Constitutional History of England

Chapter 44

It is a singular part of Cromwell"s system of policy, that he would neither reign with parliaments nor without them; impatient of an opposition which he was sure to experience, he still never seems to have meditated the attainment of a naked and avowed despotism. This was probably due to his observation of the ruinous consequences that Charles had brought on himself by that course, and his knowledge of the temper of the English, never content without the exterior forms of liberty, as well as to the suggestions of counsellors who were not dest.i.tute of concern for the laws. He had also his great design yet to accomplish, which could only be safely done under the sanction of a parliament. A very short time, accordingly, before his death, we find that he had not only resolved to meet once more the representatives of the nation, but was tampering with several of the leading officers to obtain their consent to an hereditary succession. The majority however of a council of nine, to whom he referred this suggestion, would only consent that the protector for the time being should have the power of nominating his successor; a vain attempt to escape from that regal form of government which they had been taught to abhor.[456] But a sudden illness, of a nature seldom fatal except to a const.i.tution already shattered by fatigue and anxiety, rendered abortive all these projects of Cromwell"s ambition.

_Cromwell"s death, and character._--He left a fame behind him proportioned to his extraordinary fortunes and to the great qualities which sustained them; still more perhaps the admiration of strangers than of his country, because that sentiment was less alloyed by hatred, which seeks to extenuate the glory that irritates it. The nation itself forgave much to one who had brought back the renown of her ancient story, the traditions of Elizabeth"s age, after the ignominious reigns of her successors. This contrast with James and Charles in their foreign policy gave additional l.u.s.tre to the era of the protectorate. There could not but be a sense of national pride to see an Englishman, but yesterday raised above the many, without one drop of blood in his veins which the princes of the earth could challenge as their own, receive the homage of those who acknowledged no right to power, and hardly any t.i.tle to respect, except that of prescription. The sluggish pride of the court of Spain, the mean-spirited cunning of Mazarin, the irregular imagination of Christina, sought with emulous ardour the friendship of our usurper.[457] He had the advantage of reaping the harvest which he had not sown, by an honourable treaty with Holland, the fruit of victories achieved under the parliament. But he still employed the great energies of Blake in the service for which he was so eminently fitted; and it is just to say that the maritime glory of England may first be traced from the era of the commonwealth in a track of continuous light. The oppressed protestants in catholic kingdoms, disgusted at the lukewarmness and half-apostasy of the Stuarts, looked up to him as their patron and mediator.[458] Courted by the two rival monarchies of Europe, he seemed to threaten both with his hostility; and when he declared against Spain, and attacked her West India possessions with little pretence certainly of justice, but not by any means, as I conceive, with the impolicy sometimes charged against him, so auspicious was his star that the very failure and disappointment of that expedition obtained a more advantageous possession for England than all the triumphs of her former kings.

Notwithstanding this external splendour, which has deceived some of our own, and most foreign writers, it is evident that the submission of the people to Cromwell was far from peaceable or voluntary. His strong and skilful grasp kept down a nation of enemies that must naturally, to judge from their numbers and inveteracy, have overwhelmed him. It required a dexterous management to play with the army, and without the army he could not have existed as sovereign for a day. Yet it seems improbable that, had Cromwell lived, any insurrection or conspiracy, setting aside a.s.sa.s.sination, could have overthrown a possession so fenced by systematic vigilance, by experienced caution, by the respect and terror that belonged to his name. The royalist and republican intrigues had gone on for several years without intermission; but every part of their designs was open to him; and it appears that there was not courage or rather temerity sufficient to make any open demonstration of so prevalent a disaffection.[459]

The most superficial observers cannot have overlooked the general resemblances in the fortunes and character of Cromwell, and of him who, more recently and upon an ampler theatre, has struck nations with wonder and awe. But the parallel may be traced more closely than perhaps has. .h.i.therto been remarked. Both raised to power by the only merit which a revolution leaves uncontroverted and untarnished, that of military achievements, in that reflux of public sentiment, when the fervid enthusiasm of democracy gives place to disgust at its excesses and a desire of firm government. The means of greatness the same to both, the extinction of a representative a.s.sembly, once national, but already mutilated by violence, and sunk by its submission to that illegal force into general contempt. In military science or the renown of their exploits, we cannot certainly rank Cromwell by the side of him, for whose genius and ambition all Europe seemed the appointed quarry; but it may be said that the former"s exploits were as much above the level of his contemporaries, and more the fruits of an original uneducated capacity. In civil government, there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of reason and philosophy were open. But it must here be added that Cromwell, far unlike his ant.i.type, never showed any signs of a legislative mind, or any desire to fix his renown on that n.o.blest basis, the amelioration of social inst.i.tutions. Both were eminent masters of human nature, and played with inferior capacities in all the security of powerful minds.

Though both, coming at the conclusion of a struggle for liberty, trampled upon her claims, and sometimes spoke disdainfully of her name, each knew how to a.s.sociate the interests of those who had contended for her with his own ascendancy, and made himself the representative of a victorious revolution. Those who had too much philosophy or zeal for freedom to give way to popular admiration for these ill.u.s.trious usurpers, were yet amused with the adulation that lawful princes showered on them, more gratuitously in one instance, with servile terror in the other. Both too repaid in some measure this homage of the pretended great by turning their ambition towards those honours and t.i.tles which they knew to be so little connected with high desert. A fallen race of monarchs, which had made way for the greatness of each, cherished hopes of restoration by their power till each, by an inexpiable act of blood, manifested his determination to make no compromise with that line. Both possessed a certain coa.r.s.e good nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honour, and humanity; quick in pa.s.sion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes. Their fortunes in the conclusion of life were indeed very different; one forfeited the affections of his people, which the other, in the character at least of their master, had never possessed; one furnished a moral to Europe by the continuance of his success, the other by the prodigiousness of his fall. A fresh resemblance arose afterwards, when the restoration of those royal families, whom their ascendant had kept under, revived ancient animosities, and excited new ones; those who from love of democratical liberty had borne the most deadly hatred to the apostates who had betrayed it, recovering some affection to their memory, out of aversion to a common enemy. Our English republicans have, with some exceptions, displayed a sympathy for the name of Cromwell; and I need not observe how remarkably this holds good in the case of his mighty parallel.[460]

_Cromwell"s son succeeds him_--The death of a great man, even in the most regular course of affairs, seems always to create a sort of pause in the movement of society; it is always a problem to be solved only by experiment, whether the mechanism of government may not be disordered by the shock, or have been deprived of some of its moving powers. But what change could be so great as that from Oliver Cromwell to his son! from one beneath the terror of whose name a nation had cowered and foreign princes grown pale, one trained in twenty eventful years of revolution, the first of his age in the field or in council, to a young man fresh from a country life, uneducated, unused to business, as little a statesman as a soldier, and endowed by nature with capacities by no means above the common. It seems to have been a mistake in Oliver that with the projects he had long formed in his eldest son"s favour, he should have taken so little pains to fashion his mind and manners for the exercise of sovereign power, while he had placed the second in a very eminent and arduous station; or that, if he despaired of Richard"s capacity, he should have trusted him to encounter those perils of disaffection and conspiracy which it had required all his own vigilance to avert. But, whatever might be his plans, the sudden illness which carried him from the world left no time for completing them. The Pet.i.tion and Advice had simply empowered him to appoint a successor, without prescribing the mode. It appeared consonant to law and reason that so important a trust should be executed in a notorious manner, and by a written instrument; or, if a verbal nomination might seem sufficient, it was at least to be expected that this should be authenticated by solemn and indisputable testimony. No proof however was ever given of Richard"s appointment by his father, except a recital in the proclamation of the privy council, which, whether well founded or otherwise, did not carry conviction to the minds of the people; and this, even if we call it but an informality, aggravated the numerous legal and natural deficiencies of his t.i.tle to the government.[461]

This very difference however in the personal qualifications of the father and the son, procured the latter some friends whom the former had never been able to gain. Many of the presbyterian party began to see the finger of G.o.d, as they called it, in his peaceable accession, and to think they owed subjection to one who came in neither by regicide, nor hypocrisy, nor violence.[462] Some cool-headed and sincere friends of liberty entertained similar opinions. Pierrepont, one of the wisest men in England, who had stood aloof from the protector"s government till the scheme of restoring monarchy came into discussion, had great hopes, as a writer of high authority informs us, of settling the nation in the enjoyment of its liberties under the young man; who was "so flexible," says that writer, "to good counsels, that there was nothing desirable in a prince which might not have been hoped in him, but a great spirit and a just t.i.tle; the first of which sometimes doth more hurt than good in a sovereign; the latter would have been supplied by the people"s deserved approbation." Pierrepont believed that the restoration of the ancient family could not be effected without the ruin of the people"s liberty, and of all who had been its champions; so that no royalist, he thought, who had any regard to his country, would attempt it: while this establishment of monarchy in Richard"s person might reconcile that party, and compose all differences among men of weight and of zeal for the public good.[463] He acted accordingly on those principles; and became, as well as his friend St. John, who had been discountenanced by Oliver, a steady supporter of the young protector"s administration. These two, with Thurloe, Whitelock, Lord Broghill, and a very few more, formed a small phalanx of experienced counsellors around his unstable throne.

And I must confess that their course of policy in sustaining Richard"s government appears to me the most judicious that, in the actual circ.u.mstances, could have been adopted. Pregnant as the restoration of the exiled family was with incalculable dangers, the English monarchy would have revived with less l.u.s.tre in the eyes of the vulgar, but with more security for peace and freedom, in the line of Cromwell.

Time would have worn away the stains of ign.o.ble birth and criminal usurpation; and the young man, whose misfortune has subjected him to rather an exaggerated charge of gross incapacity, would probably have reigned as well as most of those who are born in the purple.[464]

But this termination was defeated by the combination of some who knew not what they wished, and of some who wished what they could never attain. The general officers who had been well content to make Cromwell the first of themselves, or greater than themselves by their own creation, had never forgiven his manifest design to reign over them as one of a superior order, and owing nothing to their pleasure.

They had begun to cabal during his last illness. Though they did not oppose Richard"s succession, they continued to hold meetings, not quite public, but exciting intense alarm in his council. As if disdaining the command of a clownish boy, they proposed that the station of lord general should be separated from that of protector, with the power over all commissions in the army, and conferred on Fleetwood; who, though his brother-in-law, was a certain instrument in their hands. The vain ambitious Lambert, aspiring, on the credit of some military reputation, to wield the sceptre of Cromwell, influenced this junto; while the commonwealth"s party, some of whom were, or had been, in the army, drew over several of these ignorant and fanatical soldiers. Thurloe describes the posture of affairs in September and October, while all Europe was admiring the peaceable transmission of Oliver"s power, as most alarming; and it may almost be said that Richard had already fallen when he was proclaimed the lord protector of England.[465]

_A parliament called._--It was necessary to summon a parliament on the usual score of obtaining money. Lord Broghill had advised this measure immediately on Oliver"s death,[466] and perhaps the delay might be rather prejudicial to the new establishment. But some of the council feared a parliament almost as much as they did the army. They called one, however, to meet Jan. 27, 1659, issuing writs in the ordinary manner to all boroughs which had been accustomed to send members, and consequently abandoning the reformed model of Cromwell. This Ludlow attributes to their expectation of greater influence among the small boroughs; but it may possibly be ascribed still more to a desire of returning by little and little to the ancient const.i.tution, by eradicating the revolutionary innovations. The new parliament consisted of courtiers, as the Cromwell party were always denominated, of presbyterians, among whom some of cavalier principles crept in, and of republicans; the two latter nearly balancing, with their united weight, the ministerial majority.[467] They began with an oath of allegiance to the protector, as presented by the late parliament, which, as usual in such cases, his enemies generally took without scruple.[468] But upon a bill being offered for the recognition of Richard as the undoubted lord protector and chief magistrate of the commonwealth, they made a stand against the word recognise, which was carried with difficulty, and caused him the mortification of throwing out the epithet undoubted.[469] They subsequently discussed his negative voice in pa.s.sing bills, which had been purposely slurred over in the Pet.i.tion and Advice; but now everything was disputed. The th.o.r.n.y question as to the powers and privileges of the other house came next into debate. It was carried by 177 to 113, to transact business with them. To this resolution an explanation was added, that it was not thereby intended to exclude such peers as had been faithful to the parliament, from their privilege of being duly summoned to be members of that house. The court supporting this absurd proviso, which confounded the ancient and modern systems of government, carried it by the small majority of 195 to 188.[470] They were stronger in rejecting an important motion, to make the approbation of the Commons a preliminary to their transacting business with the persons now sitting in the other house as a house of parliament, by 183 voices to 146. But the opposition succeeded in inserting the words "during the present parliament," which left the matter still unsettled.[471] The sitting of the Scots and Irish members was also unsuccessfully opposed. Upon the whole, the court party, notwithstanding this coalition of very heterogeneous interests against them, were sufficiently powerful to disappoint the hopes which the royalist intriguers had entertained. A strong body of lawyers, led by Maynard, adhered to the government, which was supported also on some occasions by a part of the presbyterian interest, or, as then called, the moderate party; and Richard would probably have concluded the session with no loss of power, if either he or his parliament could have withstood the more formidable cabal of Wallingford House. This knot of officers, Fleetwood, Desborough, Berry, Sydenham, being the names most known among them, formed a coalition with the republican faction, who despaired of any success in parliament. The dissolution of that a.s.sembly was the main article of this league. Alarmed at the notorious caballing of the officers, the Commons voted that, during the sitting of the parliament, there should be no general council, or meeting of the officers of the army without leave of the protector and of both houses.[472] Such a vote could only accelerate their own downfall.

Three days afterwards, the junto of Wallingford House insisted with Richard that he should dissolve parliament; to which, according to the advice of most of his council, and perhaps by an overruling necessity, he gave his consent.[473] This was immediately followed by a declaration of the council of officers, calling back the Long Parliament, such as it had been expelled in 1653, to those seats which had been filled meanwhile by so many transient successors.[474]

It is not in general difficult for an armed force to destroy a government; but something else than the sword is required to create one. The military conspirators were dest.i.tute of any leader whom they would acknowledge, or who had capacity to go through the civil labours of sovereignty; Lambert alone excepted, who was lying in wait for another occasion. They might have gone on with Richard, as a pageant of nominal authority. But their new allies, the commonwealth"s men, insisted upon restoring the Long Parliament.[475] It seemed now the policy, as much as duty, of the officers to obey that civil power they had set up. For to rule ostensibly was, as I have just observed, an impracticable scheme. But the contempt they felt for their pretended masters, and even a sort of necessity arising out of the blindness and pa.s.sion of that little oligarchy, drove them to a step still more ruinous to their cause than that of deposing Richard, the expulsion once more of that a.s.sembly, now worn out and ridiculous in all men"s eyes, yet seeming a sort of frail protection against mere anarchy, and the terror of the sword. Lambert, the chief actor in this last act of violence, and indeed many of the rest, might plead the right of self-defence. The prevailing faction in the parliament, led by Haslerig, a bold and headstrong man, perceived that, with very inferior pretensions, Lambert was aiming to tread in the steps of Cromwell; and, remembering their negligence of opportunities, as they thought, in permitting the one to overthrow them, fancied that they would antic.i.p.ate the other. Their intemperate votes cashiering Lambert, Desborough, and other officers, brought on, as every man of more prudence than Haslerig must have foreseen, an immediate revolution that crushed once more their boasted commonwealth.[476]

They revived again a few months after, not by any exertion of the people, who hated alike both parties, in their behalf, but through the disunion of their real masters, the army, and vented the impotent and injudicious rage of a desperate faction on all who had not gone every length on their side, till scarce any man of eminence was left to muster under the standard of Haslerig and his little knot of a.s.sociates.[477]

_Impossibility of establishing a republic._--I can by no means agree with those who find in the character of the English nation some absolute incompatibility with a republican const.i.tution of government.

Under favouring circ.u.mstances, it seems to me not at all incredible that such a polity might have existed for many ages in great prosperity, and without violent convulsion. For the English are, as a people, little subject to those bursts of pa.s.sion which inflame the more imaginative mult.i.tude of southern climates, and render them both apt for revolutions, and incapable of conducting them. Nor are they again of that sluggish and stationary temper, which chokes all desire of improvement, and even all zeal for freedom and justice, through which some free governments have degenerated into corrupt oligarchies.

The most conspicuously successful experiment of republican inst.i.tutions (and those far more democratical than, according to the general theory of politics, could be reconciled with perfect tranquillity) has taken place in a people of English original; and though much must here be ascribed to the peculiarly fortunate situation of the nation to which I allude, we can hardly avoid giving some weight to the good sense and well-balanced temperament, which have come in their inheritance with our laws and our language. But the establishment of free commonwealths depends much rather on temporary causes, the influence of persons and particular events, and all those intricacies in the course of Providence which we term accident, than on any general maxims that can become the basis of prior calculation. In the year 1659, it is manifest that no idea could be more chimerical than that of a republican settlement in England.

The name, never familiar or venerable in English ears, was grown infinitely odious; it was a.s.sociated with the tyranny of ten years, the selfish rapacity of the Rump, the hypocritical despotism of Cromwell, the arbitrary sequestrations of committee-men, the iniquitous decimations of military prefects, the sale of British citizens for slavery in the West Indies, the blood of some shed on the scaffold without legal trial, the tedious imprisonment of many with denial of the habeas corpus, the exclusion of the ancient gentry, the persecution of the Anglican church, the baccha.n.a.lian rant of sectaries, the morose preciseness of puritans, the extinction of the frank and cordial joyousness of the national character. Were the people again to endure the mockery of the good old cause, as the commonwealth"s men affected to style the interests of their little faction, and be subject to Lambert"s notorious want of principle, or to Vane"s contempt of ordinances (a G.o.dly mode of expressing the same thing), or to Haslerig"s fury, or to Harrison"s fanaticism, or to the fancies of those lesser schemers, who in this utter confusion and abject state of their party, were amusing themselves with plans of perfect commonwealths, and debating whether there should be a senate as well as a representation; whether a given number should go out by rotation; and all those details of political mechanism so important in the eyes of theorists?[478] Every project of this description must have wanted what alone could give it either the pretext of legitimate existence, or the chance of permanency, popular consent; the republican party, if we exclude those who would have had a protector, and those fanatics who expected the appearance of Jesus Christ, was incalculably small; not, perhaps, amounting in the whole nation to more than a few hundred persons.

_Intrigues of the royalists._--The little court of Charles at Brussels watched with trembling hope these convulsive struggles of their enemies. During the protectorship of Oliver, their best chance appeared to be, that some of the numerous schemes for his a.s.sa.s.sination might take effect. Their correspondence indeed, especially among the presbyterian or neutral party, became more extensive;[479] but these men were habitually cautious: and the Marquis of Ormond, who went over to England in the beginning of 1658, though he reported the disaffection to be still more universal than he had expected, was forced to add that there was little prospect of a rising until foreign troops should be landed in some part of the country; an aid which Spain had frequently promised, but, with an English fleet at sea, could not very easily furnish.[480] The death of their puissant enemy brightened the visions of the royalists. Though the apparent peaceableness of Richard"s government gave them some mortification, they continued to spread their toils through zealous emissaries, and found a very general willingness to restore the ancient const.i.tution under its hereditary sovereign. Besides the cavaliers, who, though numerous and ardent, were impoverished and suspected, the chief presbyterians, Lords Fairfax and Willoughby, the Earls of Manchester and Denbigh, Sir William Waller, Sir George Booth, Sir Ashley Cooper, Mr. Popham of Somerset, Mr. Howe of Glocester, Sir Horatio Townshend of Norfolk, with more or less of zeal and activity, pledged themselves to the royal cause.[481] Lord Fauconberg, a royalist by family, who had married a daughter of Cromwell, undertook the important office of working on his brothers-in-law, Richard and Henry, whose position, in respect to the army and republican party, was so hazardous. It seems, in fact, that Richard, even during his continuance in power, had not refused to hear the king"s agents,[482]

and hopes were entertained of him: yet at that time even he could not reasonably be expected to abandon his apparent interests. But soon after his fall from power, while his influence, or rather that of his father"s memory, was still supposed considerable with Montagu, Monk, and Lockhart, they negotiated with him to procure the accession of those persons, and of his brother Henry, for a pension of 20,000 a year, and a t.i.tle.[483] It soon appeared however that those prudent veterans of revolution would not embark under such a pilot, and that Richard was not worth purchasing on the lowest terms. Even Henry Cromwell, with whom a separate treaty had been carried on, and who is said to have determined at one time to proclaim the king at Dublin, from want of courage, or, as is more probable, of seriousness in what must have seemed so unnatural an undertaking, submitted quietly to the vote of parliament that deprived him of the command of Ireland.[484]

_Conspiracy of 1659._--The conspiracy, if indeed so general a concert for the restoration of ancient laws and liberties ought to have so equivocal an appellation, became ripe in the summer of 1659. The royalists were to appear in arms in different quarters; several princ.i.p.al towns to be seized: but as the moment grew nigh, the courage of most began to fail. Twenty years of depression and continual failure mated the spirits of the cavaliers. The shade of Cromwell seemed to hover over and protect the wreck of his greatness. Sir George Booth, almost alone, rose in Cheshire; every other scheme, intended to be executed simultaneously, failing through the increased prudence of those concerned, or the precautions taken by the government on secret intelligence of the plots; and Booth, thus deserted, made less resistance to Lambert than perhaps was in his power.[485] This discomfiture, of course, damped the expectations of the king"s party. The presbyterians thought themselves ill-used by their new allies, though their own friends had been almost equally cautious.[486] Sir Richard Willis, an old cavalier, and in all the secrets of their conspiracy, was detected in being a spy both of Cromwell and of the new government; a discovery which struck consternation into the party, who could hardly trust any one else with greater security.[487] In a less favourable posture of affairs, these untoward circ.u.mstances might have ruined Charles"s hopes; they served, as it was, to make it evident that he must look to some more efficacious aid than a people"s good wishes for his restoration.

The royalists in England, who played so deep a stake on the king"s account, were not unnaturally desirous that he should risk something in the game, and continually pressed that either he or one of his brothers would land on the coast. His standard would become a rallying-point for the well-affected, and create such a demonstration of public sentiment as would overthrow the present unstable government. But Charles, not by nature of a chivalrous temper, shrunk from an enterprise which was certainly very hazardous, unless he could have obtained a greater a.s.sistance of troops from the Low Countries than was to be hoped.[488] He was as little inclined to permit the Duke of York"s engaging in it, on account of the differences that had existed between them, and his knowledge of an intrigue that was going forward in England, princ.i.p.ally among the catholics, but with the mischievous talents of the Duke of Buckingham at its head, to set up the duke instead of himself.[489] He gave, however, fair words to his party, and continued for some time on the French coast, as if waiting for his opportunity. It was in great measure, as I suspect, to rid himself of this importunity, that he set out on his long and very needless journey to the foot of the Pyrenees. Thither the two monarchs of France and Spain, wearied with twenty years of hostility without a cause and without a purpose, had sent their minister to conclude the celebrated treaty which bears the name of those mountains. Charles had long cherished hopes that the first fruits of their reconciliation would be a joint armament to place him on the English throne: many of his adherents almost despaired of any other means of restoration. But Lewis de Haro was a timid statesman, and Mazarin a cunning one: there was little to expect from their generosity; and the price of a.s.sistance might probably be such as none but desperate and unscrupulous exiles would offer, and the English nation would with unanimous indignation reject. It was well for Charles that he contracted no public engagement with these foreign powers, whose co-operation must either have failed of success, or have placed on his head a degraded and unstable crown. The full toleration of popery in England, its establishment in Ireland, its profession by the sovereign and his family, the surrender of Jamaica, Dunkirk, and probably the Norman Islands, were conditions on which the people might have thought the restoration of the Stuart line too dearly obtained.

It was a more desirable object for the king to bring over, if possible, some of the leaders of the commonwealth. Except Vane, accordingly, and the decided republicans, there was hardly any man of consequence whom his agents did not attempt, or, at least, from whom they did not entertain hopes. There stood at this time conspicuous above the rest, not all of them in ability, but in apparent power of serving the royal cause by their defection, Fleetwood, Lambert, and Monk. The first had discovered, as far as his understanding was capable of perceiving anything, that he had been the dupe of more crafty men in the cabals against Richard Cromwell, whose complete fall from power he had neither designed nor foreseen. In pique and vexation, he listened to the overtures of the royalist agents, and sometimes, if we believe their a.s.sertions, even promised to declare for the king.[490] But his resolutions were not to be relied upon, nor was his influence likely to prove considerable; though from his post of lieutenant-general of the army, and long accustomed precedence, he obtained a sort of outward credit far beyond his capacity. Lambert was of a very different stamp; eager, enterprising, ambitious, but dest.i.tute of the qualities that inspire respect or confidence. Far from the weak enthusiasm of Fleetwood, he gave offence by displaying less show of religion than the temper of his party required, and still more by a current suspicion that his secret faith was that of the church of Rome, to which the partiality of the catholics towards him gave support.[491] The crafty unfettered ambition of Lambert rendered it not unlikely that--finding his own schemes of sovereignty impracticable, he would make terms with the king; and there were not wanting those who recommended the latter to secure his services by the offer of marrying his daughter;[492] but it does not appear that any actual overtures were made on either side.

_Interference of Monk._--There remained one man of eminent military reputation, in the command of a considerable insulated army, to whom the royalists anxiously looked with alternate hope and despondency.

Monk"s early connections were with the king"s party, among whom he had been defeated and taken prisoner by Fairfax at Namptwich. Yet even in this period of his life he had not escaped suspicions of disaffection, which he effaced by continuing in prison till the termination of the war in England. He then accepted a commission from the parliament to serve against the Irish; and now falling entirely into his new line of politics, became strongly attached to Cromwell, by whom he was left in the military government, or rather viceroyalty of Scotland, which he had reduced to subjection, and kept under with a vigorous hand.

Charles had once, it is said, attempted to seduce him by a letter from Cologne, which he instantly transmitted to the protector.[493] Upon Oliver"s death, he wrote a very sensible letter to Richard Cromwell, containing his advice for the government. He recommends him to obtain the affections of the moderate presbyterian ministers, who have much influence over the people, to summon to his House of Lords the wisest and most faithful of the old n.o.bility and some of the leading gentry, to diminish the number of superior officers in the army, by throwing every two regiments into one, and to take into his council as his chief advisers Whitelock, St. John, Lord Broghill, Sir Richard Onslow, Pierrepont, and Thurloe.[494] The judiciousness of this advice is the surest evidence of its sincerity, and must leave no doubt on our minds that Monk was at that time very far from harbouring any thoughts of the king"s restoration.

But when, through the force of circ.u.mstances and the deficiencies in the young protector"s capacity, he saw the house of Cromwell for ever fallen, it was for Monk to consider what course he should follow, and by what means the nation was to be rescued from the state of anarchy that seemed to menace it. That very different plans must have pa.s.sed through his mind before he commenced his march from Scotland, it is easy to conjecture; but at what time his determination was finally taken, we cannot certainly p.r.o.nounce.[495] It would be the most honourable supposition to believe that he was sincere in those solemn protestations of adherence to the commonwealth which he poured forth, as well during his march as after his arrival in London; till discovering, at length, the popular zeal for the king"s restoration, he concurred in a change which it would have been absurd, and perhaps impracticable, to resist. This however seems not easily reconcilable to Monk"s proceedings in new-modelling his army, and confiding power, both in Scotland and England, to men of known intentions towards royalty; nor did his a.s.surances of support to the republican party become less frequent or explicit at a time when every one must believe that he had taken his resolution, and even after he had communicated with the king. I incline therefore, upon the whole, to believe that Monk, not accustomed to respect the Rump Parliament, and incapable, both by his temperament and by the course of his life, of any enthusiasm for the name of liberty, had satisfied himself as to the expediency of the king"s restoration from the time that the Cromwells had sunk below his power to a.s.sist them; though his projects were still subservient to his own security, which he was resolved not to forfeit by any premature declaration or unsuccessful enterprise. If the coalition of cavaliers and presbyterians, and the strong bent of the entire nation, had not convinced this wary dissembler that he could not fail of success, he would have continued true to his professions as the general of a commonwealth, content with crushing his rival Lambert, and breaking that fanatical interest which he most disliked. That he aimed at such a sovereignty as Cromwell had usurped has been the natural conjecture of many, but does not appear to me either warranted by any presumptive evidence, or consonant to the good sense and phlegmatic temper of Monk.

At the moment when, with a small but veteran army of 7000 men, he took up his quarters in London, it seemed to be within his arbitrament which way the scale should preponderate. On one side were the wishes of the nation, but restrained by fear; on the other, established possession, maintained by the sword, but rendered precarious by disunion and treachery. It is certainly very possible that, by keeping close to the parliament, Monk might have r.e.t.a.r.ded, at least for a considerable time, the great event which has immortalised him. But it can hardly be said that the king"s restoration was rather owing to him than to the general sentiments of the nation and almost the necessity of circ.u.mstances, which had already made every judicious person antic.i.p.ate the sole termination of our civil discord which they had prepared. Whitelock, who, incapable of refusing compliance with the ruling power, had sat in the committee of safety established in October 1659 by the officers who had expelled the parliament, has recorded a curious anecdote, whence we may collect how little was wanting to prevent Monk from being the great mover in the restoration.

He had for some time, as appears by his journal, entertained a persuasion that the general meditated nothing but the king"s return, to which he was doubtless himself well inclined, except from some apprehension for the public interest, and some also for his own. This induced him to have a private conference with Fleetwood, which he enters as of the 22nd December 1659, wherein, after pointing out the probable designs of Monk, he urged him either to take possession of the Tower, and declare for a free parliament, in which he would have the a.s.sistance of the city, or to send some trusty person to Breda, who might offer to bring in the king upon such terms as should be settled. Both these propositions were intended as different methods of bringing about a revolution, which he judged to be inevitable. "By this means," he contended, "Fleetwood might make terms with the king for preservation of himself and his friends, and of that cause, in a good measure, in which they had been engaged; but, if it were left to Monk, they and all that had been done would be left to the danger of destruction. Fleetwood then asked me, "If I would be willing to go myself upon this employment?" I answered, "that I would go, if Fleetwood thought fit to send me." And after much other discourse to this effect, Fleetwood seemed fully satisfied to send me to the king, and desired me to go and prepare myself forthwith for the journey; and that in the meantime Fleetwood and his friends would prepare the instructions for me, so that I might begin my journey this evening or to-morrow morning early.

"I going away from Fleetwood, met Vane, Desborough, and Berry in the next room, coming to speak with Fleetwood, who thereupon desired me to stay a little; and I suspected what would be the issue of their consultation, and within a quarter of an hour Fleetwood came to me and in much pa.s.sion said to me, "I cannot do it, I cannot do it." I desired his reason why he could not do it. He answered, "Those gentlemen have remembered me; and it is true, that I am engaged not to do any such thing without my Lord Lambert"s consent." I replied, "that Lambert was at too great a distance to have his consent to this business, which must be instantly acted." Fleetwood again said, "I cannot do it without him." Then I said, "You will ruin yourself and your friends." He said, "I cannot help it." Then I told him I must take my leave, and so we parted."[496]

Whatever might have been in the power of Monk, by adhering to his declarations of obedience to the parliament, it would have been too late for him, after consenting to the restoration of the secluded members to their seats on February 21, 1660, to withstand the settlement which it seems incredible that he should not at that time have desired. That he continued, for at least six weeks afterwards, in a course of astonishing dissimulation, so as to deceive, in a great measure, almost all the royalists, who were distrusting his intentions at the very moment when he made his first and most private tender of service to the king through Sir John Grenville about the beginning of April, might at first seem rather to have proceeded from a sort of inability to shake off his inveterate reservedness, than from consummate prudence and discretion. For any sudden risings in the king"s favour, or an intrigue in the council of state, might easily have brought about the restoration without his concurrence; and, even as it was, the language held in the House of Commons before their dissolution, the votes expunging all that appeared on their journals against the regal government and the House of Lords,[497] and, above all, the course of the elections for the new parliament, made it sufficiently evident that the general had delayed his a.s.surances of loyalty till they had lost a part of their value. It is however a full explanation of Monk"s public conduct, that he was not secure of the army, chiefly imbued with fanatical principles, and bearing an inveterate hatred towards the name of Charles Stuart. A correspondent of the king writes to him on the 28th of March: "the army is not yet in a state to hear your name publicly."[498] In the beginning of that month, many of the officers, instigated by Haslerig and his friends, had protested to Monk against the proceedings of the house, insisting that they should abjure the king and House of Lords. He repressed their mutinous spirit, and bade them obey the parliament, as he should do.[499] Hence he redoubled his protestations of abhorrence of monarchy, and seemed for several weeks, in exterior demonstrations, rather the grand impediment to the king"s restoration, than the one person who was to have the credit of it.[500] Meanwhile he silently proceeded in displacing the officers whom he could least trust, and disposing the regiments near to the metropolis, or at a distance, according to his knowledge of their tempers; the parliament having given him a commission as lord general of all the forces in the three kingdoms.[501] The commissioners appointed by parliament for raising the militia in each county were chiefly gentlemen of the presbyterian party; and there seemed likely to be such a considerable force under their orders as might rescue the nation from its ignominious servitude to the army. In fact, some of the royalists expected that the great question would not be carried without an appeal to the sword.[502] The delay of Monk in privately a.s.suring the king of his fidelity is still not easy to be explained, but may have proceeded from a want of confidence in Charles"s secrecy, or that of his counsellors. It must be admitted that Lord Clarendon, who has written with some minuteness and accuracy this important part of his history, has more than insinuated (especially as we now read his genuine language, which the ill faith of his original editors had shamefully garbled) that Monk entertained no purposes in the king"s favour till the last moment; but a manifest prejudice that shows itself in all his writings against the general, derived partly from offence at his extreme reserve and caution during this period, partly from personal resentment of Monk"s behaviour at the time of his own impeachment, greatly takes off from the weight of the n.o.ble historian"s judgment.[503]

_Difficulties about the restoration._--The months of March and April 1660 were a period of extreme inquietude, during which every one spoke of the king"s restoration as imminent, yet none could distinctly perceive by what means it would be effected, and much less how the difficulties of such a settlement could be overcome.[504] As the moment approached, men turned their attention more to the obstacles and dangers that lay in their way. The restoration of a banished family, concerning whom they knew little, and what they knew not entirely to their satisfaction, with ruined, perhaps revengeful, followers; the returning ascendancy of a distressed party, who had sustained losses that could not be repaired without fresh changes of property, injuries that could not be atoned without fresh severities; the conflicting pretensions of two churches, one loth to release its claim, the other to yield its possession; the unsettled dissensions between the crown and parliament, suspended only by civil war and usurpation; all seemed pregnant with such difficulties that prudent men could hardly look forward to the impending revolution without some hesitation and anxiety.[505] Hence Pierrepont, one of the wisest statesmen in England, though not so far implicated in past transactions as to have much to fear, seems never to have overcome his repugnance to the recall of the king; and I am by no means convinced that the slowness of Monk himself was not in some measure owing to his sense of the embarra.s.sments that might attend that event. The presbyterians, generally speaking, had always been on their guard against an unconditional restoration. They felt much more of hatred to the prevailing power than of attachment to the house of Stuart; and had no disposition to relinquish, either as to church or state government, those principles for which they had fought against Charles the First. Hence they began, from the very time that they entered into the coalition, that is, the spring and summer of 1659, to talk of the treaty of Newport, as if all that had pa.s.sed since their vote of 5th December 1648, that the king"s concessions were a sufficient ground whereon to proceed to the settlement of the kingdom, had been like an hideous dream, from which they had awakened to proceed exactly in their former course.[506] The council of state, appointed on the 23rd of February, two days after the return of the secluded members, consisted princ.i.p.ally of this party. And there can, I conceive, be no question that, if Monk had continued his neutrality to the last, they would, in conjunction with the new parliament, have sent over propositions for the king"s acceptance. Meetings were held of the chief presbyterian lords, Manchester, Northumberland, Bedford, Say, with Pierrepont (who finding it too late to prevent the king"s return, endeavoured to render it as little dangerous as possible), Hollis, Annesley, Sir William Waller, Lewis, and other leaders of that party.

Monk sometimes attended on these occasions, and always urged the most rigid limitations.[507] His sincerity in this was the less suspected, that his wife, to whom he was notoriously submissive, was entirely presbyterian, though a friend to the king; and his own preference of that sect had always been declared in a more consistent and unequivocal manner than was usual to his dark temper.

These projected limitations, which but a few weeks before Charles would have thankfully accepted, seemed now intolerable; so rapidly do men learn, in the course of prosperous fortune, to scorn what they just before hardly presumed to expect. Those seemed his friends, not who desired to restore him, but who would do so at the least sacrifice of his power and pride. Several of the council, and others in high posts, sent word that they would resist the imposition of unreasonable terms.[508] Monk himself redeemed his ambiguous and dilatory behaviour by taking the restoration, as it were, out of the hands of the council, and suggesting the judicious scheme of antic.i.p.ating their proposals by the king"s letter to the two houses of parliament. For this purpose he had managed, with all his dissembling pretences of commonwealth principles, or, when he was (as it were) compelled to lay them aside, of insisting on rigorous limitations, to prevent any overtures from the council, who were almost entirely presbyterian, before the meeting of parliament, which would have considerably embarra.s.sed the king"s affairs.[509] The elections meantime had taken a course which the faction now in power by no means regarded with satisfaction. Though the late House of Commons had pa.s.sed a resolution that no person who had a.s.sisted in any war against the parliament since 1642, unless he should since have manifested his good affection towards it, should be capable of being elected; yet this, even if it had been regarded, as it was not, by the people, would have been a feeble barrier against the royalist party, composed in a great measure of young men who had grown up under the commonwealth, and of those who, living in the parliamentary counties during the civil war, had paid a reluctant obedience to its power.[510] The tide ran so strongly for the king"s friends, that it was as much as the presbyterians could effect, with the weight of government in their hands, to obtain about an equality of strength with the cavaliers in the convention parliament.[511]

It has been a frequent reproach to the conductors of this great revolution, that the king was restored without those terms and limitations which might secure the nation against his abuse of their confidence; and this, not only by contemporaries who had suffered by the political and religious changes consequent on the restoration, or those who, in after times, have written with some prepossession against the English church and const.i.tutional monarchy, but by the most temperate and reasonable men; so that it has become almost regular to cast on the convention parliament, and more especially on Monk, the imputation of having abandoned public liberty, and brought on, by their inconsiderate loyalty or self-interested treachery, the misgovernment of the two last Stuarts, and the necessity of their ultimate expulsion. But, as this is a very material part of our history, and those who p.r.o.nounce upon it have not always a very distinct notion either of what was or what could have been done, it may be worth while to consider the matter somewhat more a.n.a.lytically; confining myself, it is to be observed, in the present chapter, to what took place before the king"s personal a.s.sumption of the government on the 29th of May 1660. The subsequent proceedings of the convention parliament fall within another period.

We may remark, in the first place, that the unconditional restoration of Charles the Second is sometimes spoken of in too hyperbolical language, as if he had come in as a sort of conqueror, with the laws and liberties of the people at his discretion. Yet he was restored to nothing but the bounded prerogatives of a king of England; bounded by every ancient and modern statute, including those of the long parliament, which had been enacted for the subjects" security. If it be true, as I have elsewhere observed, that the long parliament, in the year 1641, had established, in its most essential parts, our existing const.i.tution, it can hardly be maintained that fresh limitations and additional securities were absolutely indispensable, before the most fundamental of all its principles, the government by King, Lords, and Commons, could be permitted to take its regular course. Those who so vehemently reprobate the want of conditions at the restoration would do well to point out what conditions should have been imposed, and what mischiefs they can probably trace from their omission.[512] They should be able also to prove that, in the circ.u.mstances of the time, it was quite as feasible and convenient to make certain secure and obligatory provisions the terms of the king"s restoration, as seems to be taken for granted.

_Plan of reviving the treaty of Newport inexpedient._--The chief presbyterians appear to have considered the treaty of Newport, if not as fit to be renewed in every article, yet at least as the basis of the compact into which they were to enter with Charles the Second.[513] But were the concessions wrested in this treaty from his father, in the hour of peril and necessity, fit to become the permanent rules of the English const.i.tution? Turn to the articles prescribed by the long parliament in that negotiation. Not to mention the establishment of a rigorous presbytery in the church, they had insisted on the exclusive command of all forces by land and sea for twenty years, with the sole power of levying and expending the monies necessary for their support; on the nomination of the princ.i.p.al officers of state and of the judges during the same period; and on the exclusion of the king"s adherents from all trust or political power.

Admit even that the insincerity and arbitrary principles of Charles the First had rendered necessary such extraordinary precautions, was it to be supposed that the executive power should not revert to his successor? Better it were, beyond comparison, to maintain the perpetual exclusion of his family than to mock them with such a t.i.tular crown, the certain cause of discontent and intrigue, and to mingle premature distrust with their professions of affection. There was undoubtedly much to apprehend from the king"s restoration; but it might be expected that a steady regard for public liberty in the parliament and the nation would obviate that danger without any momentous change of the const.i.tution; or that, if such a sentiment should prove unhappily too weak, no guarantees of treaties or statutes would afford a genuine security.

_Difficulty of framing conditions._--If, however, we were to be convinced that the restoration was effected without a sufficient safeguard against the future abuses of royal power, we must still allow, on looking attentively at the circ.u.mstances, that there were very great difficulties in the way of any stipulations for that purpose. It must be evident that any formal treaty between Charles and the English government, as it stood in April 1660, was inconsistent with their common principle. That government was, by its own declarations, only _de facto_, only temporary; the return of the secluded members to their seats, and the votes they subsequently pa.s.sed, held forth to the people that everything done since the force put on the house in December 1648 was by an usurpation; the restoration of the ancient monarchy was implied in all recent measures, and was considered as out of all doubt by the whole kingdom.

But between a king of England and his subjects no treaty, as such, could be binding; there was no possibility of entering into stipulations with Charles, though in exile, to which a court of justice 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 negotiation 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 of 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 p.r.o.ne 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 resenting 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.[514] The escape of Lambert from the Tower had struck a panic into all the kingdom; some such accident 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 well timed and expedient; nor can I censure Monk for having objected to it.[515] The business in hand required greater despatch. 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 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 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 unconst.i.tutional 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.[516] 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 places as if nothing more than a common adjournment had pa.s.sed in the interval.[517] There was, however, a very delicate and embarra.s.sing 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 outvoted, if all the other lawful members of the house should be admitted to their privileges. Of these there were three cla.s.ses. The first was of the peers who had come to their t.i.tles 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.[518] The second cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s had given to the royalist interest among the aristocracy, prevented them from insisting on it. A third cla.s.s 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 should in future have the right of voting, without the concurrence of both houses of parliament. An order was made therefore on May 4 that no lords created since 1642 should sit. This was vacated by a 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.[519] 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 p
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