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would pay the slightest attention, except by means of acts of parliament. It was doubtless possible that the council of state might have entered into a secret agreement. with him on certain terms, to be incorporated afterwards into bills, as at the treaty of Newport. But at that treaty his father, though in prison, was the acknowledged sovereign of England; and it is manifest that the king's recognition must precede the enactment of any law. It is equally obvious that the contracting parties would no longer be the same, and that the conditions that seemed indispensable to the council of state might not meet with the approbation of parliament. It might occur to an impatient people, that the former were not invested with such legal or permanent authority as could give them any pretext for bargaining with the king, even in behalf of public liberty.

But, if the council of state, or even the parliament on its first meeting, had resolved to tender any hard propositions to the king, as the terms, if not of his recognition, yet of his being permitted to exercise the royal functions, was there not a possibility that he might demur about their acceptance, that a negociation might ensue to procure some abatement, that in the interchange of couriers between London and Brussels, some weeks at least might be whiled away? Clarendon, we are sure, inflexible and uncompromising as to his master's honour, would have dissuaded such enormous sacrifices as had been exacted from the late king. And during this delay, while no legal authority would have subsisted, so that no officer could have collected the taxes or executed process without liability to punishment, in what a precarious state would the parliament have stood ! On the one hand, the nation almost maddened with the intoxication of reviving loyalty, and rather prone to cast at the king's feet the privileges and liberties it possessed, than to demand fresh security for them, might insist upon his immediate return, and impair the authority of parliament. On the other hand, the army, desperately irreconcilable to the name of Stuart, and sullenly resisting the hypocrisy that had deluded them, though they knew no longer where to seek a leader, were accessible to the furious commonwealth's men, who, rushing as it were with lighted torches along their ranks, endeavoured to rekindle a fanaticism that had not quite consumed its fuel. (Life of Clarendon, p. 10.) The escape of Lambert from the Tower had struck a panic into all the kingdom; some such action might again furnish a rallying point for the disaffected, and plunge the country into an unfathomable abyss of confusion. Hence the motion of sir Matthew Hale, in the convention parliament, to appoint a committee, who should draw up propositions to be sent over for the king's acceptance, does not appear to me to be well timed and expedient; nor can I censure Monk for having objected to it.* The business in hand required greater dispatch. If the king's restoration was an essential blessing, it was not to be thrown away in the debates of a committee. A wary, scrupulous, conscientious English lawyer, like sir Matthew Hale, is always wanting in the rapidity and decision necessary for revolutions, though he may be highly useful in preventing them from going too far.

It is, I confess, more probable that the king would have accepted almost any conditions tendered to him; such at least would have been the advice of most of his counsellors; and his own conduct in Scotland was sufficient to show how little any sense of honour or dignity would have stood in his way. But on what grounds did his English friends, nay, some of the presbyterians themselves, advise his submission to the dictates of that party? It was in the expectation that the next free parliament, summoned by his own writ, would undo all this work of stipulation, and restore him to an unfettered prerogative. And this expectation there was every

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* "This," says Burnet somewhat invidiously, was the great service that Monk did; for as to the restoration itself, the tide ran so strong, that he only went into it dexterously enough to get much praise and great rewards." P. 123.

ground, from the temper of the nation, to entertain. Unless the convention parliament had bargained for its own perpetuity, or the privy council had been made immovable, or a military force, independent of the crown, had been kept up to overawe the people,-all of them most unconstitutional and abominable usurpations, there was no possibility of maintaining the conditions, whatever they might have been, from the want of which so much mischief is fancied to have sprung. Evils did take place, dangers did arise, the liberties of England were once more impaired; but these are far less to be ascribed to the actors in the restoration, than to the next parliament, and to the nation who chose it.

I must once more request the reader to take notice, that I am not here concerned with the proceedings of the convention parliament after the king's return to England, which, in some respects, appear to me censurable; but discussing the question, whether they were guilty of any fault in not tendering bills of limitation on the prerogative, as preliminary conditions of his restoration to the exercise of his lawful authority. And it will be found, upon a review of what took place in that interregnum from their meeting together on the 25th of April, 1660, to Charles's arrival in London on the 29th of May, that they were less unmindful than has been sometimes supposed of provisions to secure the kingdom against the perils which had seemed to threaten it in the restoration.

On the 25th of April, the commons met and elected Grimston, a moderate presbyterian, as their speaker, somewhat against the secret wish of the cavaliers, who, elated by their success in the elections, were beginning to aim at superiority, and to show a jealousy of their late allies.* On the same day, the doors of the house of lords were found open; and ten peers, all of whom had sat in 1648, took their place as if nothing more than a common adjournment had passed in the interval. † There was, however, a very delicate and embarrassing question, that had been much discussed in their private meetings. The object of these, as I have mentioned, was to impose terms on the king, and maintain the presbyterian ascendancy. But the peers of this party were far from numerous, and must be out-voted, if all the other lawful members of the house should be admitted to their privileges. Of these there were three classes. The first was of the peers who had come to their titles since the commencement of the civil war, and whom there was no colour of justice, nor any vote of the house to exclude. To some of these accordingly they caused letters to be directed; and the others took their seats without objection on the 26th and 27th of April, on the latter of which days thirty-eight peers were present. (Clar. St. Pap., 784. Lords' Journs.) The second class was of those who had joined Charles the First, and had been excluded from sitting in the house by votes of the long parliament. These it had been in contemplation among the presbyterian junto to keep out; but the glaring inconsistency of such a measure with the popular sentiment, and the strength that the first class had given to the royalist interest among the aristocracy, prevented them from insisting on it. A third class consisted of those who had been created since the great seal was taken to York in 1642; some by the late king, others by the present in exile; and these, according to the fundamental principle of the parliamentary side, were incapable of sitting in the house. It was probably one of the conditions on which some meant to insist, conformably to the articles of the treaty of Newport, that the new peers should be perpetually incapable; or even that none in future should have the right of voting,

Grimston was proposed by Pierrepoint, and conducted to the chair by him, Monk, and Hollis. Journ., Parl. Hist. The cavaliers complained that this was done before they came into the house, and that he was partial. Mordaunt to Hyde, April 27. Clar. St. Papers, 734.

These were the earls of Manchester, Northumberland, Lincoln, Denbigh, and Suffolk; lorda Saye, Wharton, Hundsdon, Grey, Maynard. Lords' Journs., April 25.

An order was made there-
This was vacated by a

without the concurrence of both houses of parliament.
fore on May 4, that no lords created since 1642 should sit.
subsequent resolution of May 31.

*

A message was sent down to the commons on April 27, desiring a conference on the great affairs of the kingdom. This was the first time that word had been used for more than eleven years. But the commons, in returning an answer to this message, still employed the word nation. It was determined that the conference should take place on the ensuing Tuesday, the first of May. In this conference, there can be no doubt that the question of further securities against the power of the crown would have been discussed. But Monk, whether from conviction of their inexpedience, or to atone for his ambiguous delay, had determined to prevent any encroachment on the prerogative. He caused the king's letter to the council of state, and to the two houses of parliament, to be delivered on that very day. A burst of enthusiastic joy testified their long repressed wishes; and when the conference took place, the earl of Manchester was instructed to let the commons know that the lords do own and declare that, according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is and ought to be by king, lords, and commons. On the same day, the commons resolved to agree in this vote; and appointed a committee to report what pretended acts and ordinances were inconsistent with it. (Lords' and Com. Journ. Parl. Hist. iv. 24.)

It is however so far from being true that this convention gave itself up to a blind confidence in the king, that their journals during the month of May bear witness to a considerable activity in furthering provisions, which the circumstances appeared to require. They appointed a committee, on May 3rd, to consider of the king's letter and declaration, both holding forth, it will be remembered, all promises of indemnity, and every thing that could tranquillize apprehension, and to propose bills accordingly, especially for taking away military tenures. One bill was brought into the house, to secure lands purchased from the trustees of the late parliament; another, to establish ministers already settled in benefices; a third, for a general indemnity; a fourth, to take away tenures in chivalry and wardship; a fifth, to make void all grants of honour or estate, made by the late or present king since May 1642. Finally, on the very 29th of May, we find a bill read twice and committed, for the confirmation of privilege of parliament, magna charta, the petition of right, and other great constitutional statutes. (Com. Journ.) These measures, though some of them were never completed, prove that the restoration was not carried forward with so thoughtless a precipitancy and neglect of liberty as has been asserted. There was undoubtedly one very important matter of past controversy, which they may seem to have avoided, the power over the militia. They silently gave up that momentous question. Yet it was become, in a practical sense, incomparably more important that the representatives of the commons should retain a control over the

* "It was this day (April 27) moved in the house of commons to call in the king; but it was deferred till Tues. next by the king's friends' consent, and then it is generally believed something will be done in it. The calling in of the king is now not doubted; but there is a party among the old secluded members, that would have the treaty grounded upon the Isle of Wight propositions; and the old lords are thought generally of that design. But it is believed the house of commons will use the king more gently. The general hath been highly complimented by both houses, and, without doubt, the giving the king easy or hard conditions dependeth t tally upon him; for, if he appear for the king, the affections of the people are so high for him, that no other authority can oppose him." H. Coventry to marquis of Ormond. Carte's Letters, ii. 328. Mordaunt confirms this. Those who moved for the king were colonel King and Mr. Finch, both decided cavaliers. It must have been postponed by the policy of Monk. What could Clarendon mean by saying (Hist. of Rebellion, vii., 478) that "none had the courage, how loyal soever their wishes were, to mention his majesty?" This way of speaking has misled Hume. The king was as generally talked of as if he were on the throne.

land forces of the nation than it had been at the commencement of the controversy. War and usurpation had sown the dragon's teeth in our fields; and instead of the peaceable trained bands of former ages, the citizen soldiers who could not be marched beyond their counties, we had a veteran army accustomed to tread upon the civil authority at the bidding of their superiors, and used alike to govern and obey. It seemed prodigiously dangerous to give up this weapon into the hands of our new sovereign. The experience of other countries as well as our own demonstrated that the public liberty could never be secure if a large standing army should be kept on foot or any standing army without consent of parliament. But this salutary restriction the convention parliament did not think fit to propose; and in this respect I certainly consider them as having stopped short of adequate security. It is probable that the necessity of humouring Monk, whom it was their first vote to constitute general of all the forces in the three kingdoms,* with the hope, which proved not vain, that the king himself would disband the present army whereon he could so little rely, prevented any endeavour to establish the control of parliament over the military power, till it was too late to withstand the violence of the cavaliers, who considered the absolute prerogative of the crown in that point the most fundamental article of their creed.

Of Monk himself it may, I think, be said that if his conduct in this revolution was not that of a high-minded patriot, it did not deserve all the reproach that has been so frequently thrown on it. No one can, without forfeiting all pretensions to have his own word believed, excuse his incomparable deceit and perjury; a masterpiece, no doubt, as it ought to be reckoned by those who set at nought the obligations of veracity in public transactions, of that wisdom which is not from above. But in seconding the public wish for the king's restoration, a step which few perhaps can be so much in love with fanatical and tyrannous usurpation as to condemn, he seems to have used what influence he possessed, an influence by no means commanding, to render the new settlement as little injurious as possible to public and private interests. If he frustrated the scheme of throwing the executive authority into the hands of a presbyterian oligarchy, I for one can see no great cause for censure; nor is it quite reasonable to expect that a soldier of fortune, inured to the exercise of arbitrary power, and exempt from the prevailing religious fanaticism which must be felt or despised, should have partaken a fervent zeal for liberty, as little congenial to his temperament as it was to his profession. He certainly did not satisfy the king even in his first promises of support, when he advised an absolute indemity, and the preservation of actual interests in the lands of the crown and church. In the first debates on the bill of indemnity, when the case of the regicides came into discussion, he pressed for the smallest number of exceptions from pardon. And though his conduct after the king's return displayed his accustomed prudence, it is evident that, if he had retained great influence in the council, which he assuredly did not, he would have maintained as much as possible of the existing settlement in the church. The deepest stain on his memory is the production of Argyle's private letters on his trial in Scotland; nor indeed can Monk be regarded in any respect as an estimable man, though his prudence and success may entitle him, in the common acceptation of the word, to be reckoned a wise one.

* Lords' Journs., May 2. The house went into consideration how to settle the militia of this kingdom. A committee of twelve lords was appointed, and the commons were requested to appoint a proportionate number. But no bill was brought in till after the king's return.

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In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after, a little before the great fire; the old women and the weak-minded portion of the other sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked (especially afterwards though not till both those judgments were over) that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses, that it was plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; that the comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that, accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgment, slow, but severe, terrible, and frightful, as the plague was; but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, like the conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that, as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but they even heard it; that it made a rushing mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable.

I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had so much of the common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments; and especially, when after the plague had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.

But I could not at the same time carry these things to the height that others did, knowing too that natural causes are assigned by the astronomers for such things; and that their motions, and even their evolutions, are calculated, or pretended to be calculated so that they cannot be so perfectly called the forerunners or foretellers, much less the procurers, of such events, as pestilence, war, fire, and the like.

But let my thoughts, and the thoughts of the philosophers, be or have been what they will, these things had a more than ordinary influence upon the minds of the common people, and they had, almost universally, melancholy apprehensions of some dreadful calamity and judgment coming upon the city; and this principally from the sight of this comet, and the little alarm that was given in December by two people dying at St. Giles's.

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times; in which, I think the people, from what principles I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies, and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since. Whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not; but certain it is, books frightened them terribly; such as Lilly's Almanack, Gadbury's Allogical Predictions, Poor Robin's Almanack, and the like; also several pretended religious books-one entitled Come out of her, my people, lest you be partaker of her plagues ;— another, called Fair Warning;—another, Britain's Remembrancer; and many such, all, or most part of which, foretold directly or covertly, the ruin of the city: nay, some were so enthusiastically bold, as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city; and one, in particular, who like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets : " Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not be positive whether he said "yet forty days," or "yet a few days." Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying

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