, 714. Ludlow, 337. Gumble, 249. Skinner, 237-243. Old Parl. Hist. xxii. 94. Pepys, i. 24, 25. "At Strand-bridge I could at one time tell thirty-one fires; in King-street, seven or eight, and all along burning, and roasting, and drinking for rumps; there being rumps tied upon sticks, and carried up and down. The butchers at the May-pole in the Strand rang a peal with their knives, when they were going to sacrifice their rump. On Ludgate-hill there was one turning of the spit that had a rump tied to it, and another basting of it. Indeed it was past imagination."—Ibid. 28.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 11.]
They solicited the general to return to Whitehall; they completed the bill for the qualifications of candidates and electors; and, on the day fixed by the letter of the officers, ordered[a] writs to be issued for the filling up of the vacancies in the representation. This measure had been forced upon them; yet they had the ingenuity to make it subservient to their own interest, by inserting a provision in the act, that no man should choose or be chosen, who had not already bound himself to support a republican form of government. But immediately the members excluded in 1648 brought forward their claim to sit, and Monk assumed the appearance of the most perfect indifference between the parties. At his invitation, nine of the leaders on each side argued the question before him and his officers; and the result was, that the latter expressed their willingness to support the secluded members, on condition that they should pledge themselves to settle the government of the army, to raise money to pay the arrears, to issue writs for a new parliament to sit on the 20th of April, and to dissolve themselves before that period. The general returned[b] to Whitehall; the secluded members attended his summons; and, after a long speech, declaratory of his persuasion that a republican form of government and a moderate presbyterian kirk were necessary to secure and perpetuate the tranquillity of the nation, he advised them to go and resume their seats. Accompanied by a great number of officers, they walked to the house; the guard, under the command of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, opened to let them pass; and no opposition was made by the speaker or the members.[1] Hazlerig, however, and the
[Footnote 1: Journals, Feb. 11, 13, 15, 17, 21. Price, 768-773. Ludlow, ii. 345, 351, 353. Skinner, 256-264. Clar. Pap. 663, 682, 688. Gumble, 260, 263. Philips, 600. The number of secluded members then living was one hundred and ninety-four, of members sitting or allowed to sit by the orders of the house, eighty-nine.—"A Declaration of the True State of the Matter of Fact," 57.]
[Sideline a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 17.][Sideline b: A.D. 1660. Feb. 21.]
more devoted of his adherents, rose and withdrew—a fortunate secession for the royalists; otherwise, with the addition of those among the restored members who adhered to a commonwealth, the republicans might on many questions have still commanded a majority.[1]
To the Cavaliers, the conduct of Monk on this occasion proved a source of the most distressing perplexity. On the one hand, by introducing the secluded members he had greatly advanced the cause of royalty. For though Holles, Pierpoint, Popham, and their friends still professed the doctrines which they had maintained during the treaty in the Isle of Wight, though they manifested the same hatred of popery and prelacy, though they still inculcated the necessity of limiting the prerogative in the choice of the officers of state and in the command of the army, yet they were royalists by principle, and had, several of them, made the most solemn promises to the exiled king of labouring strenuously for his restoration. On the other hand, that Monk at the very time when he gave the law without control, should declare so loudly in favour of a republican government and a presbyterian kirk, could not fail to alarm both Charles and his abettors.[2] Neither was this the only instance: to all, Cavaliers or republicans, who approached him to discover his intentions, he uniformly professed the same sentiments, occasionally confirming his professions with oaths and imprecations. To explain this inconsistency between
[Footnote 1: Hutchinson, 362.]
[Footnote 2: Clar. Hist. iii. 720, 721, 723, 724; Papers, ii. 698.]
the tendency of his actions and the purport of his language, we are told by those whom he admitted to his private counsels, that it was forced upon him by the necessity of his situation; that, without it, he must have forfeited the confidence of the army, which believed its safety and interest to be intimately linked with the existence of the commonwealth. According to Ludlow, the best soldier and statesman in the opposite party, Monk had in view an additional object, to deceive the suspicions and divert the vigilance of his adversaries; and so successfully had he imposed on the credulity of many (Hazlerig himself was of the number), that, in defiance of every warning, they blindly trusted to his sincerity, till their eyes were opened by the introduction of the secluded members.[1]
In parliament the Presbyterian party now ruled without opposition. They annulled[a] all votes relative to their own expulsion from the house in 1648; they selected a new council of state, in which the most influential members were royalists; they appointed Monk commander-in-chief of the forces in the three kingdoms, and joint commander of the fleet with Admiral Montague; they granted him the sum of twenty thousand pounds in lieu of the palace at Hampton Court, settled on him by the republican party; they discharged[b] from confinement, and freed from the penalty of sequestration, Sir George Booth and his associates, a great number of Cavaliers, and the Scottish lords taken after the battle at Worcester; they restored the common council, borrowed sixty thousand pounds for the immediate pay of the army,
[Footnote 1: Price, 773. Ludlow, 349, 355. Clar. Pap. iii. 678, 697, 703, 711.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. Feb. 21.][Sidenote b: A.D. 1660. March.]
declared the Presbyterian confession of faith to be that of the church of England, ordered copies of the solemn league and covenant to be hung up in all churches, offered rewards for the apprehension of Catholic priests, urged the execution of the laws against Catholic recusants, and fixed the 15th of March for their own dissolution, the 25th of April for the meeting of a new parliament.[1]
Here, however, a serious difficulty arose. The House of Commons (according to the doctrine of the secluded members, it could be nothing more) was but a single branch of the legislature. By what right could it pretend to summon a parliament? Ought not the House of Lords, the peers who had been excluded in 1649, to concur? Or rather, to proceed according to law, ought not the king either to appoint a commission to hold a parliament, as was usually done in Ireland, or to name a guardian invested with such power, as was the practice formerly, when our monarchs occasionally resided in France? But, on this point, Monk was inflexible. He placed guards at the door of the House of Lords to prevent the entrance of the peers; and he refused to listen to any expedient which might imply an acknowledgment of the royal authority. To the arguments urged by others, he replied,[a] that the parliament according to law determined by the death of Charles I.; that the present house could justify its sitting on no other ground but that of necessity, which did not apply to the House of Lords; and that it was in vain to expect the submission of the army to a parliament called by royal authority. The military had, with reluctance, consented to the restoration of
[Footnote 1: Journals, passim.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. March 3.]
the secluded members; and to ask more of them at present was to hazard all the advantages which had hitherto been obtained.[1]
Encouraged by the downfall of the republicans, the royalists throughout the country expressed their sentiments without restraint. In some places Charles was proclaimed by the populace; several ministers openly prayed for him in the churches: the common council, in their address, declared themselves not averse to his restoration; and the house itself was induced to repeal[a] the celebrated engagement in favour of a commonwealth, without a single person or a house of peers, and to embody under trusty officers the militia of the city and the counties, as a counterpoise to the republican interest in the army. The judges of the late king, and the purchasers of forfeited property, began to tremble. They first tempted the ambition of the lord-general with the offer of the sovereign authority.[2] Rejected by him, they appealed to the military; they represented the loss of their arrears,
[Footnote 1: Clar. Pap. iii. 704. Ludlow, 364, 365. Price, 773.]
[Footnote 2: Gumble, 270. Two offers of assistance were made to the general, on the supposition that he might aspire to the supreme power; one from the republicans, which I have mentioned, another from Bordeaux, the French ambassador, in the name of Cardinal Mazarin. On one of these offers he was questioned by Sir Anthony Ashley Copper in the council of state. If we may believe Clarges, one of his secret advisers, it was respecting the former which Clarges mentioned to Cooper. With respect to the offer from Bordeaux, he tells us that it was made through Clarges himself, and scornfully rejected by Monk, who nevertheless consented to receive a visit from Bordeaux, on condition that the subject should not be mentioned.—Philips, 602, 604. Locke, on the contrary, asserts that Monk accepted the offer of the French minister; that his wife, through loyalty to the king, betrayed the secret; and that Cooper put to the general such searching questions that he was confused, and, in proof of his fidelity, took away the commissions of several officers of whom the council was jealous.—Memoirs of Shaftesbury, in Kennet's Register, 86. Locke, ix, 279. See note (K).]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. March 10.]
and of the property which they had acquired, as the infallible consequences of the restoration of the royal exile; and they so far wrought on the fears of the officers, that an engagement to oppose all attempts to set up a single person was presented[a] to Monk for his signature, with a request that he would solicit the concurrence of the parliament. A second council of officers was held the next morning;[b] the general urged the inexpediency of troubling the house with new questions, when it was on the point of dissolving itself; and by the address and influence of his friends, though with considerable difficulty, he procured the suppression of the obnoxious paper. In a short time he ordered the several officers to join their respective regiments, appointed a commission to inspect and reform the different corps, expelled all the officers whose sentiments he had reason to distrust, and then demanded and obtained from the army an engagement to abstain from all interference in matters of state, and to submit all things to the authority of the new parliament.[1]
Nineteen years and a half had now elapsed since the long parliament first assembled—years of revolution and bloodshed, during which the nation had made the trial of almost every form of government, to return at last to that form from which it had previously departed. On the 16th of March, one day later than was originally fixed, its existence, which had been illegally prolonged since the death of Charles I., was terminated[c] by its own act.[2] The reader is already acquainted with its history. For the glorious stand
[Footnote 1: Philips, 603, 606. Price, 781. Kennet's Reg. 113. Thurloe, vii. 852, 859, 870. Pepys, i. 43. Skinner, 279-284.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, March 16.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. March 14.][Sidenote b: A.D. 1660. March 15.][Sidenote c: A.D. 1660. March 16.]
which it made against the encroachments of the crown, it deserves both admiration and gratitude; its subsequent proceedings assumed a more ambiguous character; ultimately they led to anarchy and military despotism. But, whatever were its merits or demerits, of both posterity has reaped the benefit. To the first, we are indebted for many of the rights which we now enjoy; by the second, we are warned of the evils which result from political changes effected by violence, and in opposition to the habits and predilections of the people.
Monk had now spent more than two months in England, and still his intentions were covered with a veil of mystery, which no ingenuity, either of the royalists or of the republicans, could penetrate. Sir John Grenville, with whom the reader is already acquainted, paid frequent visits to him at St. James's; but the object of the Cavalier was suspected, and his attempts[a] to obtain a private interview were defeated by the caution of the general. After the dissolution, Morrice, the confidential friend of both, brought them together, and Grenville delivered to Monk a most flattering letter from the king. He received and perused it with respect. This was, he observed, the first occasion on which he could express with safety his devotion to the royal cause; but he was still surrounded with men of hostile or doubtful sentiments; the most profound secrecy was still necessary; Grenville might confer in private with Morrice, and must consent to be himself the bearer of the general's answer. The heads of that answer were reduced to writing. In it Monk prayed the king to send him a conciliatory letter, which, at the proper season, he might lay before the parliament; for himself he asked
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. March 10.]
nothing; he would not name, as he was desired, his reward; it was not for him to strike a bargain with his sovereign; but, if he might express his opinion, he advised Charles to promise a general or nearly general pardon, liberty of conscience, the confirmation of the national sales, and the payment of the arrears due to the army. As soon as this paper had been, read, he threw it into the fire, and bade Grenville rely on his memory for its contents.[1]
By Charles at Brussels the messenger was received as an angel from heaven. The doubts which had so long tormented his mind were suddenly removed; the crown, contrary to expectation, was offered[a] without previous conditions; and nothing more was required than that he should aid with his pen the efforts of the general; but when he communicated the glad tidings to Ormond, Hyde, and Nicholas, these counsellors discovered that the advice, suggested by Monk, was derogatory to the interests of the throne and the personal character of the monarch, and composed a royal declaration which, while it professed to make to the nation the promises recommended by Monk, in reality neutralized their effect, by subjecting them to such limitations as might afterwards be imposed by the wisdom of parliament. This paper was enclosed[b] within a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons; another letter was addressed to the House of Lords; a third to Monk and the army; a fourth to Montague and the navy; and a fifth to the lord mayor and the city. To the general, open copies were transmitted, that he might deliver or destroy the originals
[Footnote 1: Clar. Hist. iii. 734-736. Price, 785. Philips, 605. Clar. Pap. iii. 706, 711. From the last authorities it is plain that Mordaunt was intrusted with the secret as well as Grenville—also a Mr. Herne, probably a fictitious name.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. March 26.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1660. April 2.]
as he thought fit. Notwithstanding the alterations made at Brussels, he professed himself satisfied with the declaration, and ordered[a] Grenville to keep the papers in his custody, till the proper season should arrive.[1]
In the mean while, the writs for the new parliament had been issued; and, as there was no court to influence, no interference of the military to control the elections, the result may be fairly taken to express the sense of the country. The republicans, the Cavaliers, the Presbyterians, all made every effort in their power to procure the return of members of congenial sentiments. Of the three parties, the last was beyond comparison the most powerful, had not division paralyzed its influence. The more rigid Presbyterians, though they opposed the advocates of the commonwealth because they were sectaries, equally deprecated the return of the king, because they feared the restoration of episcopacy. A much greater number, who still adhered with constancy to the solemn league and covenant, deemed themselves bound by it to replace the king on the throne, but under the limitations proposed during the treaty in the Isle of Wight. Others, and these the most active and influential, saw no danger to be feared from a moderate episcopacy; and, anxious to obtain honours and preferment, laboured
[Footnote 1: Clar. iii. 737-740, 742-751. Price, 790. Monk had been assured, probably by the French ambassador, that the Spaniards intended to detain the king at Brussels as a hostage for the restoration of Jamaica and Dunkirk. On this account he insisted that the king should leave the Spanish territory, and Charles, having informed the governor of his intention to visit Breda, left Brussels about two hours, if Clarendon be correct, before an order was issued for his detention. The several letters, though written and signed at Brussels, were dated from Breda, and given to Grenville the moment the king placed his foot on the Dutch territory.—Clar. 740.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. April 10.]
by the fervour of their present loyalty to deserve the forgiveness of their past transgressions. These joined with the Cavaliers; their united efforts bore down all opposition; and, in most places, their adversaries either shrunk from the contest, or were rejected by overwhelming majorities.[1]
But the republicans sought for aid in another direction. Their emissaries penetrated into the quarters of the military, where they lamented the approaching ruin of the good old cause, regretted that so many sacrifices had been made, so much blood had been shed in vain, and again insinuated to the officers, that they would forfeit the lands which they had purchased, to the privates, that they would be disbanded and lose their arrears.[2] A spirit of discontent began to spread through several corps, and a great number of officers repaired to the metropolis. But Monk, though he still professed himself a friend to republican government, now ventured to assume a bolder tone. The militia of the city, amounting to fourteen thousand men, was already embodied under his command; he had in his pocket a commission from Charles, appointing him lord-general over all the military in the three kingdoms; and he had resolved, should circumstances compel him to throw off the mask, to proclaim the king, and to summon every faithful subject to repair to the royal standard. He first ordered[a] the officers to return to their posts; he then directed the promise of submission to the new parliament to be tendered to
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, vii, 866, 887. Price, 787. Carte's Letters, ii. 326. Clar. Pap. iii. 705, 714, 726, 730, 731, 733. It appears that many of the royalists were much too active. "When the complaint was made to Monk, he turned it off with a jest, that as there is a fanatic party on the one side, so there is a frantic party on the other" (721, 722).]
[Footnote 2: Thurloe, vii. 870.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. April 9.]
the privates, and every man who refused to make it was immediately discharged.[1] At the same time, the friends of the commonwealth resolved to oppose Lambert, once the idol of the soldiery, to Monk. Lambert, indeed, was a prisoner in the Tower, confined by order of the council, because he had refused to give security for his peaceable behaviour; but, with the aid of a rope, he descended[a] from the window of his bed-chamber, was received by eight watermen in a barge, and found a secure asylum in the city. The citizens, however, were too loyal to listen to the suggestions of the party; he left his concealment, hastened[b] into Warwickshire, solicited, but in vain, the co-operation of Ludlow, collected from the discontented regiments six troops of horse and some companies of foot, and expected in a few days to see himself at the head of a formidable force. But Ingoldsby, who, of a regicide, was become a royalist, met him[c] near Daventry with an equal number; a troop of Lambert's men under the command of the younger Hazlerig, passed over to his opponents; and the others, when he gave the word to charge, pointed their pistols to the ground. The unfortunate commander immediately turned and fled; Ingoldsby followed; the ploughed land gave the advantage to the stronger horse; the fugitive was overtaken, and, after an ineffectual effort to awaken the pity of his former comrade, submitted to his fate. He was conducted[d] back to the Tower, at the time when the trained bands, the volunteers, and the auxiliaries raised in the city, passed in review before the general in Hyde Park. The auxiliaries drank the king's health on their knees; Lambert was at the moment driven under Tyburn
[Footnote 1: Clar. Pap. iii. 715.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. April 11.][Sidenote b: A.D. 1660. April 13.][Sidenote c: A.D. 1660. April 21.][Sidenote d: A.D. 1660. April 24.]
and the spectators hailed with shouts and exclamations the disgrace of the prisoner.[1]
The Convention parliament (so it was called, because it had not been legally summoned) met[a] on the appointed day, the 25th of April. The Presbyterians, by artful management, placed Sir Harbottle Grimstone, one of their party, in the chair; but the Cavaliers, with their adherents, formed a powerful majority, and the new speaker, instead of undertaking to stem, had the prudence to go along with, the stream. Monk sat as representative of Devonshire, his native county.
To neutralize the influence of the Cavaliers among the Commons, the Presbyterian peers who sat in 1648, assembled in the House of Lords, and chose the earl of Manchester for their speaker. But what right had they exclusively to constitute a house of parliament? They had not been summoned in the usual manner by writ; they could not sit as a part of the long parliament, which was now at least defunct; and, if they founded their pretensions on their birthright, as consiliarii nati, other peers were in possession of the same privilege. The question was propounded to the lord-general, who replied that he had no authority to determine the claims of any individual. Encouraged by this answer, a few of the excluded peers attempted to take their seats, and met with no opposition; the example was imitated by others, and in a few days the Presbyterian lords did not amount to more than one-fifth of the house. Still, however, to avoid cavil, the peers who sat in the king's parliament at Oxford, as well as those whose patents bore date after the
[Footnote 1: Kennet's Reg. 120. Price, 792, 794. Ludlow, 379. Philips, 607.Clar. Pap. iii. 735.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. April 25.]
commencement of the civil war, abstained for the present from demanding admission.[1]
Monk continued to dissemble. By his direction Grenville applied to a member, who was entering the council-chamber, for an opportunity of speaking to the lord-general. Monk came to the door, received from him a letter, and, recognizing on the seal the royal arms, commanded the guards to take care that the bearer did not depart. In a few minutes Grenville was called in, interrogated by the president as to the manner in which he became possessed of the letter, and ordered to be taken into custody. "That is unnecessary," said Monk; "I find that he is my near kinsman, and I will be security for his appearance."
The ice was now[a] broken. Grenville was treated not as a prisoner, but a confidential servant of the sovereign. He delivered to the two houses the letters addressed to them, and received in return a vote of thanks, with a present of five hundred pounds. The letter for the army was read by Monk to his officers, that for the navy by Montague to the captains under his command, and that for the city by the lord mayor to the common council in the Guildhall. Each of these bodies voted an address of thanks and congratulation to the king.
The paper which accompanied the letters to the two houses,—1. granted a free and general pardon to all persons, excepting such as might afterwards be excepted by parliament; ordaining that every division of party should cease, and inviting all who were the subjects of the same sovereign to live in union and harmony; 2. it declared a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man should be disquieted or called in
[Footnote 1: Lords' Journ. xi. 4, 5, 6.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. May 1.]
question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which did not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and promised moreover the royal assent to such acts of parliament as should be offered for the full granting of that indulgence: 3. it alluded to the actions at law to which the actual possessors of estates purchased by them or granted to them during the revolution might be liable, and purposed to leave the settlement of all such differences to the wisdom of parliament, which could best provide for the just satisfaction of the parties concerned: lastly, it promised to liquidate the arrears of the army under General Monk, and to retain the officers and men in the royal service upon the same pay and conditions which they actually enjoyed. This was the celebrated declaration from Breda, the royal charter on the faith of which Charles was permitted to ascend the throne of his fathers.[1]
Encouraged by the bursts of loyalty with which the king's letters and declaration had been received, his agents made it their great object to procure his return to England before limitations could be put on the prerogative. From the Lords, so numerous were the Cavaliers in the upper house, no opposition could be feared; and the temper already displayed by the Commons was calculated to satisfy the wishes of the most ardent champions of royalty. The two houses voted, that by the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm the government was and ought to be by king, lords, and commons; they invited Charles to come and receive the crown to which he was born; and, to relieve his more urgent necessities, they sent him a present of fifty thousand pounds, with ten thousand pounds for his brother the duke of York, and five
[Footnote 1: Lords' Journ. xi. 7, 10.]
thousand pounds for the duke of Gloucester. They ordered the arms and symbols of the commonwealth to be effaced, the name of the king to be introduced into the public worship, and his succession to be proclaimed as having commenced from the day of his father's death.[1] Hale, the celebrated lawyer, ventured, with Prynne, to call[a] upon the House of Commons to pause in their enthusiasm, and attend to the interests of the nation. The first moved the appointment of a committee to inquire what propositions had been offered by the long parliament, and what concessions had been made by the last king in 1648; the latter urged the favourable opportunity of coming to a mutual and permanent understanding on all those claims which had been hitherto subjects of controversy between the two houses and the crown. But Monk rose, and strongly objected to an inquiry which might revive the fears and jealousies, the animosities and bloodshed, of the years that were past. Let the king return while all was peace and harmony. He would come alone; he could bring no army with him; he would be as much at their mercy in Westminster as in Breda. Limitations, if limitations were necessary, might be prepared in the interval, and offered to him after his arrival. At the conclusion of this speech, the house resounded with the acclamations of the Cavaliers; and the advocates of the inquiry, awed by the authority of the general and the clamour of their opponents, deemed it prudent to desist.[2]
Charles was as eager to accept, as the houses had been to vote, the address of invitation. From Breda he had gone to the Hague, where the States, anxious to atone for their former neglect, entertained him with
[Footnote 1: Journals of both houses.]
[Footnote 2: Burnet, i. 88. Ludlow, iii. 8, 9.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. May 7.]
unusual magnificence. The fleet, under Montague,[1] had anchored in the Bay of Scheveling; and Charles, as soon as the weather permitted, set sail[a] for Dover, where Monk, at the head of the nobility and gentry from the neighbouring counties, waited to receive the new sovereign. Every eye was fixed on their meeting;[b] and the cheerful, though dignified, condescension of the king, and the dutiful, respectful homage of the general, provoked the applause of the spectators. Charles embraced him as his benefactor, bade him walk by his side, and took him into the royal carriage. From Dover to the capital the king's progress bore the appearance of a triumphal procession. The roads were covered with crowds of people anxious to testify their loyalty, while they gratified their curiosity. On Blackheath he was received[c] by the army in battle array, and greeted with acclamations as he passed through the ranks; in St. George's Fields the lord mayor and aldermen invited him to partake of a splendid collation in a tent prepared for the purpose; from London Bridge to Whitehall the houses were hung with tapestry, and the streets lined by the trained bands, the regulars, and the officers who had served under Charles I. The king was preceded by troops of horsemen, to the amount of three thousand persons, in splendid dresses, attended by trumpeters and footmen; then came the lord mayor, carrying the naked sword, after him the lord-general and the duke of Buckingham, and lastly the king himself, riding between his two brothers. The cavalcade was closed by the general's life-guard, five regiments
[Footnote 1: Montague had long been in correspondence with the king, and disapproved of the dissimulation of Monk, so far as to call him in private a "thick-sculled fool;" but thought it necessary to flatter him, as he could hinder the business.—Pepys, i. 69.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1660. May 23.][Sidenote b: A.D. 1660. May 25.][Sidenote c: A.D. 1660. May 29.]
of horse, and two troops of noblemen and gentlemen. At Whitehall Charles dismissed the lord mayor, and received in succession the two houses, whose speakers addressed him in strains of the most impassioned loyalty, and were answered by him with protestations of attachment to the interests and liberties of his subjects. It was late in the evening before the ceremonies of this important day were concluded; when Charles observed to some of his confidants "It must sorely have been my fault that I did not come before; for I have met with no one to-day who did not protest that he always wished for my restoration."[1]
That the re-establishment of royalty was a blessing to the country will hardly be denied. It presented the best, perhaps the only, means of restoring public tranquillity amidst the confusion and distrust, the animosities and hatreds, the parties and interests, which had been generated by the events of the civil war, and by a rapid succession of opposite and ephemeral governments. To Monk belongs the merit of having, by his foresight and caution, effected this desirable object without bloodshed or violence; but to his dispraise it must also be recorded, that he effected it without any previous stipulation on the part of the exiled monarch. Never had so fair an opportunity been offered of establishing a compact between the sovereign and the people, of determining, by mutual consent, the legal rights of the crown, and of securing from future encroachment the freedom of the people. That Charles would have consented to such conditions,
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 702. Kennet's Reg. 163. Clarendon's Hist. iii. 772. Clarendon's Life by Himself, Continuation, p. 7, 8. Evelyn's Diary, ii. 148.]
we have sufficient evidence; but, when the measure was proposed, the lord-general declared himself its most determined opponent. It may have been, that his cautious mind figured to itself danger in delay; it is more probable that he sought to give additional value to his services in the eyes of the new sovereign. But, whatever were the motives of his conduct, the result was, that the king ascended the throne unfettered with conditions, and thence inferred that he was entitled to all the powers claimed by his father at the commencement of the civil war. In a few years the consequence became manifest. It was found that, by the negligence or perfidy of Monk, a door had been left open to the recurrence of dissension between the crown and the people; and that very circumstance which Charles had hailed as the consummation of his good fortune, served only to prepare the way for a second revolution, which ended in the permanent exclusion of his family from the government of these kingdoms.
* * * * *
NOTE A, p. 117.
Nothing more clearly shows the readiness of Charles to engage in intrigue, and the subtleties and falsehood to which he could occasionally descend, than the history of Glamorgan's mission to Ireland. In this note I purpose to lay before the reader the substance of the several documents relating to the transaction.
On the 1st of April, 1644, the king gave to him, by the name of Edward Somerset, alias Plantagenet, Lord Herbert, Baron Beaufort, &c., a commission under the great seal, appointing him commander-in-chief of three armies of Englishmen, Irishmen, and foreigners; authorizing him to raise moneys on the securities of the royal wardships, customs, woods, &c.; furnishing him with patents of nobility from the title of marquis to that of baronet, to be filled up with names at his discretion; promising to give the Princess Elizabeth to his son Plantagenet in marriage with a dower of three hundred thousand pounds, a sum which did not much exceed what Herbert and his father had already spent in the king's service, and in addition to confer on Herbert himself the title of duke of Somerset, with the George and blue ribbon.—From the Nuncio's Memoirs in Birch's Inquiry, p. 22.
This commission was granted in consequence of an understanding with the deputies from the confederate Catholics, who were then at Oxford, and its object is fully explained by Herbert himself in a letter to Clarendon, to be laid before Charles II., and dated June 11, 1660. "For his majesty's better information, through your favour, and by the channel of your lordship's understanding things rightly, give me leave to acquaint you with one chief key, wherewith to open the secret passages between his late majesty and myself, in order to his service; which was no other than a real exposing of myself to any expense or difficulty, rather than his just design should not take place; or, in taking effect, that his honour should suffer; an effect, you may justly say, relishing more of a passionate and blind affection to his majesty's service, than of discretion and care of myself. This made me take a resolution that he should have seemed angry with me at my return out of Ireland, until I had brought him into a posture and power to own his commands, to make good his instructions, and to reward my faithfulness and zeal therein.
"Your lordship may well wonder, and the king too, at the amplitude of my commission. But when you have understood the height of his majesty's design, you will soon be satisfied that nothing less could have made me capable to effect it; being that one army of ten thousand men was to have come out of Ireland through North Wales; another of a like number, at least, under my command in chief, have expected my return in South Wales, which Sir Henry Gage was to have commanded as lieutenant-general; and a third should have consisted of a matter of six thousand men, two thousand of which were to have been Liegois, commanded by Sir Francis Edmonds, two thousand Lorrainers, to have been commanded by Colonel Browne, and two thousand of such French, English, Scots, and Irish, as could be drawn out of Flanders and Holland. And the six thousand were to have been, by the prince of Orange's assistance, in the associated counties; and the governor of Lyne, cousin german to Major Bacon, major of my own regiment, was to have delivered the town unto them.
"The maintenance of this army of foreigners was to have come from the pope, and such Catholick princes as he, should have drawn into it, having engaged to afford and procure thirty thousand pounds a month; out of which the foreign army was first to be provided for, and the remainder to be divided among the other armies. And for this purpose had I power to treat with the pope and Catholick princes with particular advantages promised to Catholicks for the quiet enjoying their religion, without the penalties which the statutes in force had power to inflict upon them. And my instructions for this purpose, and my powers to treat and conclude thereupon, were signed by the king under his pocket signet, with blanks for me to put in the names of pope or princes, to the end the king might have a starting-hole to deny the having given me such commissions, if excepted against by his own subjects; leaving me as it were at stake, who for his majesty's sake was willing to undergo it, trusting to his word alone."—Clarendon Papers, ii. 201, 202.
But his departure was delayed by Ormond's objections to the conditions of peace; and the king, to relieve himself from the difficulty, proposed to Herbert to proceed to Ireland, and grant privately to the Catholics those concessions which the lord-lieutenant hesitated to make, on condition of receiving in return an army of ten thousand men for the royal service. In consequence, on the 27th of December, Charles announced to Ormond that Herbert was going to Ireland under an engagement to further the peace.—Carte, ii. App. p. 5.
1645, January 2nd. Glamorgan (he was now honoured with the title of earl of Glamorgan) received these instructions. "First you may ingage y'r estate, interest and creditt that we will most really and punctually performe any our promises to the Irish, and as it is necessary to conclude a peace suddainely, soe whatsoever shall be consented unto by our lieutenant the marquis of Ormond. We will dye a thousand deaths rather than disannull or break it; and if vpon necessity any thing to be condescended unto, and yet the lord marquis not willing to be seene therein, as not fitt for us at the present publickely to owne, doe you endeavour to supply the same."—Century of Inventions by Mr. Partington, original letters and official papers, xxxv. Then follows a promise to perform any promise made by him to Ormond or others, &c.
January 6. He received a commission to levy any number of men in Ireland and other parts beyond the sea, with power to appoint officers, receive the king's rents, &c.—Birch, p. 18, from the Nuncio's Memoirs, fol. 713.
January 12. He received another warrant of a most extraordinary description, which I shall transcribe from a MS. copy in my possession, attested with the earl's signature, and probably the very same which he gave to Ormond after his arrest and imprisonment.
"Charles by the grace of God king of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Fayth, &c. To our Right trusty and Right well beloved Cossin Edward Earle of Glamorgan greetinge. Whereas wee haue had sufficient and ample testimony of y'r approued wisdome and fideliti. Soe great is the confidence we repose in yo'w as that whatsoeuer yo'w shall perform as warranted only under our signe manuall pockett signett or private marke or even by woorde of mouthe w'thout further cerimonii, wee doo in the worde of a kinge and a cristian promis to make good to all intents and purposes as effectually as if your authoriti from us had binne under our great seale of England w'th this advantage that wee shall esteem our self farr the moore obliged to yo'w for y'r gallantry in not standing upon such nice tearms to doe us service w'h we shall God willing rewarde. And althoughe yo'w exceed what law can warrant or any power of ours reach unto, as not knowinge what yo'w may have need of, yet it being for our service, wee oblige ourself not only to give yo'w our pardon, but to mantayne the same w'th all our might and power, and though, either by accident yo'w loose or by any other occasion yo'w shall deem necessary to deposit any of our warrants and so wante them at yo'r returne, wee faythfully promise to make them good at your returne, and to supply any thinge wheerin they shall be founde defective, it not being convenient for us at this time to dispute upon them, for of what wee haue heer sett downe yo'w may rest confident, if theer be fayth or truth in man; proceed theerfor cheerfully, spedelj, and bouldly, and for your so doinge this shal be yo'r sufficient warrant. Given at our Court at Oxford under our signe manuall and privat signet this 12 of January 1644.
"To our Right trustj and Right well beloved cosinEdward Earle of Glamorgan."Indorsed, "The Earle of Glamorgan's further authoritj."
Feb. 12. Glamorgan had left Oxford, and was raising money in Wales, when Charles sent him other despatches, and with them a letter desiring him to hasten to Ireland. In it he acknowledges the danger of the undertaking, that Glamorgan had already spent above a million of crowns in his service, and that he was bound in gratitude to take care of him next to his own wife and children. "What I can further thinke at this point is to send y'w the blue ribben, and a warrant for the title of duke of Somerset, both w'ch accept and make vse of at your discretion, and if you should deferre y'e publishing of either for a whyle to avoyde envye, and my being importuned by others, yet I promise yo'r antiquitie for y'e one and your pattent for the other shall bear date with the warrants."—Century of Inventions, p. xxxiv. On the 18th of August, 1660, the marquess of Hertford complained that this patent was injurious to him, as he claimed the tide of Somerset. Glamorgan, then marquess of Worcester, readily surrendered it on the 3rd of September, and his son was created duke of Beaufort.
On March 12, the king wrote to him the following letter:—
"I wonder you are not yet gone for Ireland; but since you have stayed all this time, I hope these will ouertake you, whereby you will the more see the great trust and confidence I repose in your integrity, of which I have had soe long and so good experience; commanding yow to deale with all ingenuity and freedome with our lieutenant of Ireland the marquess of Ormond, and on the word of a king and a Christian I will make good any thing which our lieutenant shall be induced unto upon your persuasion; and if you find it fitting, you may privately shew him these, which I intend not as obligatory to him, but to myselfe, and for both your encouragements and warrantise, in whom I repose my cheefest hopes, not having in all my kingdomes two such subjects; whose endeauours joining, I am confident to be soone drawen out of the mire I am now enforced to wallow in."—Century of Inventions, xxxviii.
What were the writings meant by the word "these" which Glamorgan might show to Ormond if he thought fitting? Probably the following warranty dated at Oxford on the same day.
"Charles by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Fayth &c. To our right trusty and right welbeloved Cosin Edward earle of Glamorgan Greeting. We reposing great and espitiall trust, and confidence in y'r approved wisdome, and fidelity doe by these (as firmely as under our great seale to all intents and purposes) Authorise and give you power to treate and conclude w'th the Confederat Romaine Catholikes in our Kingdom of Ireland, if vpon necessity any thing be to be condescended vnto wherein our Lieutenant can not so well be seene in as not fitt for vs at the present publikely to owne, and therefore we charge you to proceede according to this our warrant w'th all possible secresie, and for whatsoever you shall engage your selfe, vpon such valuable considerations as you in y'r iudgement shall deeme fitt, we promise in the word of a King and a Christian to ratifie and performe the same, that shall be graunted by you, and vnder your hand and seale, the sayd confederat Catholikes having by theyr supplyes testified theyre zeale to our service, and this shall be in eache particular to you a sufficient warrant. Given at our Court at Oxford, under our signett and Royall signature the twelfe day of Marche in the twentieth year of our Raigne 1644.
To our Right Trusty and right welbeloved Cosin,
Edward Earle of Glamorgan."
Some writers have attempted to dispute the authenticity of this warrant, because though it was inserted verbatim in Glamorgan's treaty with the confederates, he did not produce it at the requisition of the council at Dublin, under the excuse that he had deposited it with the Catholics at Kilkenny. But that this was the truth, appears from the Nuncio's Memoirs: "a sua majestate mandatum habuit, cujus originate regiâ manu subscriptum Glamorganae comes deposuit apud confoederatos Catholicos," (fol. 1292, apud Birch, 215); and if better authority be required, I have in my possession the original warrant itself, with the king's signature and private seal, bearing the arms of the three kingdoms, a crown above, and C.R. on the sides, and indorsed in the same handwriting with the body of the warrant, "The Earle of Glamorgan's espetiall warrant for Ireland." Of this original the above is a correct copy.
April 30. The king having heard that Rinuccini had been appointed nuncio, and was on his way to Ireland, sent to Glamorgan a letter for that prelate and another for the pope. The contents of the second are unknown; the first is copied in the Nuncio's Memoirs, "Nous ne doubtons point, que les choses n'yront bien, et que les bonnes intentions commencés par effect du dernier pape ne s'accomplisseront par celuys icy, et par vos moyens, en notre royaume d'Irelande et de Angleterre."—Birch 28. He then requests the nuncio to join with Glamorgan, and promises to accomplish on the return of the latter, whatever they shall have resolved together.—Ibid.
The king, on his return to Oxford, after the disastrous campaign of 1645, still placed his principal reliance on the mission of Glamorgan; and, to induce the court of Rome to listen to the proposals of that envoy, wrote, with his own hand, the two following letters, of which the originals still exist in the Archivio Vaticano, one to the pope himself, the other to Cardinal Spada, requesting of both to give credit to Glamorgan or his messenger, and engaging the royal word to fulfil whatever should be agreed upon by Glamorgan, in the name of his sovereign:—
"Tot tantaque testimonia fidelitatis et affectus consanguinei nostri comitis Glamorganiae jamdudum accepimus, eamque in illo fiduciam merito reponimus, ut Sanctitas Vestra ei fidem merito praebere possit in quacumque re, de qua per se vel per alium nostro nomine cum Sanctitate Vestra tractaturus sit. Quaecumque vero ab ipso certo statuta fuerint, ea munire et confirmare pollicemur. In cujus testimonium brevissimas has scripsimus, manu et sigillo nostro munitas, qui nihil (potius) habemus in votis, quam ut fevore vestro in eum statum redigamur, quo palam profiteamur nos.
"Sanctitatis Vestrae
"Humilimum et obedientissimum servum,
"Apud Curiam nostram, CHARLES R.Oxoniae, Oct. 20, 1645."
Superscription—
"Beatissimo Patri Innocentio decimo Pontifici Maximo."
"Eminentissime Domine, Pauca scripsimus Beatissimo Patri, de fide adhibenda consanguineo nostro comiti Glamorganiae, et cuilibet ab eo delegato, quem ut Eminentia vestra pariter omni favore prosequatur, rogamus; certoque credat nos ratum habituros quicquid a praedicte comite, vel suo delegato, cum Sanctissimo Patre vel Eminentia vestra transactum fuerit.
"Eminentiae Vestrae,
"Apud Curiam nostram, Fidelisimus Amicus,Oxoniae, Oct. 20, 1645." CHARLES R.
Superscription—
"Eminentissimo Domino et Consanguineo nostro, Dño Cardinali Spada."
After the discovery of the whole proceeding, the king, on January 29th, 1646, sent a message to the two houses in England, in which he declares (with what truth the reader may judge) that Glamorgan had a commission to raise men, and "to that purpose only;" that he had no commission to treat of any thing else without the privity and directions of Ormond; that he had never sent any information of his having made any treaty with the Catholics, and that he (the king) disavowed him in his proceedings, and had ordered the Irish council to proceed against him by due course of law.—Charles's Works, 555.
Two days later, January 31, having acknowledged to the council at Dublin that he had informed Glamorgan of the secret instructions given to Ormond, and desired him to use his influence with the Catholics to persuade them to moderate their demands, he proceeds: "To this end (and with the strictest limitations that we could enjoin him, merely to those particulars concerning which we had given you secret instructions, as also even in that to do nothing but by your especial directions) it is possible we might have thought fit to have given unto the said earl of Glamorgan such a credential as might give him credit with the Roman Catholics, in case you should find occasion to make use of him, either as a farther assurance unto them of what you should privately promise, or in case you should judge it necessary to manage those matters for their greater confidence apart by him, of whom, in regard of his religion and interest, they might be less jealous. This is all, and the very bottom of what we might have possibly entrusted unto the said earl of Glamorgan in this affair."—Carte's Ormond, iii. 446. How this declaration is to be reconciled with the last, I know not.
With this letter to the council he sent two others. One was addressed to Ormond, asserting on the word of a Christian that he never intended Glamorgan to treat of any thing without Ormond's knowledge and approbation, as he was always diffident of the earl's judgment, but at the same time commanding him to suspend the execution of any sentence which might be pronounced against that nobleman.—Carte, ii. App. p. 12. The second, dated Feb. 3, was to Glamorgan himself, in these words:—
I must clearly tell you, both you and I have been abused in this business; for you have been drawn to consent to conditions much beyond your instructions, and your treaty had been divulged to all the world. If you had advised with my lord lieutenant, as you promised me, all this had been helped. But we must look forward. Wherefore, in a word, I have commanded as much favour to be shewn to you as may possibly stand with my service or safety; and if you will yet trust my advice—which I have commanded Digby to give you freely—I will bring you so off that you may still be useful to me, and I shall be able to recompence you for your affection; if not, I cannot tell what to say. But I will not doubt your compliance in this, since it so highly concerns the good of all my crowns, my own particular, and to make me have still means to shew myself
Your most assured Friend,
CHARLES R. Oxford, Feb. 3, 1645-6."Warner, 360.
In this letter Charles, in his own defence, pretends to blame Glamorgan; probably as a blind to Ormond and Digby, through whom it was sent. Soon afterwards, on February 28th, he despatched Sir J. Winter to him with full instructions, and the following consolatory epistle:—
I am confident that this honest trusty bearer will give you good satisfaction why I have not in euerie thing done as you desired, the wante of confidence in you being so farre from being y'e cause thereof, that I am euery day more and more confirmed in the trust that I have of you, for beleeve me, it is not in the power of any to make you suffer in my opinion by ill offices; but of this and diuers other things I have given so full instructions that I will saye no more, but that I am
Yor most assured constant Friend,
Century of Inventions, xxxix.
April 5th he wrote to him again.
I have no time, nor do you expect that I shall make unnecessary repetitions to you. Wherefore, referring you to Digby for business, this is only to give you assurance of my constant friendship to you: which, considering the general defection of common honesty, is in a sort requisite. Howbeit, I know you cannot but be confident of my making good all instructions and promises to you and the nuncio.
Your most assured constant Friend,
Warner, 373.
On the following day the king sent him another short letter.
As I doubt not but you have too much courage to be dismayed or discouraged at the usage you have had, so I assure you that my estimation of you is nothing diminished by it, but rather begets in me a desire of revenge and reparation to us both; for in this I hold myself equally interested with you. Wherefore, not doubting of your accustomed care and industry in my service, I assure you of the continuance of my favour and protection to you, and that in deeds more than words, I shall shew myself to be
Your most assured constant Friend,
Warner, 374.
If after the perusal of these documents any doubt can remain of the authenticity of Glamorgan's commission, it must be done away by the following passage from Clarendon's correspondence with secretary Nicholas. Speaking of his intended history, he says, "I must tell you, I care not how little I say in that business of Ireland, since those strange powers and instructions given to your favourite Glamorgan, which appears to me so inexcusable to justice, piety, and prudence. And I fear there is very much in that transaction of Ireland, both before and since, that you and I were never thought wise enough to be advised with in. Oh, Mr. Secretary, those stratagems have given me more sad hours than all the misfortunes in war which have befallen the king, and look like the effects of God's anger towards us."—Clarendon Papers, ii. 337.
It appears that the king, even after he had been delivered by the Scots to the parliament, still hoped to derive benefit from the exertions of Glamorgan. About the beginning of June, 1647, Sir John Somerset, the brother of that nobleman, arrived in Rome with a letter from Charles to Innocent X. The letter is not probably in existence; but the answer of the pontiff shows that the king had solicited pecuniary assistance, and, as an inducement, had held out some hint of a disposition on his part to admit the papal supremacy and the Catholic creed. Less than this cannot be inferred from the language of Innocent. Literae illae praecipuam tuam alacritatem ac propensionem ad obediendum Deo in nobis, qui ejus vices gerimus, luculenter declarant … a majestate tua enixe poscimus, ut quod velle coepit, mox et facto perficiat … ut aliquo id aggrediaris argumento, quo te te ad Catholicam fidem recepisse intelligamus. Undoubtedly Charles was making the same experiment with the pontiff which he had just made with his Presbyterian subjects; and as, to propitiate them, he had undertaken to study the Presbyterian doctrines, so he hoped to draw money from Innocent by professing an inclination in favour of the Catholic creed. But the attempt failed. The answer was, indeed, complimentary: it expressed the joy of the pontiff at the perusal of his letter, and exhorted him to persevere in the inquiry till he should come to the discovery of the truth; but it disposed of his request, as Urban had previously disposed of a similar request, by stating that it was inconsistent with the duty of the pope to spend the treasures of his church in the support of any but Catholic princes. This answer is dated 29th June, 1647.
NOTE B, p. 136.
1. The ordinances had distinguished two classes of delinquents, the one religious, the other political. The first comprised all Catholic recusants, all persons whomsoever, who, having attained the age of twenty-one, should refuse to abjure upon oath the doctrines peculiar to the Catholic creed. These were reputed papists, and had been made to forfeit two-thirds of their real and personal estates, which were seized for the benefit of the kingdom by the commissioners of sequestration appointed in each particular county. The second comprehended all persons who were known to have fought against the parliament, or to have aided the royal party with money, men, provisions, advice, or information; and of these the whole estates, both real and personal, had been sequestrated, with the sole exception of one-fifth allotted for the support of their wives and children, if the latter were educated in the Protestant religion.—Elsynge's Ordinances. 3, 22, et seq.
2. These sequestrated estates not only furnished a yearly income, but also a ready supply on every sudden emergency. Thus when Colonel Harvey refused to march till his regiment had received the arrears of its pay, amounting to three thousand pounds, an ordinance was immediately passed to raise the money by the sale of woods belonging to Lord Petre, in the county of Essex.—Journals, vi, 519. When a complaint was made of a scarcity of timber for the repairs of the navy, the two houses authorized certain shipwrights to fell two thousand five hundred oak trees on the estates of delinquents in Kent and Essex.—Ibid, 520. When the Scots demanded a month's pay for their army, the committee at Goldsmiths' Hall procured the money by offering for sale such property of delinquents as they judged expedient, the lands at eight, the houses at six years' purchase.—Journals of Commons, June 10, 24, 1644.
3. But the difficulty of procuring ready money by sales induced the commissioners to look out for some other expedient; and when the sum of fifteen thousand pounds was wanted to put the army of Fairfax in motion, it was raised without delay by offering to delinquents the restoration of their sequestrated estates, on the immediate payment of a certain fine.—Commons' Journals, Sept. 13, 1644. The success of this experiment encouraged them to hold out a similar indulgence to such persons as were willing to quit the royal party, provided they were not Catholics, and would take the oath of abjuration of the Catholic doctrine.—Ibid. March 6, August 12, 1645; May 4, June 26, Sept. 3, 1646. Afterwards, on the termination of the war, the great majority of the royalists were admitted to make their compositions with the committee. Of the fines required, the greater number amounted to one-tenth, many to one-sixth, and a few to one-third of the whole property, both real and personal, of the delinquents.—(See the Journals of both houses for the years 1647, 1648.)
NOTE C, p. 241.
On the day after the king's execution appeared a work, entitled [Greek: EIKON BASILIKAe], or the Portraicture of his Sacred Majesty in "his Solitude and Sufferings." It professed to be written by Charles himself; a faithful exposition of his own thoughts on the principal events of his reign, accompanied with such pious effusions as the recollection suggested to his mind. It was calculated to create a deep sensation in favour of the royal sufferer, and is said to have passed through fifty editions in the course of the first year. During the commonwealth, Milton made a feeble attempt to disprove the king's claim to the composition of the book: after the restoration, Dr. Gauden, a clergyman of Bocking, in Essex, came forward and declared himself the real author. But he advanced his pretensions with secrecy, and received as the price of his silence, first the bishopric of Exeter, and afterwards, when he complained of the poverty of that see, the richer bishopric of Worcester.
After the death of Gauden his pretensions began to transpire, and became the subject of an interesting controversy between his friends and the admirers of Charles. But many documents have been published since, which were then unknown, particularly the letters of
Gauden to the earl of Clarendon (Clarendon Papers, iii. App. xxvi.-xxxi., xcv.), and others from him to the earl of Bristol (Maty's Review, ii. 253. Clarendon Papers, iii. App. xcvi.; and Mr. Todd, Memoirs of Bishop Walton, i. 138). These have so firmly established Gauden's claim, that, whoever denies it must be prepared to pronounce that prelate an impostor, to believe that the bishops Morley and Duppa gave false evidence in his favour, and, to explain how it happened, that those, the most interested to maintain the right of the king, namely Charles II., his brother the duke of York, and the two earls of Clarendon and Bristol, yielded to the deception. These difficulties, however, have not appalled Dr. Wordsworth, who in a recent publication of more than four hundred pages, entitled, "Who wrote[Greek: EIKON BASILIKAe]" has collected with patient industry every particle of evidence which can bear upon the subject; and after a most minute and laborious investigation, has concluded by adjudging the work to the king, and pronouncing the bishop an impudent impostor. Still my incredulity is not subdued. There is much in the[Greek: EIKON BASILIKAe] itself which forbids me to believe that Charles was the real author, though the latter, whoever he were, may have occasionally consulted and copied the royal papers; and the claim of Gauden appears too firmly established to be shaken by the imperfect and conjectural improbabilities which have hitherto been produced against it.
NOTE D, p. 276.
The Massacres at Drogheda and Wexford.
I. Drogheda was taken by storm on the 11th of September, 1649. Cromwell, on his return to Dublin, despatched two official accounts of his success, one to Bradshaw, president of the council of state; a second to Lenthall, the speaker of parliament. They were dated on the 16th and 17th of September; which probably ought to have been the 17th and 18th, for he repeatedly makes such mistakes in numbering the days of that month. These two documents on several accounts deserve the attention of the reader.
I. Both mention a massacre, but with this difference, that whereas the earlier seems to confine it to the men in arms against the commonwealth, the second towards the end notices, incidentally as it were, the additional slaughter of a thousand of the townspeople in the church of St. Peter. In the first, Cromwell, as if he doubted how the shedding of so much blood would be taken, appears to shift the origin of the massacre from himself to the soldiery, who considered the refusal of quarter as a matter of course, after the summons which had been sent into the town on the preceding day; but in the next despatch he assumes a bolder tone, and takes upon himself all the blame or merit of the proceeding. "Our men were orderedby meto put them all to the sword."—"I forbade them to spare any that were in arms." In the first, to reconcile the council to the slaughter, he pronounces it a "marvellous great mercy;" for the enemy had lost by it their best officers and prime soldiers: in the next he openly betrays his own misgivings, acknowledging that "such actions cannot but work remorse and regret without sufficient grounds," and alleging as sufficient grounds in the present case—1. that it was a righteous judgment of God on barbarous wretches who had imbued their hands in so much innocent blood; and 2. that it would tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future.
2. Now the insinuation conveyed in the first of these reasons, that the major part of the garrison had been engaged in the outbreak of the rebellion and its accompanying horrors, was in all probability a falsehood; for the major part of the garrison was not composed of native soldiers, but of Englishmen serving under the marquess of Ormond, the king's lord lieutenant. This is plain from the evidence of persons who cannot be supposed ignorant of the fact; the evidence of the royalist Clarendon (History, vol. iii. part i. p. 323), and of the republican Ludlow, who soon afterwards was made general of the horse, and became Cromwell's deputy in the government of the island (Ludlow, Memoirs, i. 301). But, however groundless the insinuation might be, it served Cromwell's purpose; it would array in his favour the fanaticism of the more godly of his party.
For the massacre of the townspeople in the church he offers a similar apology, equally calculated to interest the feelings of the saints. "They had had the insolence on the last Lord's day to thrust out the Protestants, and to have the mass said there." Now this remark plainly includes a paralogism. The persons who had ordered the mass to be said there on the 9th of September were undoubtedly the civil or military authorities in the town. Theirs was the guilt, if guilt it were, and theirs should have been the punishment. Yet his argument supposes that the unarmed individuals whose blood was shed there on the 12th, were the very persons who had set up the mass on the 9th.
3. We know not how far this second massacre was originated or encouraged by Cromwell. It is well known that in the sack of towns it is not always in the power of the commander to restrain the fury of the assailants, who abuse the license of victory to gratify the most brutal of their passions. But here we have no reason to suppose that Cromwell made any effort to save the lives of the unarmed and the innocent. Both the commander and his men had a common religious duty to perform. They were come, in his own language, "to ask an account of the innocent blood which had been shed,"—to "do execution on the enemies of God's cause." Hence, in the case of a resisting city, they included the old man, the female, and the child in the same category with the armed combatant, and consigned all to the same fate.
4. Of the proceedings of the victors during that night we are ignorant; but it does not suggest a very favourable notion of their forbearance, that in the following morning the great church of St. Peter's was filled with crowds of townspeople of both sexes, and of every age and condition. The majority of the women and children sought protection within the body of the church; a select party of females, belonging to the first families in the town, procured access to the crypts under the choir, which seemed to offer more favourable chances of concealment and safety. But the sacred edifice afforded no asylum to either. The carnage began within the church at an early hour; and, when it was completed, the bloodhounds tracked their prey into the vaults beneath the pavement. Among the men who thus descended into these subterranean recesses, was Thomas Wood, at that time a subaltern, afterwards a captain in Ingoldsby's regiment. He found there, according to his own narrative, "the flower and choicest of the women and ladies belonging to the town, amongst whom a most handsome virgin, arrayed in costly and gorgeous apparel, kneeled down to him with tears and prayers to save her life; and being strucken with a profound pitie, he took her under his arme, and went with her out of the church with intentions to put her over the works to shift for herself; but a soldier perceiving his intention, he ran his sword up her belly or fundament. Whereupon Mr. Wood, seeing her gasping, took away her money, jewels, &c., and flung her down over the works." (See the Life of Anthony a Wood, p. xx., in the edition by Bliss, of 1813. Thomas was the brother of Anthony, the Oxford historian.) "He told them also that 3,000 at least, besides some women and children, were, after the assailants hadtaken part, and afterwards all the towne, put to the sword on the 11th and 12th of September, 1649. He told them that when they were to make their way up to the lofts and galleries of the church, and up to the tower, where the enemy had fled, each of the assailants would take up a child, and use as a buckler of defence, when they ascended the steps, to keep themselves from being shot or brained."—Wood, ibid. These anecdotes, from the mouth of one who was an eyewitness of, probably a participator in, the horrors of that day, will enable the reader to form an adequate notion of the thirst for blood which stimulated the soldiery, and of the cruelties which they exercised on their defenceless victims.