History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 2 of 10)

History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 2 of 10)

"When Charles, having quarreled with his parliament, stood alone in the midst of his kingdom, seeking on all sides the means of governing, the Anglican clergy believed this day [for establishing the independent and uncontrolled power of their church] was come. They had again got immense wealth, and enjoyed it without dispute. The papists no longer inspired them with alarm. The primate of the church, Laud, possessed the entire confidence of the king and alone directed all ecclesiastical affairs. Among the other ministers, none professed, like lord Burleigh under Elizabeth, to fear and struggle against the encroachments of the clergy. The courtiers were indifferent, or secret papists. Learned men threw lustre over the church. The universities, that of Oxford more especially, were devoted to her maxims. Only one adversary remained--the people, each day more discontented with uncompleted reform, and more eager fully to accomplish it. But this adversary was also the adversary of the throne; it claimed at the same time, the one to secure the other, evangelical faith and civil liberty. {851} The same peril threatened the sovereignty of the crown and of episcopacy. The king, sincerely pious, seemed disposed to believe that he was not the only one who held his authority from God, and that the power of the bishops was neither of less high origin, nor of less sacred character. Never had so many favourable circumstances seemed combined to enable the clergy to achieve independence of the crown, dominion over the people. Laud set himself to work with his accustomed vehemence. First, it was essential that all dissensions in the bosom of the church itself should cease, and that the strictest uniformity should infuse strength into its doctrines, its discipline, its worship. He applied himself to this task with the most unhesitating and unscrupulous resolution. Power was exclusively concentrated into the hands of the bishops. The court of high commission, where they took cognizance of and decided everything relating to religious matters, became day by day more arbitrary, more harsh in its jurisdiction, its forms and its penalties. The complete adoption of the Anglican canons, the minute observance of the liturgy, and the rites enforced in cathedrals, were rigorously exacted on the part of the whole ecclesiastical body. A great many livings were in the hands of nonconformists; they were withdrawn from them. The people crowded to their sermons; they were forbidden to preach. ... Persecution followed and reached them everywhere. ... Meantime, the pomp of catholic worship speedily took possession of the churches deprived of their pastors; while persecution kept away the faithful, magnificence adorned the walls. They were consecrated amid great display, and it was then necessary to employ force to collect a congregation. Laud was fond of prescribing minutely the details of new ceremonies--sometimes borrowed from Rome, sometimes the production of his own imagination, at once ostentatious and austere. On the part of the nonconformists, every innovation, the least derogation from the canons or the liturgy, was punished as a crime; yet Laud innovated without consulting anybody, looking to nothing beyond the king's consent, and sometimes acting entirely upon his own authority. ... And all these changes had, if not the aim, at all events the result, of rendering the Anglican church more and more like that of Rome. ... Books were published to prove that the doctrine of the English bishops might very well adapt itself to that of Rome; and these books, though not regularly licensed, were dedicated to the king or to Laud, and openly tolerated. ... The splendour and exclusive dominion of episcopacy thus established, at least so he flattered himself, Laud proceeded to secure its independence. ... The divine right of bishops became, in a short time, the official doctrine, not only of the upper clergy, but of the king himself. ... By the time things had come to this pass, the people were not alone in their anger. The high nobility, part of them at least, took the alarm. They saw in the progress of the church far more than mere tyranny; it was a regular revolution, which, not satisfied with crushing popular reforms, disfigured and endangered the first reformation; that which kings had made and the aristocracy adopted."

F. P. Guizot, History of the English Revolution of 1640, book 2.

ALSO IN: D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 2, chapters 4-6.

G. G. Perry, History of the Church of England, chapters 13-16 (volume l).

P. Bayne, The Chief Actors of the Puritan Revolution, chapter 3.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637. Hostile measures against the Massachusetts Colony.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637. Ship-money.

"The aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. ... All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the royal authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty of the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude of the victims. ... The hardy sect grew up and flourished, in spite of everything that seemed likely to stunt it, struck its roots deep into a. barren soil, and spread its branches wide to an inclement sky. ... For the misgovernment of this disastrous period, Charles himself is principally responsible. After the death of Buckingham, he seemed to have been his own prime minister. He had, however, two counsellors who seconded him, or went beyond him, in intolerance and lawless violence; the one a superstitious driveller, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be; the other a man of great valour and capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, and cruel. Never were faces more strikingly characteristic of the individuals to whom they belonged than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of that age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the peering eyes of the prelate suit admirably with his disposition. They mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic. ... But Wentworth--whoever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expression into more than the majesty of an antique Jupiter! ... Among the humbler tools of Charles were Chief-Justice Finch, and Noy, the attorney-general. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported the cause of liberty in Parliament, and had, like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for the sake of office. He devised, in conjunction with Finch, a scheme of exaction which made the alienation of the people from the throne complete. A writ was issued by the king, commanding the city of London to equip and man ships of war for his service. Similar writs were sent to the towns along the coast. These measures, though they were direct violations of the Petition of Right, had at least some show of precedent in their favour. But, after a time, the government took a step for which no precedent could be pleaded, and sent writs of ship-money to the inland counties. This was a stretch of power on which Elizabeth herself had not ventured, even at a time when all laws might with propriety have been made to bend to that highest law, the safety of the state. The inland counties had not been required to furnish ships, or money in the room of ships, even when the Armada was approaching our shores. {852} It seemed intolerable that a prince, who, by assenting to the Petition of Right, had relinquished the power of levying ship-money even in the outports, should be the first to levy it on parts of the kingdom where it had been unknown, under the most absolute of his predecessors. Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was intended, not only for the support of the navy, but 'for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply on all occasions.' The nation well understood this; and from one end of England to the other, the public mind was strongly excited. Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of 450 tons, or a sum of £4,500. The share of the tax which fell to Hampden was very small [twenty shillings]; so small, indeed, that the sheriff was blamed for setting so wealthy a man at so low a rate. But, though the sum demanded was a trifle, the principle of the demand was despotism. Hampden, after consulting the most eminent constitutional lawyers of the time, refused to pay the few shillings at which he was assessed; and determined to incur all the certain expense and the probable danger of bringing to a solemn hearing this great controversy between the people and the crown. ... Towards the close of the year 1636, this great cause came on in the Exchequer Chamber before all the judges of England. The leading counsel against the writ was the celebrated Oliver St. John; a man whose temper was melancholy, whose manners were reserved, and who was as yet little known in Westminster Hall; but whose great talents had not escaped the penetrating eye of Hampden. The arguments of the counsel occupied many days; and the Exchequer Chamber took a considerable time for deliberation. The opinion of the bench was divided. So clearly was the law in favour of Hampden, that though the judges held their situations only during the royal pleasure, the majority against him was the least possible. Four of the twelve pronounced decidedly in his favour; a fifth took a middle course. The remaining seven gave their voices in favour of the writ. The only effect of this decision was to make the public indignation stronger and deeper. 'The judgment,' says Clarendon, 'proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the king's service.' The courage which Hampden had shown on this occasion, as the same historian tells us, 'raised his reputation to a great height generally throughout the kingdom.'"

Lord Macaulay, Essays, volume 2 (Nugent's Memorials of Hampden).

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Hampden._

S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapter 74 (volume 7), and chapters 77 and 82 (volume 8);

ALSO

Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, pages 37-53, and 115.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1638-1640. Presbyterianism of the Puritan party. Rise of the independents.

"It is the artifice of the favourers of the Catholic and of the prelatical party to call all who are sticklers for the constitution in church or state, or would square their actions by any rule, human or divine, Puritans."

J. Rushworth, Historical Collection, volume 2, 1355.

"These men [the Puritan party], at the commencement of the civil war, were presbyterians: and such had at that time been the great majority of the serious, the sober, and the conscientious people of England. There was a sort of imputation of laxness of principles, and of a tendency to immorality of conduct, upon the adherents of the establishment, which was infinitely injurious to the episcopal church. But these persons, whose hearts were in entire opposition to the hierarchy, had for the most part no difference of opinion among themselves, and therefore no thought of toleration for difference of opinion in others. Their desire was to abolish episcopacy and set up presbytery. They thought and talked much of the unity of the church of God, and of the cordial consent and agreement of its members, and considered all sects and varieties of sentiment as a blemish and scandal upon their holy religion. They would put down popery and episcopacy with the strong hand of the law, and were disposed to employ the same instrument to suppress all who should venture to think the presbyterian church itself not yet sufficiently spiritual and pure. Against this party, which lorded it for a time almost without contradiction, gradually arose the party of the independents. ... Before the end of the civil war they became almost as strong as the party of the presbyterians, and greatly surpassed them in abilities, intellectual, military and civil."

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 2).

See, also, INDEPENDENTS; ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY) and (JULY-SEPTEMBER), A. D. 1646 (MARCH), A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST), and A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1639. The First Bishops' War in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1640. The Short Parliament and the Second Bishops' War. The Scots Army in England.

"His Majesty having burnt Scotch paper Declarations 'by the hands of the common hangman,' and almost cut the Scotch Chancellor Loudon's head off, and being again resolute to chastise the rebel Scots with an Army, decides on summoning a Parliament for that end, there being no money attainable otherwise. To the great and glad astonishment of England; which, at one time, thought never to have seen another Parliament! Oliver Cromwell sat in this Parliament for Cambridge; recommended by Hampden, say some; not needing any recommendation in those Fen-countries, think others. Oliver's Colleague was a Thomas Meautys, Esq. This Parliament met, 13th April, 1640: it was by no means prompt enough with supplies against the rebel Scots; the king dismissed it in a huff, 5th May; after a Session of three weeks: Historians call it the Short Parliament. His Majesty decides on raising money and an Army 'by other methods': to which end Wentworth, now Earl Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had advised that course in the Council, did himself subscribe £20,000. Archbishop Laud had long ago seen 'a cloud rising' against the Four surplices at Allhallowtide; and now it is covering the whole sky in a most dismal and really thundery-looking manner. His Majesty by 'other methods,' commission of array, benevolence, forced loan, or how he could, got a kind of Army on foot, and set it marching out of the several Counties in the South towards the Scotch Border; but it was a most hopeless Army. The soldiers called the affair a Bishops' War; they mutinied against their officers, shot some of their officers: in various Towns on their march, if the Clergyman were reputed Puritan, they went and gave him three cheers; if of Surplice-tendency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of the window. {853} No fighting against poor Scotch Gospellers was to be hoped for from these men. Meanwhile the Scots, not to be behindhand, had raised a good Army of their own; and decided on going into England with it, this time, 'to present their grievances to the King's Majesty.' On the 20th of August, 1640, they cross the Tweed at Coldstream; Montrose wading in the van of them all. They wore uniform of hodden gray, with blue caps; and each man had a moderate haversack of oatmeal on his back. August 28th, the Scots force their way across the Tyne, at Newburn, some miles above Newcastle; the King's Army making small fight, most of them no fight; hurrying from Newcastle, and all town and country quarters, towards York again, where his Majesty and Strafford were. The Bishops' War was at an end. The Scots, striving to be gentle as doves in their behaviour, and publishing boundless brotherly Declarations to all the brethren that loved Christ's Gospel and God's Justice in England,--took possession of Newcastle next day; took possession gradually of all Northumberland and Durham,--and stayed there, in various towns and villages, about a year. The whole body of English Puritans looked upon them as their saviours. ... His Majesty and Strafford, in a fine frenzy at the turn of affairs, found no refuge, except to summon a 'Council of Peers,' to enter upon a 'Treaty' with the Scots; and alas, at last, summon a New Parliament. Not to be helped in any way. ... A Parliament was appointed for the 3d of November next;--whereupon London cheerfully lent £200,000; and the Treaty with the Scots at Ripon, 1st October, 1640, by and by transferred to London, went peaceably on at a very leisurely pace. The Scotch Army lay quartered at Newcastle, and over Northumberland and Durham, on an allowance of £850 a day; an Army indispensable for Puritan objects; no haste in finishing its Treaty. The English army lay across in Yorkshire; without allowance except from the casualties of the King's Exchequer; in a dissatisfied manner, and occasionally getting into 'Army-Plots.' This Parliament, which met on the 3d of November; 1640, has become very celebrated in History by the name of the 'Long Parliament.'"

T. Carlyle, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 1: 1640.

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Strafford._

S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapter 91-94.

J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 72-73 (volume 7).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1640. Acquisition and settlement of Madras.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1641. The Long Parliament and the beginning of its work. Impeachment and Execution of Strafford.

"The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and lost his last stake. It is impossible to trace the mortifications and humiliations which this bad man now had to endure without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His army was mutinous; his treasury was empty; his people clamoured for a Parliament; addresses and petitions against the government were presented. Strafford was for shooting those who presented them by martial law, but the king could not trust the soldiers. A great council of Peers was called at York, but the king would not trust even the Peers. He struggled, he evaded, he hesitated, he tried every shift rather than again face the representatives of his injured people. At length no shift was left. He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a Parliament. ... On the 3d of November, 1640--a day to be long remembered--met that great Parliament, destined to every extreme of fortune--to empire and to servitude, to glory and to contempt;--at one time the sovereign of its sovereign, at another time the servant of its servants, and the tool of its tools. From the first day of its meeting the attendance was great, and the aspect of the members was that of men not disposed to do the work negligently. The dissolution of the late Parliament had convinced most of them that half measures would no longer suffice. Clarendon tells us that 'the same men who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another temper than they were the last Parliament.' The debt of vengeance was swollen by all the usury which had been accumulating during many years; and payment was made to the full. This memorable crisis called forth parliamentary abilities, such as England had never before seen. Among the most distinguished members of the House of Commons were Falkland, Hyde, Digby, Young, Harry Vane, Oliver St. John, Denzil Hollis, Nathaniel Fiennes. But two men exercised a paramount influence over the legislature and the country--Pym and Hampden; and, by the universal consent of friends and enemies, the first place belonged to Hampden."

_Lord Macaulay, Nugent's Memorials of Hampden (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 2)._

"The resolute looks of the members as they gathered at Westminster contrasted with the hesitating words of the king, and each brought from borough or county a petition of grievances. Fresh petitions were brought every day by bands of citizens or farmers. Forty committees were appointed to examine and report on them, and their reports formed the grounds on which the Commons acted. One by one the illegal acts of the Tyranny were annulled. Prynne and his fellow 'martyrs' recalled from their prisons, entered London in triumph, amid the shouts of a great multitude who strewed laurel in their path. The civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Privy Council, the Star Chamber, the Court of High Commission, the irregular jurisdictions of the Council of the North, of the Duchy of Lancaster, the County of Chester, and a crowd of lesser tribunals, were summarily abolished. Ship-money was declared illegal, and the judgment in Hampden's case annulled. A statute declaring 'the ancient right of the subjects of this kingdom that no subsidy, custom, impost, or any charge whatsoever, ought or may be laid or imposed upon any merchandize exported or imported by subjects, denizens or allies, without common consent of Parliament,' put an end forever to all pretensions to a right of arbitrary taxation on the part of the crown. A Triennial Bill enforced the Assembly of the Houses every three years, and bound the sheriff and citizens to proceed to election if the Royal writ failed to summon them. Charles protested, but gave way. He was forced to look helplessly on at the wreck of his Tyranny, for the Scotch army was still encamped in the north. ... Meanwhile the Commons were dealing roughly with the agents of the Royal system. ... {854} Windebank, the Secretary of State, with the Chancellor, Finch, fled in terror over sea. Laud himself was flung into prison. ... But even Laud, hateful as he was to all but the poor neighbours whose prayers his alms had won, was not the centre of so great and universal a hatred as the Earl of Strafford. Strafford's guilt was more than the guilt of a servile instrument of tyranny--it was the guilt of 'that grand apostate to the Commonwealth who,' in the terrible words which closed Lord Digby's invective, 'must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he be dispatched to the other.' He was conscious of his danger, but Charles forced him to attend the Court.' He came to London with the solemn assurance of his master that, "while there was a king in England, not a hair of Strafford's head should be touched by the Parliament." Immediately impeached of high treason by the Commons, and sent to the Tower, he received from the king a second and more solemn pledge, by letter, that, "upon the word of a king, you shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune." But the "word of a king" like Charles Stuart, had neither honor nor gratitude, nor a decent self respect behind it. He could be false to a friend as easily as to an enemy. When the Commons, fearing failure on the trial of their impeachment, resorted to a bill of attainder, Charles signed it with a little resistance, and Strafford went bravely and manfully to the block. "As the axe fell, the silence of the great multitude was broken by a universal shout of joy. The streets blazed with bonfires. The bells clashed out from every steeple."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 6.

The king "was as deeply pledged to Strafford as one man could be to another; he was as vitally concerned in saving the life and prolonging the service of incomparably his ablest servant as was ever any sovereign in the case of any minister; yet it is clear that for some days past, probably ever since the first signs of popular tumult began to manifest themselves, he had been wavering. Four days before the Bill passed the Lords, Strafford as is well known, entreated the king to assent to it. There is no reason to doubt the absolute sincerity with which, at the moment of its conception, the prisoner penned his famous letter from the Tower. That passionate chivalry of loyalty, which has never animated any human heart in equal intensity since Strafford's ceased to beat, inspires every line. ... Charles turned distractedly from one adviser to another, not so much for counsel as for excuse. He did not want his judgment guided, but his conscience quieted; and his counsellors knew it. They had other reasons, too, for urging him to his dishonour. Panic seems to have seized upon them all. The only man who would not have quailed before the fury of the populace was the man himself whose life was trembling in the balance. The judges were summoned to declare their opinion, and replied, with an admirable choice of non-committing terms, that 'upon all that which their Lordships have voted to be proved the Earl of Strafford doth deserve to undergo the pains and forfeitures of high treason.' Charles sent for the bishops, and the bishops, with the honourable exception of Juxon, informed him that he had two consciences,--a public and a private conscience,--and that 'his public conscience as a king might not only dispense with, but oblige him to do, that which was against his conscience as a man.' What passed between these two tenants in common of the royal breast during the whole of Sunday, May 9th, 1641, is within no earthly knowledge; but at some time on that day Charles's public conscience got the better of its private rival. He signed a commission for giving the royal assent to the Bill, and on Monday, May 10th, in the presence of a House scarcely able to credit the act of betrayal which was taking place before them, the Commissioners pronounced the fatal Le roi le veult over the enactment which condemned his Minister to the block. Charles, of course, might still have reprieved him by an exercise of the prerogative, but the fears which made him acquiesce in the sentence availed to prevent him from arresting its execution."

H. D. Traill, Lord Stafford, pages 195-198.

"It is a sorry office to plant the foot on a worm so crushed and writhing as the wretched king ... [who abandoned Strafford] for it was one of the few crimes of which he was in the event thoroughly sensible, and friend has for once cooperated with foe in the steady application to it of the branding iron. There is in truth hardly any way of relieving the 'damned spot' of its intensity of hue even by distributing the concentrated infamy over other portions of Charles's character. ... When we have convinced ourselves that this 'unthankful king' never really loved Strafford; that, as much as in him lay, he kept the dead Buckingham in his old privilege of mischief, by adopting his aversions and abiding by his spleenful purposes; that, in his refusals to award those increased honours for which his minister was a petitioner, on the avowed ground of the royal interest, may be discerned the petty triumph of one who dares not dispense with the services thrust upon him, but revenges himself by withholding their well-earned reward;--still does the blackness accumulate to baffle our efforts. The paltry tears he is said to have shed only burn that blackness in. If his after conduct indeed had been different, he might have availed himself of one excuse,--but that the man, who, in a few short months, proved that he could make so resolute a stand somewhere, should have judged this event no occasion for attempting it, is either a crowning infamy or an infinite consolation, according as we may judge wickedness or weakness to have preponderated in the constitution of Charles I. ... As to Strafford's death, the remark that the people had no alternative, includes all that it is necessary to urge. The king's assurances of his intention to afford him no further opportunity of crime, could surely weigh nothing with men who had observed how an infinitely more disgusting minister of his will had only seemed to rise the higher in his master's estimation for the accumulated curses of the nation. Nothing but the knife of Felton could sever in that case the weak head and the wicked instrument, and it is to the honour of the adversaries of Strafford that they were earnest that their cause should vindicate itself completely, and look for no adventitious redress. Strafford had outraged the people--this was not denied. He was defended on the ground of those outrages not amounting to a treason against the king. For my own part, this defence appears to me decisive, looking at it in a technical view, and with our present settlement of evidence and treason. {855} But to concede that point, after the advances they had made, would have been in that day to concede all. It was to be shown that another power had claim to the loyalty and the service of Strafford--and if a claim, then a vengeance to exact for its neglect. And this was done. ... One momentary emotion ... escaped ... [Strafford] when he was told to prepare for death. He asked if the king had indeed assented to the bill. Secretary Carleton answered in the affirmative; and Strafford, laying his hand on his heart, and raising his eyes to heaven, uttered the memorable words,--'Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.' Charles's conduct was indeed incredibly monstrous."

R. Browning, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford (Eminent British Statesmen, by John Forster, volume 2, pages 403-406).

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Strafford; Pym._

Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 3 (volume 1).

Lord Nugent, Memorials of Hampden. parts 5-6 (volumes 1-2).

_Lady T. Lewis, Life of Lord Falkland._

The following are the Articles of Impeachment under which Strafford was tried and condemned:

"Articles of the Commons, assembled in Parliament, against Thomas Earl of Strafford, in Maintenance of their Accusation, whereby he stands charged with High Treason.

I. That he the said Thomas earl of Strafford hath traiterously endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws and government of the realms of England and Ireland, and, instead thereof, to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government, against law, which he hath declared by traiterous words, counsels, and actions, and by giving his majesty advice, by force of arms, to compel his loyal subjects to submit thereunto.

II. That he hath traiterously assumed to himself regal power over the lives, liberties of persons, lands, and goods of his majesty's subjects, in England and Ireland, and hath exercised the same tyrannically, to the subversion and undoing of many, both peers and others, of his majesty's liege people.

III. The better to inrich, and enable himself to go through with his traiterous designs, he hath detained a great part of his majesty's revenue, without giving any legal accounts; and hath taken great sums of money out of the exchequer, converting them to his own use, when his majesty was necessitated for his own urgent occasions, and his army had been a long time unpaid.

IV. That he hath traiterously abused the power and authority of his government, to the increasing, countenancing, and encouraging of Papists, that so he might settle a mutual dependence and confidence betwixt himself and that party, and by their help prosecute and accomplish his malicious and tyrannical designs.

V. That he hath maliciously endeavoured to stir up enmity and hostility between his majesty's subjects of England and those of Scotland.

VI. That he hath traiterously broken the great trust reposed in him by his majesty, of lieutenant general of his Army, by wilfully betraying divers of his majesty's subjects to death, his majesty's Army to a dishonourable defeat by the Scots at Newborne, and the town of Newcastle into their hands, to the end that, by effusion of blood, by dishonour, by so great a loss as of Newcastle, his majesty's realm of England might be engaged in a national and irreconcilable quarrel with the Scots.

VII. That, to preserve himself from being questioned for these and other his traiterous courses, he laboured to subvert the right of parliaments, and the ancient course of parliamentary proceedings, and, by false and malicious slanders, to incense his maj. against parliaments.--By which words, counsels, and actions, he hath traiterously, and contrary to his allegiance, laboured to alienate the hearts of the king's liege people from his maj. to set a division between them, and to ruin and destroy his majesty's kingdoms, for which they do impeach him of High Treason against our sovereign lord the king, his crown and dignity. And he the said earl of Strafford was lord deputy of Ireland, or lord lieutenant of Ireland, and lieutenant general of the Army there, under his majesty, and a sworn privy counsellor to his maj. for his kingdoms both of England and Ireland, and lord president of the North, during the time that all and every of the crimes and offences before set forth were done and committed; and he the said earl was lieutenant general of his majesty's Army in the North parts of England, during the time that the crimes and offences in the 5th and 6th Articles set forth were done and committed.--And the said commons, by protestation, saving to themselves the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Accusation or Impeachment against the said earl, and also of replying to the Answer that he the said earl shall make unto the said Articles, or to any of them, and of offering proof also of the premises, or any of them, or of any other Accusation or Impeachment that shall be by them exhibited, as the case shall, according to the course of parliaments, require; and do pray that the said earl may be put to answer to all and every the premises; and that such proceedings, examination, trial, and judgment, may be upon every of them had and used, as is agreeable to law and justice."

Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, volume 2, pages 737-739.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (March-May). The Root and Branch Bill.

"A bill was brought in [March, 1641], known as the Restraining Bill, to deprive Bishops of their rights of voting in the House of Lords. The opposition it encountered in that House induced the Commons to follow it up [May 27] with a more vehement measure, 'for the utter abolition of Archbishops, Bishops. Deans, Archdeacons, Prebendaries and Canons,' a measure known by the title of the Root and Branch Bill. By the skill of the royal partisans, this bill was long delayed in Committee."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2 (volume 2), page 650.

ALSO IN: D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 2, book 2, chapter 3.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (October). Roundheads and Cavaliers. The birth of English parties.

"After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September, 1641, adjourned for a short vacation and the king visited Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom, by consenting not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God. The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on which the houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our history. From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which have ever since alternately governed the country. ... {856} During the first months of the Long Parliament, the indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression was so strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one man. Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the numerical superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to antedate the separation between themselves and their opponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained the king from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made war on the king. But no artifice could be more disingenuous. Everyone of those strong measures was actively promoted by the men who were afterwards foremost among the Cavaliers. No republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more severely than Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill was made by Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law attainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion become visible. Even against that law, a law which nothing but extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the House of Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the majority, but spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few who entertained a scruple about inflicting death by a retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration. But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and when, in October 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under different names, have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. During some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these appellations are likely soon to become obsolete."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1.

It was not until some months later, however, that the name of Roundheads was applied to the defenders of popular rights by their royalist adversaries.

See ROUNDHEADS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (November). The Grand Remonstrance.

Early in November, 1641, the king being in Scotland, and news of the insurrection in Ireland having just reached London, the party of Pym, Hampden, and Cromwell "resolved on a great pitched battle between them and the opposition, which should try their relative strengths before the king's return; and they chose to fight this battle over a vast document, which they entitled 'A Declaration and Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom,' but which has come to be known since as The Grand Remonstrance. ... The notion of a great general document which, under the name of 'A Remonstrance,' should present to the king in one view a survey of the principal evils that had crept into the kingdom in his own and preceding reigns, with a detection of their causes, and a specification of the remedies, had more than once been before the Commons. It had been first mooted by Lord Digby while the Parliament was not a week old. Again and again set aside for more immediate work, it had recurred to the leaders of the Movement party, just before the king's departure for Scotland, as likely to afford the broad battle-ground with the opposition then becoming desirable. 'A Remonstrance to be made, how we found the Kingdom and the Church, and how the state of it now stands,' such was the description of the then intended document (August 7). The document had doubtless been in rehearsal through the Recess, for on the 8th of November the rough draft of it was presented to the House and read at the clerk's table. When we say that the document in its final form occupies thirteen folio pages of rather close print in Rushworth, and consists of a preamble followed by 206 articles or paragraphs duly numbered, one can conceive what a task the reading of even the first draft of it must have been, and through what a storm of successive debates over proposed amendments and additions it reached completeness. There had been no such debates yet in the Parliament."

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 2, book 2, chapter 6.

"It [The Grand Remonstrance] embodies the case of the Parliament against the Ministers of the king. It is the most authentic statement ever put forth of the wrongs endured by all classes of the English people, during the first fifteen years of the reign of Charles I.; and, for that reason, the most complete justification upon record of the Great Rebellion." The debates on The Grand Remonstrance were begun November 9 and ended November 22, when the vote was taken: Ayes, 159.--Noes, 148.--So evenly were the parties in the great struggle then divided.

J. Forster, History and Biographical Essays, volume 1: Debates on the Grand Remonstrance.

The following is the text of "The Grand Remonstrance," with that of the Petition preceding it:

"Most Gracious Sovereign: Your Majesty's most humble and faithful subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, do with much thankfulness and joy acknowledge the great mercy and favour of God, in giving your Majesty a safe and peaceable return out of Scotland into your kingdom of England, where the pressing dangers and distempers of the State have caused us with much earnestness to desire the comfort of your gracious presence, and likewise the unity and justice of your royal authority, to give more life and power to the dutiful and loyal counsels and endeavours of your Parliament, for the prevention of that eminent ruin and destruction wherein your kingdoms of England and Scotland are threatened. The duty which we owe to your Majesty and our country, cannot but make us very sensible and apprehensive, that the multiplicity, sharpness and malignity of those evils under which we have now many years suffered, are fomented and cherished by a corrupt and ill-affected party, who amongst other their mischievous devices for the alteration of religion and government, have sought by many false scandals and imputations, cunningly insinuated and dispersed amongst the people, to blemish and disgrace our proceedings in this Parliament, and to get themselves a party and faction amongst your subjects, for the better strengthening themselves in their wicked courses; and hindering those provisions and remedies which might, by the wisdom of your Majesty and counsel of your Parliament, be opposed against them. {857} For preventing whereof, and the better information of your Majesty, your Peers and all other your loyal subjects, we have been necessitated to make a declaration of the state of the kingdom, both before and since the assembly of this Parliament, unto this time, which we do humbly present to your Majesty, without the least intention to lay any blemish upon your royal person, but only to represent how your royal authority and trust have been abused, to the great prejudice and danger of your Majesty, and of all your good subjects. And because we have reason to believe that those malignant parties, whose proceedings evidently appear to be mainly for the advantage and increase of Popery, is composed, set up, and acted by the subtile practice of the Jesuits and other engineers and factors for Rome, and to the great danger of this kingdom, and most grievous affliction of your loyal subjects, have so far prevailed as to corrupt divers of your Bishops and others in prime places of the Church, and also to bring divers of these instruments to be of your Privy Council, and other employments of trust and nearness about your Majesty, the Prince, and the rest of your royal children. And by this means have had such an operation in your counsel and the most important affairs and proceedings of your government, that a most dangerous division and chargeable preparation for war betwixt your kingdoms of England and Scotland, the increase of jealousies betwixt your Majesty and your most obedient subjects, the violent distraction and interruption of this Parliament, the insurrection of the Papists in your kingdom of Ireland, and bloody massacre of your people, have been not only endeavoured and attempted, but in a great measure compassed and effected. For preventing the final accomplishment whereof, your poor subjects are enforced to engage their persons and estates to the maintaining of a very expensive and dangerous war, notwithstanding they have already since the beginning of this Parliament undergone the charge of £150,000 sterling, or thereabouts, for the necessary support and supply of your Majesty in these present and perilous designs. And because all our most faithful endeavours and engagements will be ineffectual for the peace, safety and preservation of your Majesty and your people, if some present, real and effectual course be not taken for suppressing this wicked and malignant party:--We, your most humble and obedient subjects, do with all faithfulness and humility beseech your Majesty,

1. That you will be graciously pleased to concur with the humble desires of your people in a parliamentary way, for the preserving the peace and safety of the kingdom from the malicious designs of the Popish party:

For depriving the Bishops of their votes in Parliament, and abridging their immoderate power usurped over the Clergy, and other your good subjects, which they have perniciously abused to the hazard of religion, and great prejudice and oppression of the laws of the kingdom, and just liberty of your people:

For the taking away such oppressions in religion, Church government and discipline, as have been brought in and fomented by them;

For uniting all such your loyal subjects together as join in the same fundamental truths against the Papists, by removing some oppressions and unnecessary ceremonies by which divers weak consciences have been scrupled, and seem to be divided from the rest, and for the due execution of those good laws which have been made for securing the liberty of your subjects.

2. That your Majesty will likewise be pleased to remove from your council all such as persist to favour and promote any of those pressures and corruptions wherewith your people have been grieved, and that for the future your Majesty will vouchsafe to employ such persons in your great and public affairs, and to take such to be near you in places of trust, as your Parliament may have cause to confide in; that in your princely goodness to your people you will reject and refuse all mediation and solicitation to the contrary, how powerful and near soever.

3. That you will be pleased to forbear to alienate any of the forfeited and escheated lands in Ireland which shall accrue to your Crown by reason of this rebellion, that out of them the Crown may be the better supported, and some satisfaction made to your subjects of this kingdom for the great expenses they are like to undergo [in] this war. Which humble desires of ours being graciously fulfilled by your Majesty, we will, by the blessing and favour of God, most cheerfully undergo the hazard and expenses of this war, and apply ourselves to such other courses and counsels as may support your real estate with honour and plenty at home, with power and reputation abroad, and by our loyal affections, obedience and service, lay a sure and lasting foundation of the greatness and prosperity of your Majesty, and your royal prosperity in future times.

The Commons in this present Parliament assembled, having with much earnestness and faithfulness of affection and zeal to the public good of this kingdom, and His Majesty's honour and service for the space of twelve months, wrestled with great dangers and fears, the pressing miseries and calamities, the various distempers and disorders which had not only assaulted, but even overwhelmed and extinguished the liberty, peace and prosperity of this kingdom, the comfort and hopes of all His Majesty's good subjects, and exceedingly weakened and undermined the foundation and strength of his own royal throne, do yet find an abounding malignity and opposition in those parties and factions who have been the cause of those evils, and do still labour to cast aspersions upon that which hath been done, and to raise many difficulties for the hindrance of that which remains yet undone, and to foment jealousies between the King and Parliament, that so they may deprive him and his people of the fruit of his own gracious intentions, and their humble desires of procuring the public peace, safety and happiness of this realm. For the preventing of those miserable effects which such malicious endeavours may produce, we have thought good to declare the root and the growth of these mischievous designs: the maturity and ripeness to which they have attained before the beginning of the Parliament: the effectual means which have been used for the extirpation of those dangerous evils, and the progress which hath therein been made by His Majesty's goodness and the wisdom of the Parliament: the ways of obstruction and opposition by which that progress hath been interrupted: the courses to be taken for the removing those obstacles, and for the accomplishing of our most dutiful and faithful intentions and endeavours of restoring and establishing the ancient honour, greatness and security of this Crown and nation. {858} The root of all this mischief we find to be a malignant and pernicious design of subverting the fundamental laws and principles of government, upon which the religion and justice of this kingdom are firmly established. The actors and promoters hereof have been:

1. The Jesuited Papists, who hate the laws, as the obstacles of that change and subversion of religion which they so much long for.

2. The Bishops, and the corrupt part of the Clergy, who cherish formality and superstition as the natural effects and more probable supports of their own ecclesiastical tyranny and usurpation.

3. Such Councillors and Courtiers as for private ends have engaged themselves to further the interests of some foreign princes or states to the prejudice of His Majesty and the State at home. The common principles by which they moulded and governed all their particular counsels and actions were these: First, to maintain continual differences and discontents between the King and the people, upon questions of prerogative and liberty, that so they might have the advantage of siding with him, and under the notions of men addicted to his service, gain to themselves and their parties the places of greatest trust and power in the kingdom. A second, to suppress the purity and power of religion, and such persons as were best affected to it, as being contrary to their own ends, and the greatest impediment to that change which they thought to introduce. A third, to conjoin those parties of the kingdom which were most propitious to their own ends, and to divide those who were most opposite, which consisted in many particular observations. To cherish the Arminian part in those points wherein they agree with the Papists, to multiply and enlarge the difference between the common Protestants and those whom they call Puritans, to introduce and countenance such opinions and ceremonies as are fittest for accommodation with Popery, to increase and maintain ignorance, looseness and profaneness in the people; that of those three parties, Papists, Arminians and Libertines, they might compose a body fit to act such counsels and resolutions as were most conducible to their own ends. A fourth, to disaffect the King to Parliaments by slander and false imputations, and by putting him upon other ways of supply, which in show and appearance were fuller of advantage than the ordinary course of subsidies, though in truth they brought more loss than gain both to the King and people, and have caused the great distractions under which we both suffer. As in all compounded bodies the operations are qualified according to the predominant element, so in this mixed party, the Jesuited counsels, being most active and prevailing, may easily be discovered to have had the greatest sway in all their determinations, and if they be not prevented, are likely to devour the rest, or to turn them into their own nature. In the beginning of His Majesty's reign the party began to revive and flourish again, having been somewhat damped by the breach with Spain in the last year of King James, and by His Majesty's marriage with France; the interests and counsels of that State being not so contrary to the good of religion and the prosperity of this kingdom as those of Spain; and the Papists of England, having been ever more addicted to Spain than France, yet they still retained a purpose and resolution to weaken the Protestant parties in all parts, and even in France, whereby to make way for the change of religion which they intended at home.

1. The first effect and evidence of their recovery and strength was the dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford, after there had been given two subsidies to His Majesty, and before they received relief in any one grievance many other more miserable effects followed.

2. The loss of the Rochel fleet, by the help of our shipping, set forth and delivered over to the French in opposition to the advice of Parliament, which left that town without defence by sea, and made way, not only to the loss of that important place, but likewise to the loss of all the strength and security of the Protestant religion in France.

3. The diverting of His Majesty's course of wars from the West Indies, which was the most facile and hopeful way for this kingdom to prevail against the Spaniard, to an expenseful and successless attempt upon Cadiz, which was so ordered as if it had rather been intended to make us weary of war than to prosper in it.

4. The precipitate breach with France, by taking their ships to a great value without making recompense to the English, whose goods were thereupon imbarred and confiscated in that kingdom.

5. The peace with Spain without consent of Parliament, contrary to the promise of King James to both Houses, whereby the Palatine's cause was deserted and left to chargeable and hopeless treaties, which for the most part were managed by those who might justly be suspected to be no friends to that cause.

6. The charging of the kingdom with billeted soldiers in all parts of it, and the concomitant design of German horse, that the land might either submit with fear or be enforced with rigour to such arbitrary contributions as should be required of them.

7. The dissolving of the Parliament in the second year of His Majesty's reign, after a declaration of their intent to grant five subsidies.

8. The exacting of the like proportion of five subsidies, after the Parliament dissolved, by commission of loan, and divers gentlemen and others imprisoned for not yielding to pay that loan, whereby many of them contracted such sicknesses as cost them their lives.

9. Great sums of money required and raised by privy seals.

10. An unjust and pernicious attempt to extort great payments from the subject by way of excise, and a commission issued under the seal to that purpose.

11. The Petition of Right, which was granted in full Parliament, blasted, with an illegal declaration to make it destructive to itself, to the power of Parliament, to the liberty of the subject, and to that purpose printed with it, and the Petition made of no use but to show the bold and presumptuous injustice of such ministers as durst break the laws and suppress the liberties of the kingdom, after they had been so solemnly and evidently declared.

12. Another Parliament dissolved 4 Car., the privilege of Parliament broken, by imprisoning divers members of the House, detaining them close prisoners for many months together, without the liberty of using books, pen, ink or paper; denying them all the comforts of life, all means of preservation of health, not permitting their wives to come unto them even in the time of their sickness.

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13. And for the completing of that cruelty, after years spent in such miserable durance, depriving them of the necessary means of spiritual consolation, not suffering them to go abroad to enjoy God's ordinances in God's House, or God's ministers to come to them to minister comfort to them in their private chambers.

14. And to keep them still in this oppressed condition, not admitting them to be bailed according to law, yet vexing them with informations in inferior courts, sentencing and fining some of them for matters done in Parliament; and extorting the payments of those fines from them, enforcing others to put in security of good behaviour before they could be released.

15. The imprisonment of the rest, which refused to be bound, still continued, which might have been perpetual if necessity had not the last year brought another Parliament to relieve them, of whom one died [Sir John Eliot] by the cruelty and harshness of his imprisonment, which would admit of no relaxation, notwithstanding the imminent danger of his life, did sufficiently appear by the declaration of his physician, and his release, or at least his refreshment, was sought by many humble petitions, and his blood still cries either for vengeance or repentance of those Ministers of State, who have at once obstructed the course both of His Majesty's justice and mercy.

16. Upon the dissolution of both these Parliaments, untrue and scandalous declarations were published to asperse their proceedings, and some of their members unjustly; to make them odious, and colour the violence which was used against them; proclamations set out to the same purpose; and to the great dejecting of the hearts of the people, forbidding them even to speak of Parliaments.

17. After the breach of the Parliament in the fourth of His Majesty, injustice, oppression and violence broke in upon us without any restraint or moderation, and yet the first project was the great sums exacted through the whole kingdom for default of knighthood, which seemed to have some colour and shadow of a law, yet if it be rightly examined by that obsolete law which was pretended for it, it will be found to be against all the rules of justice, both in respect of the persons charged, the proportion of the fines demanded, and the absurd and unreasonable manner of their proceedings.

18. Tonnage and Poundage hath been received without colour or pretence of law; many other heavy impositions continued against law, and some so unreasonable that the sum of the charge exceeds the value of the goods.

19. The Book of Rates lately enhanced to a high proportion, and such merchants that would not submit to their illegal and unreasonable payments, were vexed and oppressed above measure; and the ordinary course of justice, the common birthright of the subject of England, wholly obstructed unto them.

20. And although all this was taken upon pretence of guarding the seas, yet a new unheard-of tax of ship-money was devised, and upon the same pretence, by both which there was charged upon the subject near £700,000 some years, and yet the merchants have been left so naked to the violence of the Turkish pirates, that many great ships of value and thousands of His Majesty's subjects have been taken by them, and do still remain in miserable slavery.

21. The enlargements of forests, contrary to 'Carta de Foresta,' and the composition thereupon.

22. The exactions of coat and conduct money and divers other military charges.

23. The taking away the arms of trained bands of divers counties.

24. The desperate design of engrossing all the gunpowder into one hand, keeping it in the Tower of London, and setting so high a rate upon it that the poorer sort were not able to buy it, nor could any have it without licence, thereby to leave the several parts of the kingdom destitute of their necessary defence, and by selling so dear that which was sold to make an unlawful advantage of it, to the great charge and detriment of the subject.

25. The general destruction of the King's timber, especially that in the Forest of Deane, sold to Papists, which was the best store-house of this kingdom for the maintenance of our shipping.

26. The taking away of men's right, under the colour of the King's title to land, between high and low water marks.

27. The monopolies of soap, salt, wine, leather, sea-coal, and in a manner of all things of most common and necessary use.

28. The restraint of the liberties of the subjects in their habitation, trades and other interests.

29. Their vexation and oppression by purveyors, clerks of the market and saltpetre men.

30. The sale of pretended nuisances, as building in and about London.

31. Conversion of arable into pasture, continuance of pasture, under the name of depopulation, have driven many millions out of the subjects' purses, without any considerable profit to His Majesty.

32. Large quantities of common and several grounds hath been taken from the subject by colour of the Statute of Improvement, and by abuse of the Commission of Sewers, without their consent, and against it.

33. And not only private interest, but also public faith, have been broken in seizing of the money and bullion in the mint, and the whole kingdom like to be robbed at once in that abominable project of brass money.

34. Great numbers of His Majesty's subjects for refusing those unlawful charges, have been vexed with long and expensive suits, some fined and censured, others committed to long and hard imprisonments and confinements, to the loss of health in many, of life in some, and others have had their houses broken up, their goods seized, some have been restrained from their lawful callings.

35. Ships have been interrupted in their voyages, surprised at sea in a hostile manner by projectors, as by a common enemy.

36. Merchants prohibited to unlade their goods in such ports as were for their own advantage, and forced to bring them to those places which were much for the advantage of the monopolisers and projectors.

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37. The Court of Star Chamber hath abounded in extravagant censures, not only for the maintenance and improvement of monopolies and other unlawful taxes, but for divers other causes where there hath been no offence, or very small; whereby His Majesty's subjects have been oppressed by grievous fines, imprisonments, stigmatisings, mutilations, whippings, pillories, gags, confinements, banishments; after so rigid a manner as hath not only deprived men of the society of their friends, exercise of their professions, comfort of books, use of paper or ink, but even violated that near union which God hath established between men and their wives, by forced and constrained separation, whereby they have been bereaved of the comfort and conversation one of another for many years together, without hope of relief, if God had not by His overruling providence given some interruption to the prevailing power, and counsel of those who were the authors and promoters of such peremptory and heady courses.

38. Judges have been put out of their places for refusing to do against their oaths and consciences; others have been so awed that they durst not do their duties, and the better to hold a rod over them, the clause 'Quam diu se bene gesserit' was left out of their patents, and a new clause 'Durante bene placito' inserted.

39. Lawyers have been checked for being faithful to their clients; solicitors and attorneys have been threatened, and some punished, for following lawful suits. And by this means all the approaches to justice were interrupted and forecluded.

40. New oaths have been forced upon the subject against law.

41. New judicatories erected without law. The Council Table have by their orders offered to bind the subjects in their freeholds, estates, suits and actions.

42. The pretended Court of the Earl Marshal was arbitrary and illegal in its being and proceedings.

43. The Chancery, Exchequer Chamber, Court of Wards, and other English Courts, have been grievous in exceeding their jurisdiction.

44. The estate of many families weakened, and some ruined by excessive fines, exacted from them for compositions of wardships.

45. All leases of above a hundred years made to draw on wardship contrary to law.

46. Undue proceedings used in the finding of offices to make the jury find for the King.

47. The Common Law Courts, feeling all men more inclined to seek justice there, where it may be fitted to their own desire, are known frequently to forsake the rules of the Common Law, and straying beyond their bounds, under pretence of equity, to do injustice.

48. Titles of honour, judicial places, sergeantships at law, and other offices have been sold for great sums of money, whereby the common justice of the kingdom hath been much endangered, not only by opening a way of employment in places of great trust, and advantage to men of weak parts, but also by giving occasion to bribery, extortion, partiality, it seldom happening that places ill-gotton are well used.

49. Commissions have been granted for examining the excess of fees, and when great exactions have been discovered, compositions have been made with delinquents, not only for the time past, but likewise for immunity and security in offending for the time to come, which under colour of remedy hath but confirmed and increased the grievance to the subject.

50. The usual course of pricking Sheriffs not observed, but many times Sheriffs made in an extraordinary way, sometimes as a punishment and charge unto them; sometimes such were pricked out as would be instruments to execute whatsoever they would have to be done.

51. The Bishops and the rest of the Clergy did triumph in the suspensions, ex-communications, deprivations, and degradations of divers painful, learned and pious ministers, in the vexation and grievous oppression of great numbers of His Majesty's good subjects.

52. The High Commission grew to such excess of sharpness and severity as was not much less than the Romish Inquisition, and yet in many cases by the Archbishop's power was made much more heavy, being assisted and strengthened by authority of the Council Table.

53. The Bishops and their Courts were as eager in the country; although their jurisdiction could not reach so high in rigour and extremity of punishment, yet were they no less grievous in respect of the generality and multiplicity of vexations, which lighting upon the meaner sort of tradesmen and artificers did impoverish many thousands.

54. And so afflict and trouble others, that great numbers to avoid their miseries departed out of the kingdom, some into New England and other parts of America, others into Holland.

55. Where they have transported their manufactures of cloth, which is not only a loss by diminishing the present stock of the kingdom, but a great mischief by impairing and endangering the loss of that particular trade of clothing, which hath been a plentiful fountain of wealth and honour to this nation.

56. Those were fittest for ecclesiastical preferment, and soonest obtained it, who were most officious in promoting superstition, most virulent in railing against godliness and honesty.

57. The most public and solemn sermons before His Majesty were either to advance prerogative above law, and decry the property of the subject, or full of such kind of invectives.

58. Whereby they might make those odious who sought to maintain the religion, laws and liberties of the kingdom, and such men were sure to be weeded out of the commission of the peace, and out of all other employments of power in the government of the country.

59. Many noble personages were councillors in name, but the power and authority remained in a few of such as were most addicted to this party, whose resolutions and determinations were brought to the table for countenance and execution, and not for debate and deliberation, and no man could offer to oppose them without disgrace and hazard to himself.

60. Nay, all those that did not wholly concur and actively contribute to the furtherance of their designs, though otherwise persons of never so great honour and abilities, were so far from being employed in any place of trust and power, that they were neglected, discountenanced, and upon all occasions injured and oppressed.

61. This faction was grown to that height and entireness of power, that now they began to think of finishing their work, which consisted of these three parts.

62. I. The government must be set free from all restraint of laws concerning our persons and estates.

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63. II. There must be a conjunction between Papists and Protestants in doctrine, discipline and ceremonies; only it must not yet be called Popery.

64. III. The Puritans, under which name they include all those that desire to preserve the laws and liberties of the kingdom, and to maintain religion in the power of it, must be either rooted out of the kingdom with force, or driven out with fear.

65. For the effecting of this it was thought necessary to reduce Scotland to such Popish superstitions and innovations as might make them apt to join with England in that great change which was intended.

66. Whereupon new canons and a new liturgy were pressed upon them, and when they refused to admit of them, an army was raised to force them to it, towards which the Clergy and the Papists were very forward in their contribution.

67. The Scots likewise raised an army for their defence.

68. And when both armies were come together, and ready for a bloody encounter, His Majesty's own gracious disposition, and the counsel of the English nobility and dutiful submission of the Scots, did so far prevail against the evil counsel of others, that a pacification was made, and His Majesty returned with peace and much honour to London.

69. The unexpected reconciliation was most acceptable to all the kingdom, except to the malignant party; whereof the Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford being heads, they and their faction begun to inveigh against the peace, and to aggravate the proceedings of the states, which so increased [incensed?] His Majesty, that he forthwith prepared again for war.

70. And such was their confidence, that having corrupted and distempered the whole frame and government of the kingdom, they did now hope to corrupt that which was the only means to restore all to a right frame and temper again.

71. To which end they persuaded His Majesty to call a Parliament, not to seek counsel and advice of them, but to draw countenance and supply from them, and to engage the whole kingdom in their quarrel.

72. And in the meantime continued all their unjust levies of money, resolving either to make the Parliament pliant to their will, and to establish mischief by a law, or else to break it, and with more colour to go on by violence to take what they could not obtain by consent. The ground alleged for the justification of this war was this,

73. That the undutiful demands of the Parliaments in Scotland was a sufficient reason for His Majesty to take arms against them, without hearing the reason of those demands, and thereupon a new army was prepared against them, their ships were seized in all ports both of England and Ireland, and at sea, their petitions rejected, their commissioners refused audience.

74. The whole kingdom most miserably distempered with levies of men and money, and imprisonments of those who denied to submit to those levies.

75. The Earl of Strafford passed into Ireland, caused the Parliament there to declare against the Scots, to give four subsidies towards that war, and to engage themselves, their lives and fortunes, for the prosecution of it, and gave directions for an army of eight thousand foot and one thousand horse to be levied there, which were for the most part Papists.

76. The Parliament met upon the 13th of April, 1640. The Earl of Strafford and Archbishop of Canterbury, with their party, so prevailed with His Majesty, that the House of Commons was pressed to yield a supply for maintenance of the war with Scotland, before they had provided any relief for the great and pressing grievances of the people, which being against the fundamental privilege and proceeding of Parliament, was yet in humble respect to His Majesty, so far admitted as that they agreed to take the matter of supply into consideration, and two several days it was debated.

77. Twelve subsidies were demanded for the release of ship-money alone, a third day was appointed for conclusion, when the heads of that party begun to fear the people might close with the King, in falsifying his desires of money; but that withal they were like to blast their malicious designs against Scotland, finding them very much indisposed to give any countenance to that war.

78. Thereupon they wickedly advised the King to break off the Parliament and to return to the ways of confusion, in which their own evil intentions were most likely to prosper and succeed.

79. After the Parliament ended the 5th of May, 1640, this party grew so bold as to counsel the King to supply himself out of his subjects' estates by his own power, at his own will, without their consent.

80. The very next day some members of both Houses had their studies and cabinets, yea, their pockets searched: another of them not long after was committed close prisoner for not delivering some petitions which he received by authority of that House.

81. And if harsher courses were intended (as was reported) it is very probable that the sickness of the Earl of Strafford, and the tumultuous rising in Southwark and about Lambeth were the causes that such violent intentions were not brought to execution.

82. A false and scandalous Declaration against the House of Commons was published in His Majesty's name, which yet wrought little effect with the people, but only to manifest the impudence of those who were authors of it.

83. A forced loan of money was attempted in the City of London.

84. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their several wards, enjoined to bring in a list of the names of such persons as they judged fit to lend, and of the sums they should lend. And such Aldermen as refused to do so were committed to prison.

85. The Archbishop and the other Bishops and Clergy continued the Convocation, and by a new commission turned it into a provincial Synod, in which, by an unheard-of presumption, they made canons that contain in them many matters contrary to the King's prerogative, to the fundamental laws and statutes of the realm, to the right of Parliaments, to the property and liberty of the subject, and matters tending to sedition and of dangerous consequence, thereby establishing their own usurpations, justifying their altar-worship, and those other superstitious innovations which they formerly introduced without warrant of law.

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86. They imposed a new oath upon divers of His Majesty's subjects, both ecclesiastical and lay, for maintenance of their own tyranny, and laid a great tax on the Clergy, for supply of His Majesty, and generally they showed themselves very affectionate to the war with Scotland, which was by some of them styled 'Bellum Episeopale,' and a prayer composed and enjoined to be read in all churches, calling the Scots rebels, to put the two nations in blood and make them irreconcilable.

87. All those pretended canons and constitutions were armed with the several censures of suspension, excommunication, deprivation, by which they would have thrust out all the good ministers, and most of the well-affected people of the kingdom, and left an easy passage to their own design of reconciliation with Rome.

88. The Popish party enjoyed such exemptions from penal laws as amounted to a toleration, besides many other encouragements and Court favours.

89. They had a Secretary of State, Sir Francis Windebanck, a powerful agent for speeding all their desires.

90. A Pope's Nuncio residing here, to act and govern them according to such influences as he received from Rome, and to intercede for them with the most powerful concurrence of the foreign princes of that religion.

91. By his authority the Papists of all sorts, nobility, gentry, and clergy were convocated after the manner of a Parliament.

92. New jurisdictions were erected of Romish Archbishops, taxes levied, another state moulded within this state independent in government, contrary in interest and affection, secretly corrupting the ignorant or negligent professors of our religion, and closely uniting and combining themselves against such as were found in this posture, waiting for an opportunity by force to destroy those whom they could not hope to seduce.

93. For the effecting whereof they were strengthened with arms and munitions, encouraged by superstitious prayers, enjoined by the Nuncio to be weekly made for the prosperity of some great design.

94. And such power had they at Court, that secretly a commission was issued out, or intended to be issued to some great men of that profession, for the levying of soldiers, and to command and employ them according to private instructions, which we doubt were framed for the advantage of those who were the contrivers of them.

95. His Majesty's treasure was consumed, his revenue anticipated.

96. His servants and officers compelled to lend great sums of money.

97. Multitudes were called to the Council Table, who were tired with long attendances there for refusing illegal payments.

98. The prisons were filled with their commitments; many of the Sheriffs summoned into the Star Chamber, and some imprisoned for not being quick enough in levying the ship-money; the people languished under grief and fear, no visible hope being left but in desperation.

99. The nobility began to weary of their silence and patience, and sensible of the duty and trust which belongs to them: and thereupon some of the most ancient of them did petition His Majesty at such a time, when evil counsels were so strong, that they had occasion to expect more hazard to themselves, than redress of those public evils for which they interceded.

100. Whilst the kingdom was in this agitation and distemper, the Scots, restrained in their trades, impoverished by the loss of many of their ships, bereaved of all possibility of satisfying His Majesty by any naked supplication, entered with a powerful army into the kingdom, and without any hostile act or spoil in the country they passed, more than forcing a passage over the Tyne at Newburn, near Newcastle, possessed themselves of Newcastle, and had a fair opportunity to press on further upon the King's army.

101. But duty and reverence to His Majesty, and brotherly love to the English nation, made them stay there, whereby the King had leisure to entertain better counsels.

102. Wherein God so blessed and directed him that he summoned the Great Council of Peers to meet at York upon the 24th of September, and there declared a Parliament to begin the 3d of November then following.

103. The Scots, the first day of the Great Council, presented an humble Petition to His Majesty, whereupon the Treaty was appointed at Ripon.

104. A present cessation of arms agreed upon, and the full conclusion of all differences referred to the wisdom and care of the Parliament.

105. At our first meeting, all oppositions seemed to vanish, the mischiefs were so evident which those evil counsellors produced, that no man durst stand up to defend them: yet the work itself afforded difficulty enough.

106. The multiplied evils and corruption of fifteen years, strengthened by custom and authority, and the concurrent interest of many powerful delinquents, were now to be brought to judgment and reformation.

107. The King's household was to be provided for:--they had brought him to that want, that he could not supply his ordinary and necessary expenses without the assistance of his people.

108. Two armies were to be paid, which amounted very near to eighty thousand pounds a month.

109. The people were to be tenderly charged, having been formerly exhausted with many burdensome projects.

110. The difficulties seemed to be insuperable, which by the Divine Providence we have overcome. The contrarieties incompatible, which yet in a great measure we have reconciled.

111. Six subsidies have been granted and a Bill of poll-money, which if it be duly levied, may equal six subsidies more, in all £600,000.

112. Besides we have contracted a debt to the Scots of £220,000, yet God hath so blessed the endeavours of this Parliament, that the kingdom is a great gainer by all these charges.

113. The ship-money is abolished, which cost the kingdom about £200,000 a year.

114. The coat and conduct-money, and other military charges are taken away, which in many countries amounted to little less than the ship-money.

115. The monopolies are all suppressed, whereof some few did prejudice the subject, above £1,000,000 yearly.

116. The soap £100,000.

117. The wine £300,000.

118. The leather must needs exceed both, and salt could be no less than that.

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119. Besides the inferior monopolies, which, if they could be exactly computed, would make up a great sum.

120. That which is more beneficial than all this is, that the root of these evils is taken away, which was the arbitrary power pretended to be in His Majesty of taxing the subject, or charging their estates without consent in Parliament, which is now declared to be against law by the judgment of both Houses, and likewise by an Act of Parliament.

121. Another step of great advantage is this, the living grievances, the evil counsellors and actors of these mischiefs have been so quelled.

122. By the justice done upon the Earl of Strafford, the flight of the Lord Finch and Secretary Windebank.

123. The accusation and imprisonment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, of Judge Berkeley; and

124. The impeachment of divers other Bishops and Judges, that it is like not only to be an ease to the present times, but a preservation to the future.

125. The discontinuance of Parliaments is prevented by the Bill for a triennial Parliament, and the abrupt dissolution of this Parliament by another Bill, by which it is provided it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses.

126. Which two laws well considered may be thought more advantageous than all the former, because they secure a full operation of the present remedy, and afford a perpetual spring of remedies for the future.

127. The Star Chamber.

128. The High Commission.

129. The Courts of the President and Council in the North were so many forges of misery, oppression and violence, and are all taken away, whereby men are more secured in their persons, liberties and estates, than they could be by any law or example for the regulation of those Courts or terror of the Judges.

130. The immoderate power of the Council Table, and the excessive abuse of that power is so ordered and restrained, that we may well hope that no such things as were frequently done by them, to the prejudice of the public liberty, will appear in future times but only in stories, to give us and our posterity more occasion to praise God for His Majesty's goodness, and the faithful endeavours of this Parliament.

131. The canons and power of canon-making are blasted by the votes of both Houses.

132. The exorbitant power of Bishops and their courts are much abated, by some provisions in the Bill against the High Commission Court, the authors of the many innovations in doctrine and ceremonies.

133. The ministers that have been scandalous in their lives, have been so terrified in just complaints and accusations, that we may well hope they will be more modest for the time to come; either inwardly convicted by the sight of their own folly, or outwardly restrained by the fear of punishment.

134. The forests are by a good law reduced to their right bounds.

135. The encroachments and oppressions of the Stannary Courts, the extortions of the clerk of the market.

136. And the compulsion of the subject to receive the Order of Knighthood against his will, paying of fines for not receiving it, and the vexatious proceedings thereupon for levying of those fines, are by other beneficial laws reformed and prevented.

137. Many excellent laws and provisions are in preparation for removing the inordinate power, vexation and usurpation of Bishops, for reforming the pride and idleness of many of the clergy, for easing the people of unnecessary ceremonies in religion, for censuring and removing unworthy and unprofitable ministers, and for maintaining godly and diligent preachers through the kingdom.

138. Other things of main importance for the good of this kingdom are in proposition, though little could hitherto be done in regard of the many other more pressing businesses, which yet before the end of this Session we hope may receive some progress and perfection.

139. The establishing and ordering the King's revenue, that so the abuse of officers and superfluity of expenses may be cut off, and the necessary disbursements for His Majesty's honour, the defence and government of the kingdom, may be more certainly provided for.

140. The regulating of courts of justice, and abridging both the delays and charges of lawsuits.

141. The settling of some good courses for preventing the exportation of gold and silver, and the inequality of exchanges between us and other nations, for the advancing of native commodities, increase of our manufactures, and well balancing of trade, whereby the stock of the kingdom may be increased, or at least kept from impairing, as through neglect hereof it hath done for many years last past.

142. Improving the herring-fishing upon our coasts, which will be of mighty use in the employment of the poor, and a plentiful nursery of mariners for enabling the kingdom in any great action.

143. The oppositions, obstructions and other difficulties wherewith we have been encountered, and which still lie in our way with some strength and much obstinacy, are these: the malignant party whom we have formerly described to be the actors and promoters of all our misery, they have taken heart again.

144. They have been able to prefer some of their own factors and agents to degrees of honour, to places of trust and employment, even during the Parliament.

145. They have endeavoured to work in His Majesty ill impressions and opinions of our proceedings, as if we had altogether done our own work, and not his; and had obtained from him many things very prejudicial to the Crown, both in respect of prerogative and profit.

146. To wipe out this slander we think good only to say thus much: that all that we have done is for His Majesty, his greatness, honour and support, when we yield to give £25,000 a month for the relief of the Northern Counties; this was given to the King, for he was bound to protect his subjects.

147. They were His Majesty's evil counsellors, and their ill instruments that were actors in those grievances which brought in the Scots.

148. And if His Majesty please to force those who were the authors of this war to make satisfaction, as he might justly and easily do, it seems very reasonable that the people might well be excused from taking upon them this burden, being altogether innocent and free from being any cause of it.

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149. When we undertook the charge of the army, which cost above £50,000 a month, was not this given to the King? Was it not His Majesty's army? Were not all the commanders under contract with His Majesty, at higher rates and greater wages than ordinary?

150. And have not we taken upon us to discharge all the brotherly assistance of £300,000, which we gave the Scots? Was it not toward repair of those damages and losses which they received from the King's ships and from his ministers?

151. These three particulars amount to above £1,100,000.

152. Besides, His Majesty hath received by impositions upon merchandise at least £400,000.

153. So that His Majesty hath had out of the subjects' purse since the Parliament began, £1,500,000 and yet these men can be so impudent as to tell His Majesty that we have done nothing for him.

154. As to the second branch of this slander, we acknowledge with much thankfulness that His Majesty hath passed more good Bills to the advantage of the subjects than have been in many ages.

155. But withal we cannot forget that these venomous councils did manifest themselves in some endeavours to hinder these good acts.

156. And for both Houses of Parliament we may with truth and modesty say thus much: that we have ever been careful not to desire anything that should weaken the Crown either in just profit or useful power.

157. The triennial Parliament for the matter of it, doth not extend to so much as by law we ought to have required (there being two statutes still in force for a Parliament to be once a year), and for the manner of it, it is in the King's power that it shall never take effect, if he by a timely summons shall prevent any other way of assembling.

158. In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament, there seems to be some restraint of the royal power in dissolving of Parliaments, not to take it out of the Crown, but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion only: which was so necessary for the King's own security and the public peace, that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges, but must have left both the armies to disorder and confusion, and the whole kingdom to blood and rapine.

159. The Star Chamber was much more fruitful in oppression than in profit, the great fines being for the most part given away, and the rest stalled at long times.

160. The fines of the High Commission were in themselves unjust, and seldom or never came into the King's purse. These four Bills are particularly and more specially instanced.

161. In the rest there will not be found so much as a shadow of prejudice to the Crown.

162. They have sought to diminish our reputation with the people, and to bring them out of love with Parliaments.

163. The aspersions which they have attempted this way have been such as these:

164. That we have spent much time and done little, especially in those grievances which concern religion.

165. That the Parliament is a burden to the kingdom by the abundance of protections which hinder justice and trade; and by many subsidies granted much more heavy than any formerly endured.

166. To which there is a ready answer; if the time spent in this Parliament be considered in relation backward to the long growth and deep root of those grievances, which we have removed, to the powerful supports of those delinquents, which we have pursued, to the great necessities and other charges of the commonwealth for which we have provided.

167. Or if it be considered in relation forward to many advantages, which not only the present but future ages are like to reap by the good laws and other proceedings in this Parliament, we doubt not but it will be thought by all indifferent judgments, that our time hath been much better employed than in a far greater proportion of time in many former Parliaments put together; and the charges which have been laid upon the subject, and the other inconveniences which they have borne, will seem very light in respect of the benefit they have and may receive.

168. And for the matter of protections, the Parliament is so sensible of it that therein they intended to give them whatsoever ease may stand with honour and justice, and are in a way of passing a Bill to give them satisfaction.

169. They have sought by many subtle practices to cause jealousies and divisions betwixt us and our brethren of Scotland, by slandering their proceedings and intentions towards us, and by secret endeavours to instigate and incense them and us one against another.

170. They have had such a party of Bishops and Popish lords in the House of Peers, as hath caused much opposition and delay in the prosecution of delinquents, hindered the proceedings of divers good Bills passed in the Commons' House, concerning the reformation of sundry great abuses and corruptions both in Church and State.

171. They have laboured to seduce and corrupt some of the Commons' House to draw them into conspiracies and combinations against the liberty of the Parliament.

172. And by their instruments and agents they have attempted to disaffect and discontent His Majesty's army, and to engage it for the maintenance of their wicked and traitorous designs; the keeping up of Bishops in votes and functions, and by force to compel the Parliament to order, limit and dispose their proceedings in such manner as might best concur with the intentions of this dangerous and potent faction.

173. And when one mischievous design and attempt of theirs to bring on the army against the Parliament and the City of London, hath been discovered and prevented;

174. They presently undertook another of the same damnable nature, with this addition to it, to endeavour to make the Scottish army neutral, whilst the English army, which they had laboured to corrupt and envenom against us by their false and slanderous suggestions, should execute their malice to the subversion of our religion and the dissolution of our government.

175. Thus they have been continually practising to disturb the peace, and plotting the destruction even of all the King's dominions; and have employed their emissaries and agents in them, all for the promoting their devilish designs, which the vigilancy of those who were well affected hath still discovered and defeated before they were ripe for execution in England and Scotland.

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176. Only in Ireland, which was farther off, they have had time and opportunity to mould and prepare their work, and had brought it to that perfection that they had possessed themselves of that whole kingdom, totally subverted the government of it, routed out religion, and destroyed all the Protestants whom the conscience of their duty to God, their King and country, would not have permitted to join with them, if by God's wonderful providence their main enterprise upon the city and castle of Dublin, had not been detected and prevented upon the very eve before it should have been executed.

177. Notwithstanding they have in other parts of that kingdom broken out into open rebellion, surprising towns and castles, committed murders, rapes and other villainies, and shaken off all bonds of obedience to His Majesty and the laws of the realm.

178. And in general have kindled such a fire, as nothing but God's infinite blessing upon the wisdom and endeavours of this State will be able to quench it.

179. And certainly had not God in His great mercy unto this land discovered and confounded their former designs, we had been the prologue to this tragedy in Ireland, and had by this been made the lamentable spectacle of misery and confusion.

180. And now what hope have we but in God, when as the only means of our subsistence and power of reformation is under Him in the Parliament?

181. But what can we the Commons, without the conjunction of the House of Lords, and what conjunction can we expect there, when the Bishops and recusant lords are so numerous and prevalent that they are able to cross and interrupt our best endeavours for reformation, and by that means give advantage to this malignant party to traduce our proceedings?

182. They infuse into the people that we mean to abolish all Church government, and leave every man to his own fancy for the service and worship of God, absolving him of that obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty, whom we know to be entrusted with the ecclesiastical law as well as with the temporal, to regulate all the members of the Church of England, by such rules of order and discipline as are established by Parliament, which is his great council in all affairs both in Church and State.

183. We confess our intention is, and our endeavours have been, to reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the prelates have assumed unto themselves, so contrary both to the Word of God and to the laws of the land, to which end we passed the Bill for the removing them from their temporal power and employments, that so the better they might with meekness apply themselves to the discharge of their functions, which Bill themselves opposed, and were the principal instruments of crossing it.

184. And we do here declare that it is far from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reins of discipline and government in the Church, to leave private persons or particular congregations to take up what form of Divine Service they please, for we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole realm a conformity to that order which the laws enjoin according to the Word of God. And we desire to unburden the consciences of men of needless and superstitious ceremonies, suppress innovations, and take away the monuments of idolatry.

185. And the better to effect the intended reformation, we desire there may be a general synod of the most grave, pious, learned and judicious divines of this island; assisted with some from foreign parts, professing the same religion with us, who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good government of the Church, and represent the results of their consultations unto the Parliament, to be there allowed of and confirmed, and receive the stamp of authority, thereby to find passage and obedience throughout the kingdom.

186. They have maliciously charged us that we intend to destroy and discourage learning, whereas it is our chiefest care and desire to advance it, and to provide a competent maintenance for conscionable and preaching ministers throughout the kingdom, which will be a great encouragement to scholars, and a certain means whereby the want, meanness and ignorance, to which a great part of the clergy is now subject, will be prevented.

187. And we intended likewise to reform and purge the fountains of learning, the two Universities, that the streams flowing from thence may be clear and pure, and an honour and comfort to the whole land.

188. They have strained to blast our proceedings in Parliament, by wresting the interpretations of our orders from their genuine intention.

189. They tell the people that our meddling with the power of episcopacy hath caused sectaries and conventicles, when idolatrous and Popish ceremonies, introduced into the Church by the command of the Bishops have not only debarred the people from thence, but expelled them from the kingdom.

190. Thus with Elijah, we are called by this malignant party the troublers of the State, and still, while we endeavour to reform their abuses, they make us the authors of those mischiefs we study to prevent.

191. For the perfecting of the work begun, and removing all future impediments, we conceive these courses will be very effectual, seeing the religion of the Papists hath such principles as do certainly tend to the destruction and extirpation of all Protestants, when they shall have opportunity to effect it.

192. It is necessary in the first place to keep them in such condition as that they may not be able to do us any hurt, and for avoiding of such connivance and favour as hath heretofore been shown unto them.

193. That His Majesty be pleased to grant a standing Commission to some choice men named in Parliament, who may take notice of their increase, their counsels and proceedings, and use all due means by execution of the laws to prevent all mischievous designs against the peace and safety of this kingdom.

194. Thus some good course be taken to discover the counterfeit and false conformity of Papists to the Church, by colour whereof persons very much disaffected to the true religion have been admitted into place of greatest authority and trust in the kingdom.

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195. For the better preservation of the laws and liberties of the kingdom, that all illegal grievances and exactions be presented and punished at the sessions and assizes.

196. And that Judges and Justices be very careful to give this in charge to the grand jury, and both the Sheriff and Justices to be sworn to the due execution of the Petition of Right and other laws.

197. That His Majesty be humbly petitioned by both Houses to employ such counsellors, ambassadors and other ministers, in managing his business at home and abroad as the Parliament may have cause to confide in, without which we cannot give His Majesty such supplies for support of his own estate, nor such assistance to the Protestant party beyond the sea, as is desired.

198. It may often fall out that the Commons may have just cause to take exceptions at some men for being councillors, and yet not charge those men with crimes, for there be grounds of diffidence which lie not in proof.

199. There are others, which though they may be proved, yet are not legally criminal.

200. To be a known favourer of Papists, or to have been very forward in defending or countenancing some great offenders questioned in Parliament; or to speak contemptuously of either Houses of Parliament or Parliamentary proceedings.

201. Or such as are factors or agents for any foreign prince of another religion; such are justly suspected to get councillors' places, or any other of trust concerning public employment for money; for all these and divers others we may have great reason to be earnest with His Majesty, not to put his great affairs into such hands, though we may be unwilling to proceed against them in any legal way of charge or impeachment.

202. That all Councillors of State may be sworn to observe those laws which concern the subject in his liberty, that they may likewise take an oath not to receive or give reward or pension from any foreign prince, but such as they shall within some reasonable time discover to the Lords of His Majesty's Council.

203. And although they should wickedly forswear themselves, yet it may herein do good to make them known to be false and perjured to those who employ them, and thereby bring them into as little credit with them as with us.

204. That His Majesty may have cause to be in love with good counsel and good men, by shewing him in an humble and dutiful manner how full of advantage it would be to himself, to see his own estate settled in a plentiful condition to support his honour; to see his people united in ways of duty to him, and endeavours of the public good; to see happiness, wealth, peace and safety derived to his own kingdom, and procured to his allies by the influence of his own power and government."

ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (JANUARY). The King's attempt against the Five Members.

On the 3d of January, "the king was betrayed into ... an indiscretion to which all the ensuing disorders and civil wars ought immediately and directly to be ascribed. This was the impeachment of Lord Kimbolton and the five members. ... Herbert, attorney-general, appeared in the House of Peers, and, in his majesty's name, entered an accusation of high treason against Lord Kimbolton and five commoners, Hollis, Sir Arthur Hazlerig, Hambden, Pym, and Strode. The articles were, That they had traitorously endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws and government of the kingdom, to deprive the king of his regal power, and to impose on his subjects an arbitrary and tyrannical authority; that they had endeavoured, by many foul aspersions on his majesty and his government, to alienate the affections of his people, and make him odious to them; that they had attempted to draw his late army to disobedience of his royal commands, and to side with them in their traitorous designs; that they had invited and encouraged a foreign power to invade the kingdom; that they had aimed at subverting the rights and very being of Parliament; that, in order to complete their traitorous designs, they had endeavoured, as far as in them lay, by force and terror, to compel the Parliament to join with them, and to that end had actually raised and countenanced tumults against the king and Parliament; and that they had traitorously conspired to levy, and actually had levied, war against the king. The whole world stood amazed at this important accusation, so suddenly entered upon, without concert, deliberation or reflection. ... But men had not leisure to wonder at the indiscretion of this measure: their astonishment was excited by new attempts, still more precipitate and imprudent. A sergeant at arms, in the king's name, demanded of the House the five members, and was sent back without any positive answer. Messengers were employed to search for them and arrest them. Their trunks, chambers, and studies, were sealed and locked. The House voted all these acts of violence to be breaches of privilege, and commanded everyone to defend the liberty of the members. The king, irritated by all this opposition, resolved next day to come in person to the House, with an intention to demand, perhaps seize, in their presence, the persons whom he had accused. This resolution was discovered to the Countess of Carlisle, sister to Northumberland, a lady of spirit, wit, and intrigue. She privately sent intelligence to the five members; and they had time to withdraw, a moment before the king entered. He was accompanied by his ordinary retinue, to the number of above two hundred, armed as usual, some with halberts, some with walking swords. The king left them at the door, and he himself advanced alone through the hall, while all the members rose to receive him. The speaker withdrew from his chair, and the king took possession of it. The speech which he made was as follows: 'Gentlemen, I am sorry for this occasion of coming to you. Yesterday, I sent a sergeant at arms, to demand some, who, by my order, were accused of high treason. Instead of obedience, I received a message. ... Therefore am I come to tell you, that I must have these men wheresoever I can find them. Well, since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect that you will send them to me as soon as they return. But I assure you, on the word of a king, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a fair and legal way, for I never meant any other.' ... When the king was looking around for the accused members, he asked the speaker, who stood below, whether any of these persons were in the House? The speaker, falling on his knee, prudently replied: 'I have, sir, neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am. {867} And I humbly ask pardon, that I cannot give any other answer to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.' The Commons were in the utmost disorder; and when the king was departing, some members cried aloud so as he might hear them, Privilege! Privilege! and the House immediately adjourned till next day. That evening, the accused members, to show the greater apprehension, removed into the city, which was their fortress. The citizens were the whole night in arms. ... When the House of Commons met, they affected the greatest dismay; and adjourning themselves for some days, ordered a committee to sit in Merchant-Tailors' hall in the city. ... The House again met, and after confirming the votes of their committee, instantly adjourned, as if exposed to the most imminent perils from the violence of their enemies. This practice they continued for some time. When the people, by these affected panics, were wrought up to a sufficient degree of rage and terror, it was thought proper, that the accused members should, with a triumphant and military procession, take their seats in the House. The river was covered with boats, and other vessels, laden with small pieces of ordnance, and prepared for fight. Skippon, whom the Parliament had appointed, by their own authority, major-general of the city militia, conducted the members, at the head of this tumultuary army, to Westminster-hall. And when the populace, by land and by water, passed Whitehall, they still asked, with insulting shouts, What has become of the king and his cavaliers? And whither are they fled? The king, apprehensive of danger from the enraged multitude, had retired to Hampton-court, deserted by all the world, and overwhelmed with grief, shame, and remorse for the fatal measures into which he had been hurried."

D. Hume, History of England, volume 5, chapter 55, pages 85-91.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution, chapter 6, section 5.

S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapter 103 (volume 10).

_J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Pym; Hampden._

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Cent., book 8, chapter 10 (volume 2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (JANUARY-AUGUST). Preparations for war. The marshalling of forces. The raising of the King's standard.

"January 10th. The King with his Court quits Whitehall; the Five Members and Parliament proposing to return tomorrow, with the whole City in arms round them. He left Whitehall; never saw it again till he came to lay down his head there.

March 9th. The King has sent away his Queen from Dover, 'to be in a place of safety,'--and also to pawn the Crown-jewels in Holland, and get him arms. He returns Northward again, avoiding London. Many messages between the Houses of Parliament and him: 'Will your Majesty grant us Power of the Militia; accept this list of Lord-Lieutenants?' On the 9th of March, still advancing Northward without affirmative response, he has got to Newmarket; where another Message overtakes him, earnestly urges itself upon him: 'Could not your Majesty please to grant us Power of the Militia for a limited time?' 'No, by God!' answers his Majesty, 'not for an hour.'

On the 19th of March he is at York; where his Hull Magazine, gathered for service against the Scots, is lying near; where a great Earl of Newcastle, and other Northern potentates, will help him; where at least London and its Puritanism, now grown so fierce, is far off. There we will leave him; attempting Hull Magazine, in vain; exchanging messages with his Parliament; messages, missives, printed and written Papers without limit: Law-pleadings of both parties before the great tribunal of the English Nation, each party striving to prove itself right and within the verge of Law: preserved still in acres of typography, once thrillingly alive in every fibre of them; now a mere torpor, readable by few creatures, not rememberable by any."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, preliminary.

"As early as June 2 a ship had arrived on the North English coast, bringing the King arms and ammunition from Holland, purchased by the sale of the crown-jewels which the Queen had taken abroad. On the 22d of the same month more than forty of the nobles and others in attendance on the King at York had put down their names for the numbers of armed horse they would furnish respectively for his service. Requisitions in the King's name were also out for supplies of money; and the two Universities, and the Colleges in each, were invited to send in their plate. On the other hand, the Parliament had not been more negligent. There had been contributions or promises from all the chief Parliamentarian nobles and others; there was a large loan from the city; and hundreds of thousands, on a smaller scale, were willing to subscribe. And already, through all the shires, the two opposed powers were grappling and jostling with each other in raising levies. On the King's side there were what were called Commissions of Array, or powers granted to certain nobles and others by name to raise troops for the King. On the side of Parliament, in addition to the Volunteering which had been going on in many places (as, for example, in Cambridgeshire, where Oliver Cromwell was forming a troop of Volunteer horse ... ), there was the Militia Ordinance available wherever the persons named in that ordinance were really zealous for Parliament, and able to act personally in the districts assigned them. And so on the 12th of July the Parliament had passed the necessary vote for supplying an army, and had appointed the Earl of Essex to be its commander-in-chief, and the Earl of Bedford to be its second in command as general of horse. It was known, on the other side, that the Earl of Lindsey, in consideration of his past experience of service both on sea and land, was to have the command of the King's army, and that his master of horse was to be the King's nephew, young Prince Rupert, who was expected from the Continent on purpose. Despite all these preparations, however, it was probably not till August had begun that the certainty of Civil War was universally acknowledged. It was on the 9th of that month that the King issued his proclamation 'for suppressing the present Rebellion under the command of Robert, Earl of Essex,' offering pardon to him and others if within six days they made their submission. The Parliamentary answer to this was on the 11th; on which day the Commons resolved, each man separately rising in his place and giving his word, that they would stand by the Earl of Essex with their lives and fortunes to the end. Still, even after that, there were trembling souls here and there who hoped for a reconciliation. {868} Monday the 22d of August put an end to all such fluttering: --On that day, the King, who had meanwhile left York, and come about a hundred miles farther south, into the very heart of England, ... made a backward movement as far as the town of Nottingham, where preparations had been made for the great scene that was to follow. ... This consisted in bringing out the royal standard and setting it up in due form. It was about six o'clock in the evening when it was done. ... A herald read a proclamation, declaring the cause why the standard had been set up, and summoning all the lieges to assist his Majesty. Those who were present cheered and threw up their hats, and, with a beating of drums and a sounding of trumpets, the ceremony ended. ... From that evening of the 22d of August, 1642, the Civil War had begun."

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: _John Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Pym; Hampden._

S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapters 104-105 (volume 10).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER). The nation choosing sides.

"In wealth, in numbers, and in cohesion the Parliament was stronger than the king. To him there had rallied most of the greater nobles, many of the lesser gentry, some proportion of the richer citizens, the townsmen of the west, and the rural population generally of the west and north of England. For the Parliament stood a strong section of the peers and greater gentry, the great bulk of the lesser gentry, the townsmen of the richer parts of England, the whole eastern and home counties, and lastly, the city of London. But as the Civil War did not sharply divide classes, so neither did it geographically bisect England. Roughly speaking, aristocracy and peasantry, the Church, universities, the world of culture, fashion, and pleasure were loyal: the gentry, the yeomanry, trade, commerce, morality, and law inclined to the Parliament. Broadly divided, the north and west went for the king; the south and east for the Houses; but the lines of demarcation were never exact: cities, castles, and manor-houses long held out in an enemy's county. There is only one permanent limitation. Draw a line from the Wash to the Solent. East of that line the country never yielded to the king; from first to last it never failed the Parliament. Within it are enclosed Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Bucks, Herts, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Sussex. This was the wealthiest, the most populous, and the most advanced portion of England. With Gloucester, Reading, Bristol, Leicester, and Northampton, it formed the natural home of Puritanism."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 4.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER). Edgehill--the opening battle of the war. The Eastern Association.

Immediately after the raising of his standard at Nottingham, the King, "aware at last that he could not rely on the inhabitants of Yorkshire, moved to Shrewsbury, at once to collect the Catholic gentry of Lancashire and Cheshire, to receive the Royalist levies of Wales, and to secure the valley of the Severn. The movement was successful. In a few days his little army was increased fourfold, and he felt himself strong enough to make a direct march towards the capital. Essex had garrisoned Northampton, Coventry and Warwick, and lay himself at Worcester; but the King, waiting for no sieges, left the garrisoned towns unmolested and passed on towards London, and Essex received peremptory orders to pursue and interpose if possible between the King and London. On the 22nd of October he was close upon the King's rear at Keynton, between Stratford and Banbury. But his army was by no means at its full strength; some regiments had been left to garrison the West, others, under Hampden had not yet joined him. But delay was impossible, and the first battle of the war was fought on the plain at the foot of the north-west slope of Edgehill, over which the royal army descended, turning back on its course to meet Essex. Both parties claimed the victory. In fact it was with the King. The Parliamentary cavalry found themselves wholly unable to withstand the charge of Rupert's cavaliers. Whole regiments turned and fled without striking a blow; but, as usual, want of discipline ruined the royal cause. Rupert's men fell to plundering the Parliamentary baggage, and returned to the field only in time to find that the infantry, under the personal leading of Essex, had reestablished the fight. Night closed the battle [which is sometimes named from Edgehill and sometimes from Keynton]. The King's army withdrew to the vantage-ground of the hills, and Essex, reinforced by Hampden, passed the night upon the field. But the Royalist army was neither beaten nor checked in its advance, while the rottenness of the Parliamentary troops had been disclosed." Some attempts at peace-making followed this doubtful first collision; but their only effect was to embitter the passions on both sides. The King advanced, threatening London, but the citizens of the capital turned out valiantly to oppose him, and he "fell back upon Oxford, which henceforward became the centre of their operations. ... War was again the only resource, and speedily became universal. ... There was local fighting over the whole of England. ... The headquarters of the King were constantly at Oxford, from which, as from a centre, Rupert would suddenly make rapid raids, now in one direction, now in another. Between him and London, about Reading, Aylesbury, and Thame, lay what may be spoken of as the main army of Parliament, under the command of Lord-General Essex. ... The other two chief scenes of the war were Yorkshire and the West. In Yorkshire the Fairfaxes, Ferdinando Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas, made what head they could against what was known as the Popish army under the command of the Earl, subsequently Marquis of Newcastle, which consisted mainly of the troops of the Northern counties, which had become associated under Newcastle in favour of Charles. Newark, in Nottinghamshire, was early made a royal garrison, and formed the link of connection between the operations in Yorkshire and at Oxford. In the extreme South-west, Lord Stamford, the Parliamentary General, was making a somewhat unsuccessful resistance against Sir Ralph, afterwards Lord Hopton. Wales was wholly Royalist, and one of the chief objects of Charles's generals was to secure the Severn valley, and thus connect the war in Devonshire with the central operations at Oxford. In the Eastern counties matters assumed rather a different form. The principle of forming several counties into an association ... was adopted by the Parliament, and several such associations were formed, but none of these came to much except that of the Eastern counties, which was known by way of preeminence as 'The Association.' Its object was to keep the war entirely beyond the borders of the counties of which it consisted. The reason of its success was the genius and energy of Cromwell."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, page 659.

{869}

"This winter there arise among certain Counties 'Associations' for mutual defence, against Royalism and plunderous Rupertism; a measure cherished by the Parliament, condemned as treasonable by the King. Of which 'Associations,' countable to the number of five or six, we name only one, that of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Herts; with Lord Gray of Wark for Commander; where and under whom Oliver was now serving. This 'Eastern Association' is alone worth naming. All the other Associations, no man of emphasis being in the midst of them, fell in a few months to pieces; only this of Cromwell subsisted, enlarged itself, grew famous;--and kept its own borders clear of invasion during the whole course of the War."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, preliminary.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapters 2-4 (volume l).

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, chapter 2 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (May). Cromwell's Ironsides.

"It was ... probably, a little before Edgehill, that there took place between Cromwell and Hampden the memorable conversation which fifteen years afterwards the Protector related in a speech to his second Parliament. It is a piece of autobiography so instructive and pathetic that it must be set forth in full in the words of Cromwell himself:

'I was a person who, from my first employment, was suddenly preferred and lifted up from lesser trusts to greater; from my first being Captain of a Troop of Horse. ... I had a very worthy friend then; and he was a very noble person, and I know his memory was very grateful to all,--Mr. John Hampden. At my first going out into this engagement, I saw our men were beaten at every hand. ... Your troops, said I, are most of them old decayed serving-men, and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; and, said I, their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons and persons of quality: do you think that the spirits of such base mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen, that have honour and courage and resolution in them? Truly I did represent to him in this manner conscientiously; and truly I did tell him: You must get men of a spirit: and take it not ill what I say,--I know you will not,--of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go: or else you will be beaten still. I told him so; I did truly. He was a wise and worthy person; and he did think that I talked a good notion, but an impracticable one. ... I raised such men as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did; and from that day forward, I must say to you, they were never beaten, and wherever they were engaged against the enemy they beat continually.' ... The issue of the whole war lay in that word. It lay with 'such men as had some conscience in what they did.' 'From that day forward they were never beaten.' ... As for Colonel Cromwell,' writes a news-letter of May, 1643, 'he hath 2,000 brave men, well disciplined; no man swears but he pays his twelve-pence; if he be drunk, he is set in the stocks, or worse; if one calls the other roundhead he is cashiered: insomuch that the countries where they come leap for joy of them, and come in and join with them. How happy were it if all the forces were thus disciplined!' These were the men who ultimately decided the war, and established the Commonwealth. On the field of Marston, Rupert gave Cromwell the name of Ironside, and from thence this famous name passed to his troopers. There are two features in their history which we need to note. They were indeed 'such men as had some conscience in their work'; but they were also much more. They were disciplined and trained soldiers. They were the only body of 'regulars' on either side. The instinctive genius of Cromwell from the very first created the strong nucleus of a regular army, which at last in discipline, in skill, in valour, reached the highest perfection ever attained by soldiers either in ancient or modern times. The fervour of Cromwell is continually pressing towards the extension of this 'regular' force. Through all the early disasters, this body of Ironsides kept the cause alive: at Marston it overwhelmed the king: as soon as, by the New Model, this system was extended to the whole army, the Civil War was at an end."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER). The King calls in the Irish.

"To balance the accession of power which the alliance with Scotland brought to the Parliament, Charles was so unwise, men then said so guilty, as to conclude a peace with the Irish rebels, with the intent that thus those of his forces which had been employed against them, might be set free to join his army in England. No act of the King, not the levying of ship-money, not the crowd of monopolies which enriched the court and impoverished the people, neither the extravagance of Buckingham, the tyranny of Strafford nor the prelacy of Laud, not even the attempted arrest of the five members, raised such a storm of indignation and hatred throughout the kingdom, as did this determination of the King to withdraw (as men said), for the purpose of subduing his subjects, the force which had been raised to avenge the blood of 100,000 Protestant martyrs. ... To the England of the time this act was nauseous, was exasperating to the highest degree, while to the cause of the King it was fatal; for, from this moment, the condition of the Parliamentary party began to mend."

N. L. Walford, Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War, chapter 2.

"None of the king's schemes proved so fatal to his cause as these. On their discovery, officer after officer in his own army flung down their commissions, the peers who had fled to Oxford fled back again to London, and the Royalist reaction in the Parliament itself came utterly to an end."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 7.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapter 11 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY). Meeting of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

At the beginning of July, 1643, "London was astir with a new event of great consequence in the course of the national revolution. This was the meeting of the famous Westminster Assembly. The necessity of an ecclesiastical Synod or Convocation, to cooperate with the Parliament, had been long felt. {870} Among the articles of the Grand Remonstrance of December 1641 had been one desiring a convention of 'a General Synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this island, assisted by some from foreign parts,' to consider of all things relating to the Church and report thereon to Parliament. It is clear from the wording of this article that it was contemplated that the Synod should contain representatives from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Indeed, by that time, the establishment of a uniformity of Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship between the Churches of England and Scotland was the fixed idea of those who chiefly desired a Synod. ... In April, 1642 ... it was ordered by the House, in pursuance of previous resolutions on the subject, 'that the names of such divines as shall be thought fit to be consulted with concerning the matter of the Church be brought in tomorrow morning,' the understood rule being that the knights and burgesses of each English county should name to the House two divines, and those of each Welsh county one divine, for approval. Accordingly, on the 20th, the names were given in. ... By the stress of the war the Assembly was postponed. At last, hopeless of a bill that should pass in the regular way by the King's consent, the Houses resorted, in this as in other things, to their peremptory plan of Ordinance by their own authority. On the 13th of May, 1643, an Ordinance for calling an Assembly was introduced in the Commons; which Ordinance, after due going and coming between the two Houses, came to maturity June 12, when it was entered at full length in the Lords' Journals. 'Whereas, amongst the infinite blessings of Almighty God upon this nation,'--so runs the preamble of the Ordinance,--'none is, or can be, more dear to us than the purity of our religion; and for as much as many things yet remain in the discipline, liturgy and government of the Church which necessarily require a more perfect reformation: and whereas it has been declared and resolved, by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, that the present Church Government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors, Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers depending on the hierarchy, is evil and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, and a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom, and that therefore they are resolved the same shall be taken away, and that such a government shall be settled in the Church as may be agreeable to God's Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformed Churches abroad. ... Be it therefore ordained, &c.' What is ordained is that 149 persons, enumerated by name in the Ordinance ... shall meet on the 1st of July next in King Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster; ... 'to confer and treat among themselves of such matters and things, concerning the liturgy, discipline and government of the Church of England ... as shall be proposed by either or both Houses of Parliament, and no other.' ... Notwithstanding a Royal Proclamation from Oxford, dated June 22, forbidding the Assembly and threatening consequences, the first meeting duly took place on the day appointed--Saturday, July 1, 1643; and from that day till the 22d of February, 1648-9, or for more than five years and a half, the Westminster Assembly is to be borne in mind as a power or institution in the English realm, existing side by side with the Long Parliament, and in constant conference and cooperation with it. The number of its sittings during these five years and a half was 1,163 in all; which is at the rate of about four sittings every week for the whole time. The earliest years of the Assembly were the most important."

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: A. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, lectures 4-5.

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 3, chapters 2 and 4.

SEE, also, INDEPENDENTS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY-SEPTEMBER). The Solemn League and Covenant with the Scottish nation.

"Scotland had been hitherto kept aloof from the English quarrel. ... Up to this time the pride and delicacy of the English patriots withheld them, for obvious reasons, from claiming her assistance. Had it been possible, they would still have desired to engage no distant party in this great domestic struggle; but when the present unexpected crisis arrived ... these considerations were laid aside, and the chief leaders of the Parliament resolved upon an embassy to the North, to bring the Scottish nation into the field. The conduct of this embassy was a matter of the highest difficulty and danger. The Scots were known to be bigoted to their own persuasions of narrow and exclusive church government, while the greatest men of the English Parliament had proclaimed the sacred maxim that every man who worshipped God according to the dictates of his conscience was entitled to the protection of the State. But these men, Vane, Cromwell, Marten and St. John, though the difficulties of the common cause had brought them into the acknowledged position of leaders and directors of affairs, were in a minority in the House of Commons, and the party who were their superiors in numbers were as bigoted to the most exclusive principles of Presbyterianism as the Scots themselves. Denzil Holies stood at the head of this inferior class of patriots. ... The most eminent of the Parliamentary nobility, particularly Northumberland, Essex and Manchester belonged also to this body; while the London clergy, and the metropolis itself, were almost entirely Presbyterian. These things considered, there was indeed great reason to apprehend that this party, backed by the Scots, and supported with a Scottish army, would be strong enough to overpower the advocates of free conscience, and 'set up a tyranny not less to be deplored than that of Laud and his hierarchy, which had proved one of the main occasions of bringing on the war.' Yet, opposing to all this danger only their own high purposes and dauntless courage, the smaller party of more consummate statesmen were the first to propose the embassy to Scotland. ... On the 20th of July, 1643, the commissioners set out from London. They were four; and the man principally confided in among them was Vane [Sir Henry, the younger]. He, indeed, was the individual best qualified to succeed Hampden as a counsellor in the arduous struggle in which the nation was at this time engaged. ... Immediately on his arrival in Edinburgh the negotiation commenced, and what Vane seems to have anticipated at once occurred. The Scots offered their assistance heartily on the sole condition of an adhesion to the Scottish religious system on the part of England. {871} After many long and very warm debates, in which Vane held to one firm policy from the first, a solemn covenant was proposed, which Vane insisted should be named a solemn league and covenant, while certain words were inserted in it on his subsequent motion, to which he also adhered with immovable constancy, and which had the effect of leaving open to the great party in England, to whose interests he was devoted, that last liberty of conscience which man should never surrender. ... The famous article respecting religion ran in these words;

'That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavour, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the Reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best Reformed churches; and we shall endeavour to bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confessing of faith, form of church government directory for worship and catechizing; that we and our posterity after us, may as brethren live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy (that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy).' Vane, by this introduction of 'according to the Word of God,' left the interpretation of that word to the free conscience of every man. On the 17th of August, the solemn league and covenant was voted by the Legislature and the Assembly of the Church at Edinburgh. The king in desperate alarm, sent his commands to the Scotch people not to take such a covenant. In reply, they 'humbly advised his majesty to take the covenant himself.' The surpassing service rendered by Vane on this great occasion to the Parliamentary cause, exposed him to a more violent hatred from the Royalists than he had yet experienced, and Clarendon has used every artifice to depreciate his motives and his sincerity. ... The solemn league and covenant remained to be adopted in England. The Scottish form of giving it authority was followed as far as possible. It was referred by the two Houses to the Assembly of Divines, which had commenced its sittings on the 1st of the preceding July, being called together to be consulted with by the Parliament for the purpose of settling the government and form of worship of the Church of England. This assembly already referred to, consisted of 121 of the clergy; and a number of lay assessors were joined with them, consisting of ten peers, and twenty members of the House of Commons. All these persons were named by the ordinance of the two Houses of Parliament which gave birth to the assembly. The public taking of the Covenant was solemnized on the 25th of September, each member of either House attesting his adherence by oath first, and then by subscribing his name. The name of Vane, subscribed immediately on his return, appears upon the list next to that of Cromwell."

_J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Vane._

ALSO IN: J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 8.

A. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, lectures 5-6.

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 3, chapter 2.

S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, page 187.

The following is the text of the Solemn League and Covenant:

"A solemn league and covenant for Reformation and defence of religion, the honour and happiness of the King, and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. We noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the Gospel, and commons of all sorts in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, by the providence of God living under one King, and being of one reformed religion; having before our eyes the glory of God, and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the honour and happiness of the King's Majesty and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety and peace of the kingdoms, wherein everyone's private condition is included; and calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts and practices of the enemies of God against the true religion and professors thereof in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power and presumption are of late, and at this time increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and kingdom of Ireland, the distressed estate of the Church and kingdom of England, and the dangerous estate of the Church and kingdom of Scotland, are present and public testimonies: we have (now at last) after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestations and sufferings, for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example of God's people in other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league and covenant, wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high God, do swear,

I. That we shall sincerely, really and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavour in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches; and we shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship and catechising, that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.

II. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, prelacy (that is, Church government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the Lord may be one, and His name one in the three kingdoms.

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III. We shall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms, that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesty's just power and greatness.

IV. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be incendiaries, malignants or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties amongst the people, contrary to the league and covenant, that they may be brought to public trial and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient.

V. And whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is by the good providence of God granted to us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments: we shall each one of us, according to our places and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent articles.

VI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common cause of religion, liberty and peace of the kingdom, assist and defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the glory of God, the good of the kingdoms, and the honour of the King; but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein, against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power, against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight of God. And because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against God, and His Son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof: we profess and declare, before God and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms; especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel; that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof; and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of Him in our lives, which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us, and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire and endeavour, for ourselves and all others under our power and charge, both in public and in private, in all duties we owe to God and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation, that the Lord may turn away His wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these Churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. And this covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God, the Searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that Great Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed: most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by His Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and Proceedings with such success as may be a deliverance and safety to His people, and encouragement to the Christian Churches groaning under or in danger of the yoke of Anti-Christian tyranny, to join in the same or like association and covenant, to the glory of God, the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the peace and tranquility of Christian kingdoms and commonwealths."

ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (August-September). Siege of Gloucester and first Battle of Newbury.

"When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads, adversity had begun to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept in alarm, sometimes by plots and sometimes by riots. It was thought necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizens at their own doors. Several of the most distinguished peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford; nor can it be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall. But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never returned. In August, 1643, he sate down before the city of Gloucester. That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their services might be required. A great force was speedily collected, and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised. The Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened; the spirit of the parliamentary party revived; and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1.

After accomplishing the relief of Gloucester, the Parliamentary army, marching back to London, was intercepted at Newbury by the army of the king, and forced to fight a battle, September 20, 1643, in which both parties, as at Edgehill, claimed the victory. The Royalists, however, failed to bar the road to London, as they had undertaken to do, and Essex resumed his march on the following morning.

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"In this unhappy battle was slain the lord viscount Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive sincerity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity."

Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 7, section 217.

This lamented death on the royal side nearly evened, so to speak, the great, unmeasured calamity which had befallen the better cause three months before, when the high-souled patriot Hampden was slain in a paltry skirmish with Rupert's horse, at Chalgrove Field, not far from the borders of Oxfordshire. Soon after the fight at Newbury, Charles, having occupied Reading, withdrew his army to Oxford and went into winter quarters.

N. L. Walford, Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars, part 2.

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapter 10 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (January). Battle of Nantwich and siege of Lathom House.

The Irish army brought over by King Charles and landed in Flintshire, in November, 1643, under the command of Lord Byron, invaded Cheshire and laid siege to Nantwich, which was the headquarters of the Parliamentary cause in that region. Young Sir Thomas Fairfax was ordered to collect forces and relieve the town. With great difficulty he succeeded, near the end of January, 1644, in leading 2,500 foot-soldiers and twenty-eight troops of horse, against the besieging army, which numbered 3,000 foot and 1,800 horse. On the 28th of January he attacked and routed the Irish royalists completely. "All the Royalist Colonels, including the subsequently notorious Monk, 1,500 soldiers, six pieces of ordnance, and quantities of arms, were captured." Having accomplished this most important service, Sir Thomas, "to his great annoyance," received orders to lay siege to Lathom House, one of the country seats of the Earl of Derby, which had been fortified and secretly garrisoned, with 300 soldiers. It was held by the high-spirited and dauntless Countess of Derby, in the absence of her husband, who was in the Isle of Man. Sir Thomas Fairfax soon escaped from this ignoble enterprise and left it to be carried on, first, by his cousin, Sir William Fairfax, and afterwards by Colonel Rigby. The Countess defended her house for three months, until the approach of Prince Rupert forced the raising of the siege in the following spring. Lathom House was not finally surrendered to the Roundheads until December 6, 1645, when it was demolished.

C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: Mrs. Thompson, Recollections of Literary Characters and Celebrated Places, volume 2, chapter 2.

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, page 2, chapter 4.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (January-July). The Scots in England. The Battle of Marston Moor.

"On the 19th of January, 1644, the Scottish army entered England. Lesley, now earl of Leven, commanded them. ... In the meantime, the parliament at Westminster formed a council under the title of 'The Committee of the Two Kingdoms,' consisting of seven Lords, fourteen members of the Commons, and four Scottish Commissioners. Whatever belongs to the executive power as distinguished from the legislative devolved upon this Committee. In the spring of 1644 the parliament had five armies in the field, paid by general or local taxation, and by voluntary contributions. Including the Scottish army there were altogether 56,000 men under arms; the English forces being commanded, as separate armies, by Essex, Waller, Manchester, and Fairfax. Essex and Waller advanced to blockade Oxford. The queen went to Exeter in April, and never saw Charles again. The blockading forces around Oxford had become so strong that resistance appeared to be hopeless. On the night of the 3d of June the king secretly left the city and passed safely between the two hostile armies. There had again been jealousies and disagreements between Essex and Waller. Essex, supported by the council of war, but in opposition to the committee of the two kingdoms, had marched to the west. Waller, meanwhile, went in pursuit of the king into Worcestershire, Charles suddenly returned to Oxford; and then at Copredy Bridge, near Banbury, defeated Waller, who had hastened back to encounter him. Essex was before the walls of Exeter, in which city the queen had given birth to a princess. The king hastened to the west. He was strong enough to meet either of the parliamentary armies thus separated. Meanwhile the combined English and Scottish armies were besieging York. Rupert had just accomplished the relief of Lathom House, which had been defended by the heroic countess of Derby for eighteen weeks, against a detachment of the army of Fairfax. He then marched towards York with 20,000 men. The allied English and Scots retired from Hessey Moor, near York, to Tadcaster. Rupert entered York with 2,000 cavalry. The Earl of Newcastle was in command there. He counselled a prudent delay. The impetuous Rupert said he had the orders of the king for his guidance, and he was resolved to fight. On the 2nd of July, having rested two days in and near York, and enabled the city to be newly provisioned, the royalist army went forth to engage. They met their enemy on Marston Moor. The issue of the encounter would have been more than doubtful, but for Cromwell, who for the first time had headed his Ironsides in a great pitched battle. The right wing of the parliamentary army was scattered. Rupert was chasing and slaying the Scottish cavalry. ... The charges of Fairfax and Cromwell decided the day. The victory of the parliamentary forces was so complete that the Earl of Newcastle left York, and embarked at Scarborough for the continent. Rupert marched away also, with the wreck of his army, to Chester. Fifteen hundred prisoners, all the artillery, more than 100 banners, remained with the victors; 4,150 bodies lay dead on the plain."

C. Knight, Crown History of England, chapter 25.

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, letter 8.

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 7.

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, chapter 12, (volume 1).

_E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 2, chapter 4._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (August-September). Essex's surrender. The second Battle of Newbury.

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"The great success at Marston, which had given the north to the Parliament, was all undone in the south and west through feebleness and jealousies in the leaders and the wretched policy that directed the war. Detached armies, consisting of a local militia, were aimlessly ordered about by a committee of civilians in London. Disaster followed on disaster. Essex, Waller, and Manchester would neither agree amongst themselves nor obey orders. Essex and Waller had parted before Marston was fought; Manchester had returned from York to protect his own eastern counties. Waller, after his defeat at Copredy, did nothing, and naturally found his army melting away. Essex, perversely advancing into the west, was out-manœuvred by Charles, and ended a campaign of blunders by the surrender of all his infantry [at Fowey, in Cornwall, September 2, 1644]. By September 1644 throughout the whole south-west the Parliament had not an army in the field. But the Committee of the Houses still toiled on with honourable spirit, and at last brought together near Newbury a united army nearly double the strength of the King's. On Sunday, the 29th of October, was fought the second battle of Newbury, as usual in these ill-ordered campaigns, late in the afternoon. An arduous day ended without victory, in spite of the greater numbers of the Parliament's army, though the men fought well, and their officers led them with skill and energy. At night the King was suffered to withdraw his army without loss, and later to carry off his guns and train. The urgent appeals of Cromwell and his officers could not infuse into Manchester energy to win the day, or spirit to pursue the retreating foe."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapters 7.

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapters 19 and 21.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644-1645. The Self-denying Ordinance.

"Cromwell had shown his capacity for organization in the creation of the Ironsides; his military genius had displayed itself at Marston Moor. Newbury first raised him into a political leader. 'Without a more speedy, vigorous and effective prosecution of the war,' he said to the Commons after his quarrel with Manchester, 'casting off all lingering proceedings, like those of soldiers of fortune beyond sea to spin out a war, we shall make the kingdom weary of us, and hate the name of a Parliament.' But under the leaders who at present conducted it a vigorous conduct of the war was hopeless. They were, in Cromwell's plain words, 'afraid to conquer.' They desired not to crush Charles, but to force him back, with as much of his old strength remaining as might be, to the position of a constitutional King. ... The army, too, as he long ago urged at Edgehill, was not an army to conquer with. Now, as then, he urged that till the whole force was new modeled, and placed under a stricter discipline, 'they must not expect any notable success in anything they went about.' But the first step in such a reorganization must be a change of officers. The army was led and officered by members of the two Houses, and the Self-renouncing [or Self-denying] Ordinance, which was introduced by Cromwell and Vane, declared the tenure of civil or military offices incompatible with a seat in either. In spite of a long and bitter resistance, which was justified at a later time by the political results which followed this rupture of the tie which had hitherto bound the army to the Parliament, the drift of public opinion was too strong to be withstood. The passage of the Ordinance brought about the retirement of Essex, Manchester, and Waller; and the new organization of the army went rapidly on under a new commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, the hero of the long contest in Yorkshire, and who had been raised into fame by his victory at Nantwich and his bravery at Marston Moor."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 7.

ALSO IN: W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, chapter 15 (volume l).

J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 11.

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 10.

_J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Vane._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (January-February). The attempted Treaty of Uxbridge.

A futile negotiation between the king and Parliament was opened at Uxbridge in January, 1645. "But neither the king nor his advisers entered on it with minds sincerely bent on peace; they, on the one hand, resolute not to swerve from the utmost rigour of a conqueror's terms, without having conquered; and he though more secretly, cherishing illusive hopes of a more triumphant restoration to power than any treaty could be expected to effect. The three leading topics of discussion among the negotiators at Uxbridge were, the church, the militia, and the state of Ireland. Bound by their unhappy covenant, and watched by their Scots colleagues, the English commissioners on the parliament's side demanded the complete establishment of a presbyterian polity, and the substitution of what was called the directory for the Anglican liturgy. Upon this head there was little prospect of a union."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10, part 1.

ALSO IN: Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 8, sections 209-252 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (January-April). The New Model of the army.

The passage of the Self-denying Ordinance was followed, or accompanied, by the adoption of the scheme for the so-called New Model of the army. "The New Model was organised as follows: 10 Regiments of Cavalry of 600 men, 6,000; 10 Companies of Dragoons of 100 men, 1,000; 10 Regiments of Infantry of 1,400 men, 14,000: Total, 21,000 men.

All officers were to be nominated by Sir Thomas Fairfax, the new General, and (as was insisted upon by the Lords, with the object of excluding the more fanatical Independents) every officer was to sign the covenant within twenty days of his appointment. The cost of this force was estimated at £539,460 per annum, about £1,600,000 of our money. ... Sir Thomas Fairfax having been appointed Commander-in-Chief by a vote of both Houses on the 1st of April [A. D. 1645], Essex, Manchester and others of the Lords resigned their commissions on the 2nd. ... The name of Cromwell was of course, with those of other members of the Commons, omitted from the original list of the New Model army; but with a significance which could not have escaped remark, the appointment of lieutenant-general was left vacant, while none doubted by whom that vacancy would be filled."

N. L. Walford, The Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars, part. 2: Fairfax.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE). The Battle of Naseby.

"Early in April, Fairfax with his new army advanced westward to raise the siege of Taunton, which city Goring was besieging. Before that task was completed he received orders to enter on the siege of Oxford. This did not suit his own views or those of the Independents. They had joined their new army upon the implied condition that decisive battles should be fought. It was therefore with great joy that Fairfax received orders to proceed in pursuit of the royal forces, which, having left Worcester, were marching apparently against the Eastern Association, and had just taken Leicester on their way. Before entering on this active service, Fairfax demanded and obtained leave for Cromwell to serve at least for one battle more in the capacity of Lieutenant-General. He came up with the king in the neighbourhood of Harborough. Charles turned back to meet him, and just by the village of Naseby the great battle known by that name was fought. Cromwell had joined the army, amid the rejoicing shouts of the troops, two days before, with the Association horse. Again the victory seems to have been chiefly due to his skill. In detail it is almost a repetition of the battle of Marston Moor."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, page 675.

"The old Hamlet of Naseby stands yet, on its old hill-top, very much as it did in Saxon days, on the Northwestern border of Northamptonshire; nearly on a line, and nearly midway, between that Town and Daventry. A peaceable old Hamlet, of perhaps five hundred souls; clay cottages for laborers, but neatly thatched and swept; smith's shop, saddler's shop, beer-shop all in order; forming a kind of square, which leads off, North and South, into two long streets; the old Church with its graves, stands in the centre, the truncated spire finishing itself with a strange old Ball, held up by rods; a 'hollow copper Ball, which came from Boulogne in Henry the Eighth's time,'--which has, like Hudibras's breeches, 'been at the Siege of Bullen.' The ground is upland, moorland, though now growing corn; was not enclosed till the last generation, and is still somewhat bare of wood. It stands nearly in the heart of England; gentle Dullness, taking a turn at etymology, sometimes derives it from 'Navel'; 'Navesby, quasi Navelsby, from being, &c.' ... It was on this high moor-ground, in the centre of England, that King Charles, on the 14th of June, 1645, fought his last Battle; dashed fiercely against the New-Model Army which he had despised till then: and saw himself shivered utterly to ruin thereby. 'Prince Rupert, on the King's right wing, charged up the hill, and carried all before him'; but Lieutenant-General Cromwell charged down hill on the other wing, likewise carrying all before him,--and did not gallop off the field to plunder, he. Cromwell, ordered thither by the Parliament, had arrived from the Association two days before, 'amid shouts from the whole Army': he had the ordering of the Horse this morning. Prince Rupert, on returning from his plunder, finds the King's Infantry a ruin; prepares to charge again with the rallied Cavalry; but the Cavalry too, when it came to the point, 'broke all asunder,'--never to reassemble more. ... There were taken here a good few 'ladies of quality in carriages';--and above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality, tattery camp-followers 'with long skean-knives about a foot in length,' which they well knew how to use; upon whom I fear the Ordinance against Papists pressed hard this day. The King's Carriage was also taken, with a Cabinet and many Royal Autographs in it, which when printed made a sad impression against his Majesty,--gave in fact a most melancholy view of the veracity of his Majesty, 'On the word of a King.' All was lost!"

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, letter 29.

ALSO IN: Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 9, sections 30-42 (volume 4).

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 3, chapter 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER). Glamorgan's Commissions, and other perfidies of the King disclosed.

"At the battle of Naseby, copies of some letters to the queen, chiefly written about the time of the treaty of Uxbridge, and strangely preserved, fell into the hands of the enemy and were instantly published. No other losses of that fatal day were more injurious to [the king's] cause. ... He gave her [the queen] power to treat with the English catholics, promising to take away all penal laws against them as soon as God should enable him to do so, in consideration of such powerful assistance as might deserve so great a favour, and enable him to affect it. ... Suspicions were much aggravated by a second discovery that took place soon afterwards, of a secret treaty between the earl of Glamorgan and the confederate Irish catholics, not merely promising the repeal of the penal laws, but the establishment of their religion in far the greater part of Ireland. The marquis of Ormond, as well as lord Digby, who happened to be at Dublin, loudly exclaimed against Glamorgan's presumption in concluding such a treaty, and committed him to prison on a charge of treason. He produced two commissions from the king, secretly granted without any seal or the knowledge of any minister, containing the fullest powers to treat with the Irish, and promising to fulfil any conditions into which he should enter. The king, informed of this, disavowed Glamorgan. ... Glamorgan, however, was soon released, and lost no portion of the king's or his family's favour. This transaction has been the subject of much historical controversy. The enemies of Charles, both in his own and later ages, have considered it as a proof of his indifference, at least, to the protestant religion, and of his readiness to accept the assistance of Irish rebels on any conditions. His advocates for a long time denied the authenticity of Glamorgan's commissions. But Dr. Birch demonstrated that they were genuine; and, if his dissertation could have left any doubt, later evidence might be adduced in confirmation."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapters 39 and 44 (volume 2).

T. Carte, Life of James, Duke of Ormond, book 4 (volume 3).

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 10, chapter 3.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-AUGUST). The Clubmen.

"When Fairfax and Cromwell marched into the west [after Naseby fight], they found that in these counties the country-people had begun to assemble in bodies, sometimes 5,000 strong, to resist their oppressors, whether they fought in the name of King or Parliament. They were called clubmen from their arms, and carried banners, with the motto--'If you offer to plunder our cattle, Be assured we will give you battle.' The clubmen, however, could not hope to control the movements of the disciplined troops who now appeared against them. After a few fruitless attempts at resistance they dispersed."

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 8.

"The inexpugnable Sir Lewis Dives (a thrasonical person known to the readers of Evelyn), after due battering, was now soon stormed; whereupon, by Letters found on him it became apparent how deeply Royalist this scheme of Clubmen had been: 'Commissions for raising Regiments of Clubmen'; the design to be extended over England at large, 'yea into the Associated Counties': however, it has now come to nothing."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, letter 14.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-SEPTEMBER). The storming of Bridgewater and Bristol.

"The continuance of the civil war for a whole year after the decisive battle of Naseby is a proof of the King's selfishness, and of his utter indifference to the sufferings of the people. All rational hope was gone, and even Rupert advised his uncle to make terms with the Parliament. Yet Charles, while incessantly vacillating as to his plans, persisted in retaining his garrisons, and required his adherents to sacrifice all they possessed in order to prolong a useless struggle for a few months. Bristol, therefore, was to stand a siege, and Charles expected the garrison to hold out, without an object, to the last extremity, entailing misery and ruin on the second commercial city in the kingdom. Rupert was sent to take the command there, and when the army of Sir Thomas Fairfax approached, towards the end of August, he had completed his preparations." Fairfax had marched promptly and rapidly westward, after the battle of Naseby. He had driven Goring from the siege of Taunton, had defeated him in a sharp battle at Langport, taking 1,400 prisoners, and had carried Bridgewater by storm, July 21, capturing 2,000 prisoners, with 36 pieces of artillery and 5,000 stand of arms. On the 21st of August he arrived before Bristol, which Prince Rupert had strongly fortified, and which he held with an effective garrison of 2,300 men. On the morning of the 10th of September it was entered by storm, and on the following day Rupert, who still occupied the most defensible forts, surrendered the whole place. This surrender so enraged the King that he deprived his nephew of all his commissions and sent him a pass to quit the kingdom. But Rupert understood, as the King would not, that fighting was useless--that the royal cause was lost.

C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 21-22.

ALSO IN. Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 9.

W. Hunt, Bristol, chapter 7.

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 3, chapter 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (SEPTEMBER). Defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1646 (MARCH). Adoption of Presbyterianism by Parliament.

"For the last three years the Assembly of Divines had been sitting almost daily in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. ... They were preparing a new Prayer-book, a form of Church Government, a Confession of Faith, and a Catechism; but the real questions at issue were the establishment of the Presbyterian Church and the toleration of sectarians. The Presbyterians, as we know, desired to establish their own form of Church government by assemblies and synods, without any toleration for non-conformists, whether Catholics, Episcopalians, or sectarians. But though they formed a large majority in the assembly, there was a well-organized opposition of Independents and Erastians, whose union made it no easy matter for the Presbyterians to carry every vote their own way. ... After the Assembly had sat a year and a half, the Parliament passed an ordinance for putting a directory, prepared by the divines, into force, and taking away the Common Prayer-book (3rd January, 1645). The sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the wearing of vestments, the keeping of saints' days, were discontinued. The communion table was ordered to be set in the body of the church, about which the people were to stand or sit; the passages of Scripture to be read were left to the minister's choice; no forms of prayer were prescribed. The same year a new directory for ordination of ministers was passed into an ordinance. The Presbyterian assemblies, called presbyteries, were empowered to ordain, and none were allowed to enter the ministry without first taking the covenant (8th November, 1645). This was followed by a third ordinance for establishing the Presbyterian system of Church government in England by way of trial for three years. As originally introduced into the House, this ordinance met with great opposition, because it gave power to ministers of refusing the sacrament and turning men out of the Church for scandalous offences. Now, in what, argued the Erastians, did scandalous offences consist? ... A modified ordinance accordingly was passed; scandalous offences, for which ministers might refuse the sacrament and excommunicate, were specified; assemblies were declared subject to Parliament, and leave was granted to those who thought themselves unjustly sentenced, to appeal right up from one Church assembly after another to the civil power--the Parliament (16th March, 1646). Presbyterians, both in England and Scotland, felt deeply mortified. After all these years' contending, then, just when they thought they were entering on the fruits of their labours, to see the Church still left under the power of the State--the disappointment was intense to a degree we cannot estimate. They looked on the Independents as the enemies of God; this 'lame Erastian Presbytery' as hardly worth the having. ... The Assembly of Divines practically came to an end in 1649, when it was changed into a committee for examining candidates for the Presbyterian ministry. It finally broke up without any formal dismissal on the dispersion of the Rump Parliament in March, 1653."

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War. chapter 40 (volume 2).

A. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, lectures 7, 9, 13.

Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly.

See, also, INDEPENDENTS.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1646-1647. The King in the hands of the Scots. His duplicity and his intrigues. The Scots surrender him.

"On the morning of May 6th authentic news came that the King had ridden into the Scottish army, and had entrusted to his northern subjects the guardianship of his royal person. Thereupon the English Parliament at once asserted their right to dispose of their King so long as he was on English soil; and for the present ordered that he be sent to Warwick Castle, an order, however, which had no effect. Newark, impregnable even to Ironsides, was surrendered at last by royal order; and the Scots retreated northwards to Newcastle, carrying their sovereign with them. ... Meantime the City Presbyterians were petitioning the House to quicken the establishment of the godly and thorough reformation so long promised; and they were supported by letters from the Scottish Parliament, which, in the month of February, 1646, almost peremptorily required that the Solemn League and Covenant should be carried out in the Scottish sense of it. ... The question as to the disposal of the King's person became accidentally involved in the issues between Presbyterianism and the sects. For if the King had been a man to be trusted, and if he had frankly accepted the army programme of free religion, a free Parliament, and responsible advisers, there is little doubt that he might have kept his crown and his Anglican ritual--at least for his own worship--and might yet have concluded his reign prosperously as the first constitutional King of England. Instead of this, he angered the army by making their most sacred purposes mere cards in a game, to be played or held as he thought most to his own advantage in dealing with the Presbyterian Parliament. On July 11th, 1646, Commissioners from both Houses were appointed to lay certain propositions for peace before the King at Newcastle. These of course involved everything for which the Parliament had contended, and in a form developed and exaggerated by the altered position of affairs. All armed forces were to be absolutely under the control of Parliament for a period of 20 years. Speaking generally, all public acts done by Parliament, or by its authority, were to be confirmed; and all public acts done by the King or his Oxford anti-Parliament, without due authorisation from Westminster, were to be void. ... On August 10th the Commissioners who had been sent to the King returned to Westminster. ... The King had given no distinct answer. It was a suspicious circumstance that the Duke of Hamilton had gone into Scotland, especially as Cromwell learned that, in spite of an ostensible order from the King, Montrose's force had not been disbanded. The labyrinthine web of royal intrigue in Ireland was beginning to be discovered. ... The death of the Earl of Essex on September 14th increased the growing danger of a fatal schism in the victorious party. The Presbyterians had hoped to restore him to the head of the army, and so sheathe or blunt the terrible weapon they had forged and could not wield. They were now left without a man to rival in military authority the commanders whose exploits overwhelmed their employers with a too complete success. Not only were the political and religious opinions of the soldiers a cause of anxiety, but the burden of their sustenance and pay was pressing heavily on the country. ... No wonder that the City of London, always sensitive as to public security, began to urge upon the Parliament the necessity for diminishing or disbanding the army in England. ... The Parliament, however, could not deal with the army, for two reasons; First, the negotiations with the Scotch lingered; and next, they could not pay the men. The first difficulty was overcome, at least for the time, by the middle of January, 1647, when a train of wagons carried £200,000 to Newcastle in discharge of the English debt to the Scottish army. But the successful accomplishment of this only increased the remaining difficulty of the Parliament--that of paying their own soldiers. We need not notice the charge made against the Scotch of selling their King further than to say, that it is unfairly based upon only one subordinate feature of a very complicated negotiation. If the King would have taken the Covenant, and guaranteed to them their precious Presbyterian system, his Scottish subjects would have fought for him almost to the last man. The firmness of Charles in declining the Covenant for himself is, no doubt, the most creditable point in his resistance. But his obstinacy in disputing the right of two nations, in their political establishment of religion, to override his convictions by their own, illustrates his entire incapacity to comprehend the new light dawning on the relations of sovereign and people. The Scots did their best for him. They petitioned him, they knelt to him, they preached to him. ... But to have carried with them an intractable man to form a wedge of division amongst themselves, at the same time that he brought against them the whole power of England, would have been sheer insanity. Accordingly, they made the best bargain they could both for him and themselves; and, taking their wages, they left him with his English subjects, who conducted him to Holdenby House, in Northamptonshire, on the 6th of February, 1647."

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, The First two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution, chapter 7, section 4.

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapter 3845 (volume 2).

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 1, chapters 24-27, and book 2, chapter 1-6 (volume 2).

Earl of Clarendon, History of chapter Rebellion, book 9, section 161-178, and book 10 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST). The Army takes things in hand.

The King was surrendered to Parliament, and all now looking toward peace, the Presbyterians were uppermost, discredit falling upon the Army and its favorers. Many of the Recruiters [i. e., the new members, elected to fill vacancies in the Parliament], who at first had acted with the Independents, inclined now to their opponents. The Presbyterians, feeling that none would dare to question the authority of Parliament, pushed energetically their policy as regards the Army, of sending to Ireland, disbanding, neglecting the payment of arrears, and displacing the old officers. But suddenly there came for them a rude awakening. On April 30, 1647, Skippon, whom all liked, whom the Presbyterians indeed claimed, but who at the same time kept on good terms with the Army and Independents, rose in his place in St. Stephens and produced a letter, brought to him the day before by three private soldiers, in which eight regiments of horse expressly refused to serve in Ireland, declaring that it was a perfidious design to separate the soldiers from the officers whom they loved,--framed by men who, having tasted of power, were degenerating into tyrants. Holles and the Presbyterians were thunder-struck, and laying aside all other business summoned the three soldiers to appear at once. ... {878} A violent tumult arose in the House. The Presbyterians declared that the three sturdy Ironsides standing there, with their buff stained from their corselets, ought to be at once committed; to which it was answered, that if there were to be commitment, it should be to the best London tavern, and sack and sugar provided. Cromwell, leaning over toward Ludlow, who sat next to him, and pointing to the Presbyterians, said that those fellows would never leave till the Army pulled them out by the ears. That day it became known that there existed an organization, a sort of Parliament, in the Army, the officers forming an upper council and the representatives of the rank and file a lower council. Two such representatives stood in the lower council for each squadron or troop, known as 'Adjutators,' aiders, or 'Agitators.' This organization had taken upon itself to see that the Army had its rights. ... At the end of a month, there was still greater occasion for astonishment. Seven hundred horse suddenly left the camp, and appearing without warning, June 2, at Holmby House, where Charles was kept, in charge of Parliamentary commissioners, proposed to assume the custody of the King. A cool, quiet fellow, of rank no higher than that of cornet, led them and was their spokesman, Joyce. 'What is your authority?' asked the King. The cornet simply pointed to the mass of troopers at his back. ... So bold a step as the seizure of the King made necessary other bold steps on the part of the Army. Scarcely a fortnight had passed, when a demand was made for the exclusion from Parliament of eleven Presbyterians, the men most conspicuous for extreme views. The Army meanwhile hovered, ever ominously, close at hand, to the north and east of the city, paying slight regard to the Parliamentary prohibition to remain at a distance. The eleven members withdrew. ... But if Parliament was willing to yield, Presbyterian London and the country round about were not, and in July broke out into sheer rebellion. ... The Speakers of the Lords and Commons, at the head of the strength of the Parliament, fourteen Peers and one hundred Commoners, betook themselves to Fairfax, and on August 2 they threw themselves into the protection of the Army at Hounslow Heath, ten miles distant. A grand review took place. The consummate soldier, Fairfax, had his troops in perfect condition, and they were drawn out 20,000 strong to receive the seceding Parliament. The soldiers rent the air with shouts in their behalf, and all was made ready for a most impressive demonstration. On the 6th of August, Fairfax marched his troops in full array through the city, from Hammersmith to Westminster. Each man had in his hat a wreath of laurel. The Lords and Commons who had taken flight were escorted in the midst of the column; the city officials joined the train. At Westminster the Speakers were ceremoniously reinstalled, and the Houses again put to work, the first business being to thank the General and the veterans who had reconstituted them. The next day, with Skippon in the centre and Cromwell in the rear, the Army marched through the city itself, a heavy tramp of battle-seasoned platoons, at the mere sound of which the war-like ardor of the turbulent youths of the work-shops and the rough watermen was completely squelched. Yet the soldiers looked neither to the right nor left; nor by act, word, or gesture was any offence given."

J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 24.

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 3, letter 26.

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 2, chapter 7-11.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (AUGUST-DECEMBER). The King's "Game" with Cromwell and the army, and the ending of it.

After reinstating the Parliament at Westminster, "the army leaders resumed negotiations with the King. The indignation of the soldiers at his delays and intrigues made the task hourly more difficult; but Cromwell ... clung to the hope of accommodation with a passionate tenacity. His mind, conservative by tradition, and above all practical in temper, saw the political difficulties which would follow on the abolition of Royalty, and in spite of the King's evasions, he persisted in negotiating with him. But Cromwell stood almost alone; the Parliament refused to accept Ireton's proposals as a basis of peace, Charles still evaded, and the army then grew restless and suspicious. There were cries for a wide reform, for the abolition of the House of Peers, for a new House of Commons, and the Adjutators called on the Council of Officers to discuss the question of abolishing Royalty itself. Cromwell was never braver than when he faced the gathering storm, forbade the discussion, adjourned the Council, and sent the officers to their regiments. But the strain was too great to last long, and Charles was still resolute to 'play his game.' He was, in fact, so far from being in earnest in his negotiations with Cromwell and Ireton, that at the moment they were risking their lives for him he was conducting another and equally delusive negotiation with the Parliament. ... In the midst of his hopes of an accommodation, Cromwell found with astonishment that he had been duped throughout, and that the King had fled [November 11, 1647]. ... Even Cromwell was powerless to break the spirit which now pervaded the soldiers, and the King's perfidy left him without resource. 'The King is a man of great parts and great understanding,' he said at last, 'but so great a dissembler and so false a man that he is not to be trusted.' By a strange error, Charles had made his way from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight, perhaps with some hope from the sympathy of Colonel Hammond, the Governor of Carisbrooke Castle, and again found himself a prisoner. Foiled in his effort to put himself at the head of the new civil war, he set himself to organize it from his prison; and while again opening delusive negotiations with the Parliament, he signed a secret treaty with the Scots for the invasion of the realm. The rise of Independency, and the practical suspension of the Covenant, had produced a violent reaction in his favour north of the Tweed. ... In England the whole of the conservative party, with many of the most conspicuous members of the Long Parliament at its head, was drifting, in its horror of the religious and political changes which seemed impending, toward the King; and the news from Scotland gave the signal for fitful insurrections in almost every quarter."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 8.

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, History of the English Revolution of 1640, books 7-8.

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 10, chapter 4.

_W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth._

_G. Hillier, Narrative of attempted Escapes of Charles I. from Carisbrooke Castle, &c._

{879}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (April-August). The Second Civil War. Defeat of the Scots at Preston.

"The Second Civil War broke out in April, and proved to be a short but formidable affair. The whole of Wales was speedily in insurrection; a strong force of cavaliers were mustering in the north of England; in Essex, Surrey, and the southern counties various outbreaks arose; Berwick, Carlisle, Chester, Pembroke, Colchester, were held for the king; the fleet revolted; and 40,000 men were ordered by the Parliament of Scotland to invade England. Lambert was sent to the north; Fairfax to take Colchester; and Cromwell into Wales, and thence to join Lambert and meet the Scotch. On the 24th of May Cromwell reached Pembroke, but being short of guns, he did not take it till 11th July. The rising in Wales crushed, Cromwell turned northwards, where the northwest was already in revolt, and 20,000 Scots, under the Duke of Hamilton, were advancing into the country. Want of supplies and shoes, and sickness, detained him with his army, some 7,000 strong, 'so extremely harassed with hard service and long marches, that they seemed rather fit for a hospital than a battle.' Having joined Lambert in Yorkshire he fought the battle of Preston on 17th of August. The battle of Preston was one of the most decisive and important victories ever gained by Cromwell, over the most numerous enemy he ever encountered, and the first in which he was in supreme command. ... Early on the morning of the 17th August, Cromwell, with some 9,000 men, fell upon the army of the Duke of Hamilton unawares, as it proceeded southwards in a long, straggling, unprotected line. The invaders consisted of 17,000 Scots and 7,000 good men from northern counties. The long ill-ordered line was cut In half and rolled back northward and southward, before they even knew that Cromwell was upon them. The great host, cut into sections, fought with desperation from town to town. But for three days it was one long chase and carnage, which ended only with the exhaustion of the victors and their horses. Ten thousand prisoners were taken. 'We have killed we know not what,' writes Cromwell, 'but a very great number; having done execution upon them above thirty miles together, besides what we killed in the two great fights.' His own loss was small, and but one superior officer. ... The Scottish invaders dispersed, Cromwell hastened to recover Berwick and Carlisle, and to restore the Presbyterian or Whig party in Scotland."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 74 (volume 7).

Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 11 (volume 4).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER). The Treaty at Newport.

"The unfortunate issue of the Scots expedition under the duke of Hamilton, and of the various insurrections throughout England, quelled by the vigilance and good conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell, is well known. But these formidable manifestations of the public sentiment in favour of peace with the king on honourable conditions, wherein the city of London, ruled by the presbyterian ministers, took a share, compelled the house of commons to retract its measures. They came to a vote, by 165 to 90, that they would not alter the fundamental government by king, lords, and commons; they abandoned their impeachment against seven peers, the most moderate of the upper house and the most obnoxious to the army: they restored the eleven members to their seats; they revoked their resolutions against a personal treaty with the king, and even that which required his assent by certain preliminary articles. In a word the party for distinction's sake called presbyterian, but now rather to be denominated constitutional, regained its ascendancy. This change in the counsels of parliament brought on the treaty of Newport. The treaty of Newport was set on foot and managed by those politicians of the house of lords, who, having long suspected no danger to themselves but from the power of the king, had discovered, somewhat of the latest, that the crown itself was at stake, and that their own privileges were set on the same cast. Nothing was more remote from the intentions of the earl of Northumberland, or lord Say, than to see themselves pushed from their seats by such upstarts as Ireton and Harrison; and their present mortification afforded a proof how men reckoned wise in their generation become the dupes of their own selfish, crafty, and pusillanimous policy. They now grew anxious to see a treaty concluded with the king. Sensible that it was necessary to anticipate, if possible, the return of Cromwell from the north, they implored him to comply at once with all the propositions of parliament, or at least to yield in the first instance as far as he meant to go. They had not, however, mitigated in any degree the rigorous conditions so often proposed; nor did the king during this treaty obtain any reciprocal concession worth mentioning in return for his surrender of almost all that could be demanded."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10, part 2.

The utter faithlessness with which Charles carried on these negotiations, as on all former occasions, was shown at a later day when his correspondence came to light. "After having solemnly promised that all hostilities in Ireland should cease, he secretly wrote to Ormond (October 10): 'Obey my wife's orders, not mine, until I shall let you know I am free from all restraint; nor trouble yourself about my concessions as to Ireland; they will not lead to anything;' and the day on which he had consented to transfer to parliament for twenty years the command of the army (October 9), he wrote to sir William Hopkins: 'To tell you the truth, my great concession this morning was made only with a view to facilitate my approaching escape; without that hope, I should never have yielded in this manner. If I had refused, I could, without much sorrow, have returned to my prison; but as it is, I own it would break my heart, for I have done that which my escape alone can justify.' The parliament, though without any exact information, suspected all this perfidy; even the friends of peace, the men most affected by the king's condition, and most earnest to save him, replied but hesitatingly to the charges of the independents."

F. P. Guizot, History of the English Revolution of 1640, book 8.

ALSO IN: Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 11, sections 153-190 (volume 4).

I. Disraeli, Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I., volume 2, chapters 39-40.

{880}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER). The Grand Army Remonstrance and Pride's Purge. The Long Parliament cut down to the Rump.

On the 20th of November, 1648, Colonel Ewer and other officers presented to the house of commons a remonstrance from the Army against the negotiations and proposed treaty with the king. This was accompanied by a letter from Fairfax, stating that it had been voted unanimously in the council of officers, and entreating for it the consideration of parliament. The remonstrance recommended an immediate ending of the treaty conferences at Newport, demanded that the king be brought to justice, as the capital source of all grievances, and called upon parliament to enact its own dissolution, with provision for the electing and convening of future annual or biennial parliaments. Ten days passed without attention being given to this army manifesto, the house having twice adjourned its consideration of the document. On the first of December there appeared at Newport a party of horse which quietly took possession of the person of the king, and conveyed him to Hurst Castle, "a fortress in Hampshire, situated at the extreme point of a neck of land, which shoots into the sea towards the isle of Wight." The same day on which this was done, "the commissioners who had treated with the king at Newport made their appearance in the two houses of parliament; and the two following days were occupied by the house of commons in an earnest debate as to the state of the negotiation. Vane was one of the principal speakers against the treaty; and Fiennes, who had hitherto ranked among the independents, spoke for it. At length, after the house had sat all night, it was put and carried, at five in the morning of the 5th, by a majority of 129 to 83, that the king's answers to the propositions of both houses were a ground for them to proceed upon, to the settlement of the peace of the kingdom. On the same day this vote received the concurrence of the house of lords." Meantime, on the 30th of November, the council of the army had voted a second declaration more fully expressive of its views and announcing its intention to draw near to London, for the accomplishment of the purposes of the remonstrance. "On the 2d of December Fairfax marched to London, and quartered his army at Whitehall, St. James's, the Mews, and the villages near the metropolis. ... On the 5th of December three officers of the army held a meeting with three members of parliament, to arrange the plan by which the sound members might best be separated from those by whom their measures were thwarted, and might peaceably be put in possession of the legislative authority. The next morning a regiment of horse, and another of foot were placed as a guard upon the two houses, Skippon, who commanded the city-militia, having agreed with the council of the army to keep back the guard under his authority which usually performed that duty. A part of the foot were ranged in the Court of Requests, upon the stairs, and in the lobby leading to the house of commons. Colonel Pride was stationed near the door, with a list in his hand of the persons he was commissioned to arrest; and sometimes one of the door-keepers, and at others Lord Grey of Groby, pointed them out to him, as they came up with an intention of passing into the house. Forty-one members were thus arrested. ... On the following day more members were secured, or denied entrance, amounting, with those of the day before, to about one hundred. At the same time Cromwell took his seat; and Henry Marten moved that the speaker should return him thanks for his great and eminent services performed in the course of the campaign. The day after, the two houses adjourned to the 12th. During the adjournment many of the members who had been taken into custody by the military were liberated. ... Besides those who were absolutely secured, or shut out from their seats by the power of the army, there were other members that looked with dislike on the present proceedings, or that considered parliament as being under force, and not free in their deliberations, who voluntarily abstained from being present at their sittings and debates."

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 2, chapters 23-24 (volume 2).

"The famous Pride's Purge was accomplished. By military force the Long Parliament was cut down to a fraction of its number, and the career begins of the mighty 'Rump,' so called in the coarse wit of the time because it was 'the sitting part.'"

J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 13.

"This name [the Rump] was first given to them by Walker, the author of the History of Independency, by way of derision, in allusion to a fowl all devoured but the rump."

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 4, chapter 1, foot-note.

ALSO IN: C. R Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 28.

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, book 4, chapters 1 and 3 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (JANUARY). The trial and execution of the King.

"During the month in which Charles had remained at Windsor [whither he had been brought from Hurst Castle on the 17th of December], there had been proceedings in Parliament of which he was imperfectly informed. On the day he arrived there, it was resolved by the Commons that he should be brought to trial. On the 2nd of January, 1649, it was voted that, in making war against the Parliament, he had been guilty of treason; and a High Court was appointed to try him. One hundred and fifty commissioners were to compose the Court,-- peers, members of the Commons, aldermen of London. The ordinance was sent to the Upper House, and was rejected. On the 6th, a fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being, after God, the source of all just power, the representatives of the people are the supreme power in the nation; and that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons in Parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are concluded thereby, though the consent of King or Peers be not had thereto. Asserting this power, so utterly opposed either to the ancient constitution of the monarchy, or to the possible working of a republic, there was no hesitation in constituting the High Court of Justice in the name of the Commons alone. The number of members of the Court was now reduced to 135. They had seven preparatory meetings, at which only 58 members attended. 'All men,' says Mrs. Hutchinson, 'were left to their free liberty of acting, neither persuaded nor compelled; and as there were some nominated in the commission who never sat, and others who sat at first but durst not hold on, so all the rest might have declined it if they would, when it is apparent they should have suffered nothing by so doing.' ... On the 19th of January, major Harrison appeared ... at Windsor with his troop. There was a coach with six horses in the court-yard, in which the King took his seat; and, once more, he entered London, and was lodged at St. James's palace. {881} The next day, the High Court of Justice was opened in Westminster-hall. ... After the names of the members of the court had been called, 69 being present, Bradshaw, the president, ordered the serjeant to bring in the prisoner. Silently the King sat down in the chair prepared for him. He moved not his hat, as he looked sternly and contemptuously around. The sixty-nine rose not from their seats, and remained covered. ... The clerk reads the charge, and when he is accused therein of being tyrant and traitor, he laughs in the face of the Court. 'Though his tongue usually hesitated, yet it was very free at this time, for he was never discomposed in mind,' writes Warwick. ... Again and again contending against the authority of the Court, the King was removed, and the sitting was adjourned to the 22nd. On that day the same scene was renewed; and again on the 23rd. A growing sympathy for the monarch became apparent. The cries of 'Justice, justice,' which were heard at first, were now mingled with 'God save the King.' He had refused to plead; but the Court nevertheless employed the 24th and 25th of January in collecting evidence to prove the charge of his levying war against the Parliament. Coke, the solicitor-general, then demanded whether the Court would proceed to pronouncing sentence; and the members adjourned to the Painted Chamber. On the 27th the public sitting was resumed. ... The Court, Bradshaw then stated, had agreed upon the sentence. Ludlow records that the King' desired to make one proposition before they proceeded to sentence; which he earnestly pressing, as that which he thought would lead to the reconciling of all parties, and to the peace of the three kingdoms, they permitted him to offer it; the effect of which was, that he might meet the two Houses in the Painted Chamber, to whom he doubted not to offer that which should satisfy and secure all interests.' Ludlow goes on to say, 'Designing, as I have since been informed, to propose his own resignation, and the admission of his son to the throne upon such terms as should have been agreed upon.' The commissioners retired to deliberate, 'and being satisfied, upon debate, that nothing but loss of time would be the consequence of it, they returned into the Court with a negative to his demand.' Bradshaw then delivered a solemn speech to the King. ... The clerk was lastly commanded to read the sentence, that his head should be severed from his body; 'and the commissioners,' says Ludlow, 'testified their unanimous assent by standing up.' The King attempted to speak; 'but being accounted dead in law, was not permitted.' On the 29th of January, the Court met to sign the sentence of execution, addressed to 'colonel Francis Hacker, colonel Huncks, and lieutenant-colonel Phayr, and to every one of them.' ... There were some attempts to save him. The Dutch ambassador made vigorous efforts to procure a reprieve, whilst the French and Spanish ambassadors were inert. The ambassadors from the States nevertheless persevered; and early in the day of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from Fairfax. 'But we found,' they say in their despatch, 'in front of the house in which we had just spoken with the general, about 200 horsemen; and we learned, as well as on our way as on reaching home, that all the streets, passages, and squares of London were occupied by troops, so that no one could pass, and that the approaches of the city were covered with cavalry, so as to prevent anyone from coming in or going out; ... The same day, between two and three o'clock, the King was taken to a scaffold covered with black, erected before Whitehall.' To that scaffold before Whitehall, Charles walked, surrounded by soldiers, through the leafless avenues of St. James's Park. It was a bitterly cold morning. ... His purposed address to the people was delivered only to the hearing of those upon the scaffold, but its purport was that the people mistook the nature of government; for people are free under a government, not by being sharers in it, but by due administration of the laws of it.' His theory of government was a consistent one. He had the misfortune not to understand that the time had been fast passing away for its assertion. The headsman did his office; and a deep groan went up from the surrounding multitude."

Charles Knight, Popular History of England, volume 4, chapter 7.

"In the death-warrant of 29th January 1649, next after the President and Lord Grey, stands the name of Oliver Cromwell. He accepted the responsibility of it, justified, defended it to his dying day. No man in England was more entirely answerable for the deed than he, 'I tell you,' he said to Algernon Sidney, 'we will cut off his head with the crown upon it.' ... Slowly he had come to know--not only that the man, Charles Stuart, was incurably treacherous, but that any settlement of Parliament with the old Feudal Monarchy was impossible. As the head of the king rolled on the scaffold the old Feudal Monarchy expired for ever. In January 1649 a great mark was set in the course of the national life--the Old Rule behind it, the New Rule before it. Parliamentary government, the consent of the nation, equality of rights, and equity in the law--all date from this great New Departure. The Stuarts indeed returned for one generation, but with the sting of the Old Monarchy gone, and only to disappear almost without a blow. The Church of England returned; but not the Church of Laud or of Charles. The peers returned, but as a meek House of Lords, with their castles razed, their feudal rights and their political power extinct. It is said that the regicides killed Charles I. only to make Charles II. king. It is not so, They killed the Old Monarchy; and the restored monarch was by no means its heir, but a royal Stadtholder or Hereditary President."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 7.

"Respecting the death of Charles it has been pronounced by Fox, that 'it is much to be doubted whether his trial and execution have not, as much as any other circumstance, served to raise the character of the English nation in the opinion of Europe in general.' And he goes on to speak with considerable favour of the authors of that event. One of the great authorities of the age having so pronounced, an hundred and fifty years after the deed, it may be proper to consider for a little the real merits of the actors, and the act. It is not easy to imagine a greater criminal than the individual against whom the sentence was awarded. ... Liberty is one of the greatest negative advantages that can fall to the lot of a man; without it we cannot possess any high degree of happiness, or exercise any considerable virtue. Now Charles, to a degree which can scarcely be exceeded, conspired against the liberty of his country, to assert his own authority without limitation, was the object of all his desires and all his actions, so far as the public was concerned. {882} To accomplish this object he laid aside the use of a parliament. When he was compelled once more to have recourse to this assembly, and found it retrograde to his purposes, he determined to bring up the army, and by that means to put an end to its sittings. Both in Scotland and England, the scheme that he formed for setting aside all opposition, was by force of arms. For that purpose he commenced war against the English parliament, and continued it by every expedient in his power for four years. Conquered, and driven out of the field, he did not for that, for a moment lose sight of his object and his resolution. He sought in every quarter for the materials of a new war; and, after an interval of twenty months, and from the depths of his prison, he found them. To this must be added the most consummate insincerity and duplicity. He could never be reconciled; he could never be disarmed; he could never be convinced. His was a war to the death, and therefore had the utmost aggravation that can belong to a war against the liberty of a nation. ... The proper lesson taught by the act of the thirtieth of January, was that no person, however high in station, however protected by the prejudices of his contemporaries, must expect to be criminal against the welfare of the state and community, without retribution and punishment. The event however sufficiently proved that the condemnation and execution of Charles did not answer the purposes intended by its authors. It did not conciliate the English nation to republican ideas. It shocked all those persons in the country who did not adhere to the ruling party. This was in some degree owing to the decency with which Charles met his fate. He had always been in manners, formal, sober and specious. ... The notion was every where prevalent, that a sovereign could not be called to account, could not be arraigned at the bar of his subjects. And the violation of this prejudice, instead of breaking down the wall which separated him from others, gave to his person a sacredness which never before appertained to it. Among his own partisans the death of Charles was treated, and was spoken of, as a sort of deicide. And it may be admitted for a universal rule, that the abrupt violation of a deep-rooted maxim and persuasion of the human mind, produces a reaction, and urges men to hug the maxim closer than ever. I am afraid, that the day that saw Charles perish on the scaffold, rendered the restoration of his family certain."

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth of England to the Restoration of Charles II., book 2, chapter 26 (volume 2).

"The situation, complicated enough already, had been still further complicated by Charles's duplicity. Men who would have been willing to come to terms with him, despaired of any constitutional arrangement in which he was to be a factor; and men who had long been alienated from him were irritated into active hostility. By these he was regarded with increasing intensity as the one disturbing force with which no understanding was possible and no settled order consistent. To remove him out of the way appeared, even to those who had no thought of punishing him for past offences, to be the only possible road to peace for the troubled nation. It seemed that so long as Charles lived deluded nations and deluded parties would be stirred up, by promises never intended to be fulfilled, to fling themselves, as they had flung themselves in the Second Civil War, against the new order of things which was struggling to establish itself in England."

_S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649, chapter 71 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN: _John Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Henry Marten._

S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, pages 268-290.

The following is the text of the Act which arraigned the King and constituted the Court by which he was tried:

"Whereas it is notorious that Charles Stuart, the now king of England, not content with the many encroachments which his predecessors had made upon the people in their rights and freedom, hath had a wicked design totally to subvert the antient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government; and that, besides all other evil ways and means to bring his design to pass, he hath prosecuted it with fire and sword, levied and maintained a civil war in the land, against the parliament and kingdom; whereby this country hath been miserably wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade decayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite other mischiefs committed; for all which high and treasonable offences the said Charles Stuart might long since have justly been brought to exemplary and condign punishment: whereas also the parliament, well hoping that the restraint and imprisonment of his person after it had pleased God to deliver him into their hands, would have quieted the distempers of the kingdom, did forbear to proceed judicially against him; but found, by sad experience, that such their remissness served only to encourage him and his accomplices in the continuance of their evil practices and in raising new commotions, rebellions, and invasions: for prevention therefore of the like or greater inconveniences, and to the end no other chief officer or magistrate whatsoever may hereafter presume, traiterously and maliciously, to imagine or contrive the enslaving or destroying of the English nation, and to expect impunity for so doing; be it enacted and ordained by the [Lords] and commons in Parliament assembled, and it is hereby enacted and ordained by the authority thereof, That the earls of Kent, Nottingham, Pembroke, Denbigh, and Mulgrave; the lord Grey of Warke; lord chief justice Rolle of the king's bench, lord chief justice St. John of the common Pleas, and lord chief baron Wylde; the lord Fairfax, lieutenant general Cromwell, &c. [in all about 150,] shall be, and are hereby appointed and required to be Commissioners and Judges, for the Hearing, Trying, and Judging of the said Charles Stuart; and the said Commissioners, or any 20 or more of them, shall be, and are hereby authorized and constituted an High Court of Justice, to meet and sit at such convenient times and place as by the said commissioners, or the major part, or 20 or more of them, under their hands and seals, shall be appointed and notified by public Proclamation in the Great Hall, or Palace Yard of Westminster; and to adjourn from time to time, and from place to place, as the said High Court, or the major part thereof, at meeting, shall hold fit; and to take order for the charging of him, the said Charles Stuart, with the Crimes and Treasons above-mentioned, and for receiving his personal Answer thereunto, and for examination of witnesses upon oath, (which the court hath hereby authority to administer) or otherwise, and taking any other Evidence concerning the same; and thereupon, or in default of such Answer, to proceed to final Sentence according to justice and the merit of the cause; and such final Sentence to execute, or cause to be executed, speedily and impartially.-- {883} And the said court is hereby and required to chuse and appoint all such officers, attendants, and other circumstances as they, or the major part of them, shall in any sort judge necessary or useful for the orderly and good managing of the premises; and Thomas lord Fairfax the General, and all officers and soldiers, under his command, and all officers of justice, and other well-affected persons, are hereby authorized and required to be aiding and assisting unto the said court in the due execution of the trust hereby committed unto them; provided that this act, and the authority hereby granted, do continue in force for the space of one month from the date of the making hereof, and no longer."

Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, volume 3, pages 1254-1255.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY). The Commonwealth established.

"England was now a Republic. The change had been virtually made on Thursday, January 4, 1648-9, when the Commons passed their three great Resolutions, declaring

(1) that the People of England were, under God, the original of all just power in the State,

(2) that the Commons, in Parliament assembled, having been chosen by the People, and representing the People, possessed the supreme power in their name, and

(3) that whatever the Commons enacted should have the force of a law, without needing the consent of either King or House of Peers.

On Tuesday, the 30th of January, the theory of these Resolutions became more visibly a fact. On the afternoon of that day, while the crowd that had seen the execution in front of Whitehall were still lingering round the scaffold, the Commons passed an Act 'prohibiting the proclaiming of any person to be King of England or Ireland, or the dominions thereof.' It was thus declared that Kingship in England had died with Charles. But what of the House of Peers? It was significant that on the same fatal day the Commons revived their three theoretical resolutions of the 4th, and ordered them to be printed. The wretched little rag of a House might then have known its doom. But it took a week more to convince them." On the 6th of February it was resolved by the House of Commons, "'That the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Next day, February 7, after another long debate, it was further resolved 'That it hath been found by experience, and this House doth declare, that the office of a King in this realm, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the People of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Not till after some weeks were these Acts deliberately passed after the customary three readings. The delay, however, was matter of mere Parliamentary form. Theoretically a Republic since Jan. 4, 1648-9, and visibly a Republic from the day of Charles's death, England was a Republic absolutely and in every sense from February 7, 1648-9." For the administration of the government of the republican Commonwealth, the Commons resolved, on the 7th of February, that a Council of State be erected; to consist of not more than forty persons. On the 13th, Instructions to the intended Council of State were reported and agreed to, "these Instructions conferring almost plenary powers, but limiting the duration of the Council to one year." On the 14th and 15th forty-one persons were appointed to be members of the Council, Fairfax, Cromwell, Vane, St. John, Whitlocke, Henry Marten, and Colonels Hutchinson and Ludlow being in the number; nine to constitute a quorum, and no permanent President to be chosen.

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: J. Lingard, History of England, volume. 10, chapter 5.

A. Bisset, Omitted Chapters of History of England, chapter 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY). The Eikon Basilike.

"A book, published with great secrecy, and in very mysterious circumstances, February 9, 1648-9, exactly ten days after the late King's death, had done much to increase the Royalist enthusiasm.

'Eikon Basilike: The True Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings.--Romans viii. More than conquerour, &c.--Bona agere et mala pati Regium est. MDCXLVIII': such was the title-page of this volume (of 269 pages of text, in small octavo), destined by fate, rather than by merit, to be one of the most famous books of the world. ... The book, so elaborately prepared and heralded, consists of twenty-eight successive chapters, purporting to have been written by the late King, and to be the essence of his spiritual autobiography in the last years of his life. Each chapter, with scarcely an exception, begins with a little narrative, or generally rather with reflections and meditations on some passage of the King's life the narrative of which is supposed to be unnecessary, and ends with a prayer in italics appropriate to the circumstances remembered. ... Save for a few ... passages ... , the pathos of which lies in the situation they represent, the Eikon Basilike is a rather dull performance, in third-rate rhetoric, modulated after the Liturgy; and without incision, point, or the least shred of real information as to facts. But O what a reception it had! Copies of it ran about instantaneously, and were read with sobs and tears. It was in vain that Parliament, March 16, gave orders for seizing the book. It was reprinted at once in various forms, to supply the constant demand--which was not satisfied, it is said, with less than fifty editions within a single year; it became a very Bible in English Royalist households. ... By means of this book, in fact, acting on the state of sentiment which it fitted, there was established, within a few weeks after the death of Charles I., that marvellous worship of his memory, that passionate recollection of him as the perfect man and the perfect king, the saint, the martyr, the all but Christ on earth again, which persisted till the other day as a positive religious cultus of the English mind, and still lingers in certain quarters."

D. Masson, Life and Times of John Milton, volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.

{884}

"I struggled through the Eikon Basilike yesterday; one of the paltriest pieces of vapid, shovel-hatted, clear-starched, immaculate falsity and cant I have ever read. It is to me an amazement how any mortal could ever have taken that for a genuine book of King Charles's. Nothing but a surpliced Pharisee, sitting at his ease afar off, could have got up such a set of meditations. It got Parson Gauden [John Gauden, Bishop of Exeter and Worcester, successively, after the Restoration, and who is believed to have been the author of the Eikon Basilike] a bishopric."

T. Carlyle, History of his Life in London, by Froude, volume 1, chapter 7, November 26, 1840.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (APRIL-MAY). Mutiny of the Levellers.

See LEVELLERS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649-1650. Cromwell's campaign in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (JULY). Charles II. proclaimed King in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (MARCH-JULY).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER). War with the Scots and Cromwell's victory at Dunbar.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651 (SEPTEMBER). The Scots and Charles II. overthrown at Worcester.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1653. The Army and the Rump.

"'Now that the King is dead and his son defeated,' Cromwell said gravely to the Parliament, 'I think it necessary to come to a settlement.' But the settlement which had been promised after Naseby was still as distant as ever after Worcester. The bill for dissolving the present Parliament, though Cromwell pressed it in person, was only passed, after bitter opposition, by a majority of two; and even this success had been purchased by a compromise which permitted the House to sit for three years more. Internal affairs were simply at a dead lock. ... The one remedy for all this was, as the army saw, the assembly of a new and complete Parliament in place of the mere 'rump' of the old; but this was the one measure which the House was resolute to avert. Vane spurred it to a new activity. ... But it was necessary for Vane's purposes not only to show the energy of the Parliament, but to free it from the control of the army. His aim was to raise in the navy a force devoted to the House, and to eclipse the glories of Dunbar and Worcester by yet greater triumphs at sea. With this view the quarrel with Holland had been carefully nursed. ... The army hardly needed the warning conveyed by the introduction of a bill for its disbanding to understand the new policy of the Parliament. ... The army petitioned not only for reform in Church and State, but for an explicit declaration that the House would bring its proceedings to a close. The Petition forced the House to discuss a bill for 'a New Representative,' but the discussion soon brought out the resolve of the sitting members to continue as a part of the coming Parliament without re-election. The officers, irritated by such a claim, demanded in conference after conference an immediate dissolution, and the House as resolutely refused. In ominous words Cromwell supported the demands of the army. 'As for the members of this Parliament, the army begins to take them in disgust. I would it did so with less reason.' ... Not only were the existing members to continue as members of the New Parliament, depriving the places they represented of their right of choosing representatives, but they were to constitute a Committee of Revision, to determine the validity of each election, and the fitness of the members returned. A conference took place [April 19, 1653] between the leaders of the Commons and the officers of the army. ... The conference was adjourned till the next morning, on an understanding that no decisive step should be taken; but it had no sooner reassembled, than the absence of the leading members confirmed the news that Vane was fast pressing the bill for a new Representative through the House. 'It is contrary to common honesty,' Cromwell angrily broke out; and, quitting Whitehall, he summoned a company of musketeers to follow him as far as the door of the House of Commons."

J. R Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 9.

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell._

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 22.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1672. The Navigation Acts and the American colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672; also, NAVIGATION LAWS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654. War with the Dutch Republic.

"After the death of William, Prince of Orange, which was attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch republicans [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1647-1650], the Parliament thought that the time was now favourable for cementing a closer confederacy with the states. St. John, chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have rendered their interests totally inseparable; ... but the states, who were unwilling to form a nearer confederacy with a government whose measures were so obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered only to renew 'the former alliances with England; and the haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well as incensed at many affronts which had been offered him, with impunity, by the retainers of the Palatine and Orange families, and indeed by the populace in general, returned into England and endeavoured to foment a quarrel between the republics. .... There were several motives which at this time induced the English Parliament to embrace hostile measures. Many of the members thought that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same Parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered. Others hoped that the war would furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer, that numerous standing army which was so much complained of. On the other hand, some, who dreaded the increasing power of Cromwell, expected that the great expense of naval armaments would prove a motive for diminishing the military establishment. To divert the attention of the public from domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the present disposition of men's minds, to be good policy. ... All these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who had great influence over Cromwell, determined the Parliament to change the purposed alliance into a furious war against the United Provinces. To cover these hostile intentions, the Parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, embraced such measures as they knew would give disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of navigation, which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their bottoms any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. ... The minds of men in both states were every day more irritated against each other; and it was not long before these humours broke forth into action."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 60 (volume 5).

{885}

"The negotiations ... were still pending when Blake, meeting Van Tromp's fleet in the Downs, in vain summoned the Dutch Admiral to lower his flag. A battle was the consequence, which led to a declaration of war on the 8th of July (1652). The maritime success of England was chiefly due to the genius of Blake, who having hitherto served upon shore, now turned his whole attention to the navy. A series of bloody fights took place between the two nations. For some time the fortunes of the war seemed undecided. Van Tromp, defeated by Blake, had to yield the command to De Ruyter. De Ruyter in his turn was displaced to give way again to his greater rival. Van Tromp was reinstated in command. A victory over Blake off the Naze (November 28) enabled him to cruise in the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, implying that he had swept the English from the seas. But the year 1653 again saw Blake able to fight a drawn battle of two days' duration between Portland and La Hogue; while at length, on the 2d and 3d of June, a decisive engagement was fought off the North Foreland, in which Monk and Deane, supported by Blake, completely defeated the Dutch Admiral, who, as a last resource, tried in vain to blow up his own ship, and then retreated to the Dutch coast, leaving eleven ships in the hands of the English. In the next month, another victory on the part of Blake, accompanied by the death of the great Dutch Admiral, completed the ruin of the naval power of Holland. The States were driven to treat. In 1654 the treaty was signed, in which Denmark, the Hanseatic towns, and the Swiss provinces were included. ... The Dutch acknowledged the supremacy of the English flag in the British seas; they consented to the Navigation Act."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, page 701.

ALSO IN: W. H. Dixon, Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea, chapters 6-7.

D. Hannay, Admiral Blake, chapters 6-7.

J. Campbell, Naval History of Great Britain, chapter 15 (volume 2).

G. Penn, Memorials of Sir William Penn, chapter 4.

J. Corbett, Monk, chapter 7.

J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John De Witt, volume 1, books 4-5.

See, also, NAVIGATION LAWS, ENGLISH: A. D. 1651.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (APRIL). Cromwell's expulsion of the Rump.

"In plain black clothes and gray worsted stockings, the Lord-General came in quietly and took his seat [April 20], as Vane was pressing the House to pass the dissolution Bill without delay and without the customary forms. He beckoned to Harrison and told him that the Parliament was ripe for dissolution, and he must do it. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'the work is very great and dangerous.'--'You say well,' said the general, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an hour. Vane sat down, and the Speaker was putting the question for passing the Bill. Then said Cromwell to Harrison again, 'This is the time; I must do it.' He rose up, put off his hat, and spoke. Beginning moderately and respectfully, he presently changed his style, told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self interest, and other faults; charging them not to have a heart to do anything for the public good, to have espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an intention to perpetuate themselves in power. And rising into passion, 'as if he were distracted,' he told them that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other instruments for the carrying on His work that were worthy. Sir Peter Wentworth rose to complain of such language in Parliament, coming from their own trusted servant. Roused to fury by the interruption, Cromwell left his seat, clapped on his hat, walked up and down the floor of the House, stamping with his feet, and cried out, 'You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament. Come, come, we have had enough of this; I will put an end to your prating. Call them in!' Twenty or thirty musketeers under Colonel Worsley marched in onto the floor of the House. The rest of the guard were placed at the door and in the lobby. Vane from his place cried out, 'This is not honest, yea, it is against morality and common honesty.' Cromwell, who evidently regarded Vane as the breaker of the supposed agreement, turned on him with a loud voice, crying, 'O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane.' Then looking upon one of the members, he said, 'There sits a drunkard;' to another he said, 'Some of you are unjust, corrupt persons, and scandalous to the profession of the Gospel.' 'Some are whoremasters,' he said, looking at Wentworth and Marten. Going up to the table, he said, 'What shall we do with this Bauble? Here, take it away!' and gave it to a musketeer. 'Fetch him down,' he cried to Harrison, pointing to the Speaker. Lenthall sat still, and refused to come down unless by force. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'I will lend you my hand,' and putting his hand within his, the Speaker came down. Algernon Sidney sat still in his place. 'Put him out,' said Cromwell. And Harrison and Worsley put their hands on his shoulders, and he rose and went out. The members went out, fifty-three in all, Cromwell still calling aloud. To Vane he said that he might have prevented this; but that he was a juggler and had not common honesty. 'It is you,' he said, as they passed him, 'that have forced me to do this, for I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work.' He snatched the Bill of dissolution from the hand of the clerk, put it under his cloak, seized on the records, ordered the guard to clear the House of all members, and to have the door locked, and went away to Whitehall. Such is one of the most famous scenes in our history, that which of all other things has most heavily weighed on the fame of Cromwell. In truth it is a matter of no small complexity, which neither constitutional eloquence nor boisterous sarcasm has quite adequately unravelled. ... In strict constitutional right the House was no more the Parliament than Cromwell was the king. A House of Commons, which had executed the king, abolished the Lords, approved the 'coup d'état' of Pride, and by successive proscriptions had reduced itself to a few score of extreme partisans, had no legal title to the name of Parliament. The junto which held to Vane was not more numerous than the junto which held to Cromwell; they had far less public support; nor had their services to the Cause been so great. {886} In closing the House, the Lord-General had used his office of Commander-in-Chief to anticipate one 'coup d'état' by another. Had he been ten minutes late, Vane would himself have dissolved the House; snapping a vote which would give his faction a legal ascendancy. Yet, after all, the fact remains that Vane and the remnant of the famous Long Parliament had that 'scintilla juris,' as lawyers call it, that semblance of legal right, which counts for so much in things political."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, part 3, chapter 17.

F. P. Guizot, History of Oliver Cromwell, book 4 (volume l).

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th century, book 11, chapter 5 (volume 3).

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, volume 3, chapters 27-29.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (JUNE-DECEMBER). The Barebones, or Little Parliament.

Six weeks after the expulsion of the Rump, Cromwell, in his own name, and upon his own authority, as "Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief," issued (June 6) a summons to one hundred and forty "persons fearing God and of approved fidelity and honesty," chosen and "nominated" by himself, with the advice of his council of officers, requiring them to be and appear at the Council Chamber of Whitehall on the following fourth day of July, to take upon themselves "the great charge and trust" of providing for "the peace, safety, and good government" of the Commonwealth, and to serve, each, "as a Member for the county" from which he was called. "Of all the Parties so summoned, 'only two' did not attend. Disconsolate Bulstrode says: 'Many of this Assembly being persons of fortune and knowledge, it was much wondered by some that they would at this summons, and from such hands, take upon them the Supreme Authority of this Nation; considering how little right Cromwell and his Officers had to give it, or those Gentlemen to take it.' My disconsolate friend, it is a sign that Puritan England in general accepts this action of Cromwell and his Officers, and thanks them for it, in such a case of extremity; saying as audibly as the means permitted: Yea, we did wish it so. Rather mournful to the disconsolate official mind. ... The undeniable fact is, these men were, as Whitlocke intimates, a quite reputable Assembly; got together by anxious 'consultation of the godly Clergy' and chief Puritan lights in their respective Counties; not without much earnest revision, and solemn consideration in all kinds, on the part of men adequate enough for such a work, and desirous enough to do it well. The List of the Assembly exists; not yet entirely gone dark for mankind. A fair proportion of them still recognizable to mankind. Actual Peers one or two: founders of Peerage Families, two or three, which still exist among us,--Colonel Edward Montague, Colonel Charles Howard, Anthony Ashley Cooper. And better than King's Peers, certain Peers of Nature; whom if not the King and his pasteboard Norroys have had the luck to make Peers of, the living heart of England has since raised to the Peerage and means to keep there,--Colonel Robert Blake the Sea-King, for one. 'Known persons,' I do think; 'of approved integrity, men fearing God'; and perhaps not entirely destitute of sense anyone of them! Truly it seems rather a distinguished Parliament,--even though Mr. Praisegod Barbone, 'the Leather merchant in Fleet-street,' be, as all mortals must admit, a member of it. The fault, I hope, is forgivable. Praisegod, though he deals in leather, and has a name which can be misspelt, one discerns to be the son of pious parents; to be himself a man of piety, of understanding and weight,--and even of considerable private capital, my witty flunkey friends! We will leave Praisegod to do the best he can, I think. ... In fact, a real Assembly of the Notables in Puritan England; a Parliament, Parliamentum, or Speaking-Apparatus for the now dominant Interest in England, as exact as could well be got,--much more exact, I suppose, than any ballot-box, free hustings or ale-barrel election usually yields. Such is the Assembly called the Little Parliament, and wittily Bare-bone's Parliament; which meets on the 4th of July. Their witty name survives; but their history is gone all dark."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 7, speech. 1.

The "assembly of godly persons" proved, however, to be quite an unmanageable body, containing so large a number of erratic and impracticable reformers that everything substantial among English institutions was threatened with overthrow at their hands. After five months of busy session, Cromwell was happily able to bring about a dissolution of his parliament, by the action of a majority, surrendering back their powers into his hands,--which was done on the 10th of December, 1653.

F. P. Guizot, History of Oliver Cromwell, book 5 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 23.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (December). The Establishment and Constitution of the Protectorate. The Instrument of Government.

"What followed the dissolution of the Little Parliament is soon told. The Council of Officers having been summoned by Cromwell as the only power de facto, there were dialogues and deliberations, ending in the clear conclusion that the method of headship in a 'Single Person' for his whole life must now be tried in the Government of the Commonwealth, and that Cromwell must be that 'Single Person.' The title of King was actually proposed; but, as there were objections to that, Protector was chosen as a title familiar in English History and of venerable associations. Accordingly, Cromwell having consented, and all preparations having been made, he was, on Friday, December 16, in a great assembly of civic, judicial and military dignities, solemnly sworn and installed in the Chancery Court, Westminster Hall, as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. There were some of his adherents hitherto who did not like this new elevation of their hero, and forsook him in consequence, regarding any experiment of the Single Person method in Government 'as a treason to true Republicanism, and Cromwell's assent to it as unworthy of him. Among these was Harrison. Lambert, on the other hand, had been the main agent in the change, and took a conspicuous part in the installation-ceremony. In fact, pretty generally throughout the country and even among the Presbyterians, the elevation of Cromwell to some kind of sovereignty had come to be regarded as an inevitable necessity of the time, the only possible salvation of the Commonwealth from the anarchy, or wild and experimental idealism, in matters civil and religious, which had been the visible drift at last of the Barebones or Daft Little Parliament. ... The powers and duties of the Protectorate had been defined, rather elaborately, in a Constitutional Instrument of forty-two Articles, called 'The Government of the Commonwealth' [more commonly known as The Instrument of Government] to which Cromwell had sworn fidelity at his installation."

{887}

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 4, book 4, chapters 1 and 3.

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell._

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 12, chapter 1 (volume 3).

S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, introduction, section 4 and pages 314-324.

Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, volume 3, pages 1417-1426.

The following is the text Of the Instrument of Government:

The government of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging.

I. That the supreme legislative authority of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, shall be and reside in one person, and the people assembled in Parliament; the style of which person shall be the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

II. That the exercise of the chief magistracy and the administration of the government over the said countries and dominions, and the people thereof, shall be in the Lord Protector, assisted with a council, the number whereof shall not exceed twenty-one, nor be less than thirteen.

III. That all writs, processes, commissions, patents, grants, and other things, which now run in the name and style of the keepers of the liberty of England by authority of Parliament, shall run in the name and style of the Lord Protector, from whom, for the future, shall be derived all magistracy and honours in these three nations; and have the power of pardons (except in case of murders and treason) and benefit of all forfeitures for the public use; and shall govern the said countries and dominions in all things by the advice of the council, and according to these presents and the laws.

IV. That the Lord Protector, the Parliament sitting, shall dispose and order the militia and forces, both by sea and land, for the peace and good of the three nations, by consent of Parliament; and that the Lord Protector, with the advice and consent of the major part of the council, shall dispose and order the militia for the ends aforesaid in the intervals of Parliament."

V. That the Lord Protector, by the advice aforesaid, shall direct in all things concerning the keeping and holding of a good correspondency with foreign kings, princes, and states; and also, with the consent of the major part of the council, have the power of war and peace.

VI. That the laws shall not be altered, suspended, abrogated, or repealed, nor any new law made, nor any tax, charge, or imposition laid upon the people, but by common consent in Parliament, save only as is expressed in the thirtieth article.

VII. That there shall be a Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster upon the third day of September, 1654, and that successively a Parliament shall be summoned once in every third year, to be accounted from the dissolution of the present Parliament.

VIII. That neither the Parliament to be next summoned, nor any successive Parliaments, shall, during the time of five months, to be accounted from the day of their first meeting, be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without their own consent.

IX. That as well the next as all other successive Parliaments, shall be summoned and elected in manner hereafter expressed; that is to say, the persons to be chosen within England, Wales, the Isles of Jersey, Guernsey, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, to sit and serve in Parliament, shall be, and not exceed, the number of four hundred. The persons to be chosen within Scotland, to sit and serve in Parliament, shall be, and not exceed, the number of thirty; and the persons to be chosen to sit in Parliament for Ireland shall be, and not exceed, the number of thirty.

X. That the persons to be elected to sit in Parliament from time to time, for the several counties of England, Wales, the Isles of Jersey and Guernsey, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and all places within the same respectively, shall be according to the proportions and numbers hereafter expressed: that is to say,

Bedfordshire, 5; Bedford Town, 1; Berkshire, 5; Abingdon, 1; Reading, 1; Buckinghamshire, 5; Buckingham Town, 1; Aylesbury, 1; Wycomb, 1; Cambridgeshire, 4; Cambridge Town, 1; Cambridge University, 1; Isle of Ely, 2; Cheshire, 4; Chester, 1; Cornwall, 8; Launceston, 1; Truro, 1; Penryn, 1; East Looe and West Looe, 1; Cumberland, 2; Carlisle, 1; Derbyshire, 4; Derby Town, 1; Devonshire, 11; Exeter, 2; Plymouth, 2 Clifton, Dartmouth, Hardness, 1; Totnes, 1; Barnstable, 1; Tiverton, 1; Honiton, 1; Dorsetshire, 6; Dorchester, 1; Weymouth and Melcomb-Regis, 1; Lyme-Regis, 1; Poole, 1; Durham, 2; City of Durham, 1; Essex, 13; Malden, 1; Colchester, 2; Gloucestershire, 5; Gloucester, 2; Tewkesbury, 1; Cirencester, 1; Herefordshire, 4; Hereford, 1; Leominster, 1; Hertfordshire, 5; St. Alban's, 1: Hertford, 1; Huntingdonshire, 3; Huntingdon, 1; Kent, 11; Canterbury, 2; Rochester, 1 Maidstone, 1; Dover, 1; Sandwich, 1; Queenborough, 1; Lancashire, 4; Preston, 1; Lancaster, 1; Liverpool, 1; Manchester, 1; Leicestershire, 4 Leicester, 2; Lincolnshire, 10; Lincoln, 2; Boston, 1; Grantham, 1; Stamford, 1; Great Grimsby, 1; Middlesex, 4; London, 6; Westminster, 2; Monmouthshire, 3; Norfolk 10; Norwich, 2; Lynn-Regis, 2 Great Yarmouth, 2 Northamptonshire, 6; Peterborough, 1; Northampton, 1; Nottinghamshire, 4; Nottingham, 2; Northumberland, 3; Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1; Berwick, 1; Oxfordshire, 5; Oxford City, 1; Oxford University, 1; Woodstock, 1; Rutlandshire, 2; Shropshire, 4; Shrewsbury, 2; Bridgnorth, 1; Ludlow, 1; Staffordshire, 3; Lichfield, 1; Stafford, 1; Newcastle-under-Lyne, 1; Somersetshire, 11; Bristol, 2; Taunton, 2; Bath, 1; Wells, 1; Bridgwater, 1; Southamptonshire, 8; Winchester, 1; Southampton, 1 Portsmouth, 1; Isle of Wight, 2; Andover, 1; Suffolk, 10; Ipswich, 2; Bury St. Edmunds, 2; Dunwich, 1; Sudbury, 1; Surrey, 6; Southwark, 2; Guildford, 1; Reigate, 1; Sussex, 9; Chichester, 1; Lewes, 1; East Grinstead, 1; Arundel, 1; Rye, 1; Westmoreland, 2; Warwickshire, 4; Coventry, 2; Warwick, 1; Wiltshire, 10; New Sarum, 2; Marlborough, 1; Devizes, 1; Worcestershire, 5; Worcester, 2.

YORKSHIRE. West Riding, 6; East Riding, 4; North Riding, 4; City of York, 2 Kingston-upon-Hull, 1; Beverley, 1; Scarborough, 1; Richmond, 1; Leeds, 1; Halifax, 1.

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WALES. Anglesey, 2: Brecknoekshire, 2; Cardiganshire, 2; Carmarthenshire, 2; Carnarvonshire, 2; Denbighshire, 2; Flintshire, 2; Glamorganshire, 2; Cardiff, 1; Merionethshire, 1; Montgomeryshire, 2; Pembrokeshire, 2; Haverfordwest, 1; Radnorshire, 2.

The distribution of the persons to be chosen for Scotland and Ireland, and the several counties, cities, and places therein, shall be according to such proportions and number as shall be agreed upon and declared by the Lord Protector and the major part of the council, before the sending forth writs of summons for the next Parliament.

XI. That the summons to Parliament shall be by writ under the Great Seal of England, directed to the sheriffs of the several and respective counties, with such alteration as may suit with the present government to be made by the Lord Protector and his council, which the Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal shall seal, issue, and send abroad by warrant from the Lord Protector. If the Lord Protector shall not give warrant for issuing of writs of summons for the next Parliament, before the first of June, 1654, or for the Triennial Parliaments, before the first day of August in every third year, to be accounted as aforesaid; that then the Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal for the time being, shall, without any warrant or direction, within seven days after the said first day of June, 1654, seal, issue, and send abroad writs of summons (changing therein what is to be changed as aforesaid) to the several and respective sheriffs of England, Scotland, and Ireland, for summoning the Parliament to meet at Westminster, the third day of September next; and shall likewise, within seven days after the said first day of August, in every third year, to be accounted from the dissolution of the precedent Parliament, seal, issue, and send forth abroad several writs of summons (changing therein what is to be changed) as aforesaid, for summoning the Parliament to meet at Westminster the sixth of November in that third year. That the said several and respective sheriffs, shall, within ten days after the receipt of such writ as aforesaid, cause the same to be proclaimed and published in every market-town within his county upon the market-days thereof, between twelve and three of the clock; and shall then also publish and declare the certain day of the week and month, for choosing members to serve in Parliament for the body of the said county, according to the tenor of the said writ, which shall be upon Wednesday five weeks after the date of the writ; and shall likewise declare the place where the election shall be made: for which purpose he shall appoint the most convenient place for the whole county to meet in; and shall send precepts for elections to be made in all and every city, town, borough, or place within his county, where elections are to be made by virtue of these presents, to the Mayor, Sheriff, or other head officer of such city, town, borough, or place, within three days after the receipt of such writ and writs; which the said Mayors, Sheriffs, and officers respectively are to make publication of, and of the certain day for such elections to be made in the said city, town, or place aforesaid, and to cause elections to be made accordingly.

XII. That at the day and place of elections, the Sheriff of each county, and the said Mayors, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, and other head officers within their cities, towns, boroughs, and places respectively, shall take view of the said elections, and shall make return into the chancery within twenty days after the said elections, of the persons elected by the greater number of electors, under their hands and seals, between him on the one part, and the electors on the other part; wherein shall be contained, that the persons elected shall not have power to alter the government as it is hereby settled in one single person and a Parliament.

XIII. That the Sheriff, who shall wittingly and willingly make any false return, or neglect his duty, shall incur the penalty of 2,000 marks of lawful English money; the one moiety to the Lord Protector, and the other moiety to such person as will sue for the same.

XIV. That all and every person and persons, who have aided, advised, assisted, or abetted in any war against the Parliament, since the first day of January 1641 (unless they have been since in the service of the Parliament, and given signal testimony of their good affection thereunto) shall be disabled and incapable to be elected, or to give any vote in the election of any members to serve in the next Parliament, or in the three succeeding Triennial Parliaments.

XV. That all such, who have advised, assisted, or abetted the rebellion of Ireland, shall be disabled and incapable for ever to be elected, or give any vote in the election of any member to serve in Parliament; as also all such who do or shall profess the Roman Catholic religion.

XVI. That all votes and elections given or made contrary, or not according to these qualifications, shall be null and void; and if any person, who is hereby made incapable, shall give his vote for election of members to serve in Parliament, such person shall lose and forfeit one full year's value of his real estate, and one full third part of his personal estate; one moiety thereof to the Lord Protector, and the other moiety to him or them who shall sue for the same.

XVII. That the persons who shall be elected to serve in Parliament, shall be such (and no other than such) as are persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation, and being of the age of twenty-one years.

XVIII. That all and every person and persons seised or possessed to his own use, of any estate, real or personal, to the value of £200, and not within the aforesaid exceptions, shall be capable to elect members to serve in Parliament for counties.

XIX. That the Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal, shall be sworn before they enter into their offices, truly and faithfully to issue forth, and send abroad, writs of summons to Parliament, at the times and in the manner before expressed: and in case of neglect or failure to issue and send abroad writs accordingly, he or they shall for every such offence be guilty of high treason, and suffer the pains and penalties thereof.

XX. That in case writs be not issued out, as is before expressed, but that there be a neglect therein, fifteen days after the time wherein the same ought to be issued out by the Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal; that then the Parliament shall, as often as such failure shall happen, assemble and be held at Westminster, in the usual place, at the times prefixed, in manner and by the means hereafter expressed; that is to say, that the sheriffs of the several and respective counties, sheriffdoms, cities, boroughs, and places aforesaid, within England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Mayor and Bailiffs of the borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and other places aforesaid respectively, shall at the several courts and places to be appointed as aforesaid, within thirty days after the said fifteen days, cause such members to be chosen for their said several and respective counties, sheriffdoms, universities, cities, boroughs, and places aforesaid, by such persons, and in such manner, as if several and respective writs of summons to Parliament under the Great Seal had issued and been awarded according to the tenor aforesaid: that if the sheriff, or other persons authorized, shall neglect his or their duty herein, that all and every such sheriff and person authorized as aforesaid, so neglecting his or their duty, shall, for every such offence, be guilty of high treason, and shall suffer the pains and penalties thereof.

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XXI. That the clerk, called the clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery for the time being, and all others, who shall afterwards execute that office, to whom the returns shall be made, shall for the next Parliament, and the two succeeding Triennial Parliaments, the next day after such return, certify the names of the several persons so returned, and of the places for which he and they were chosen respectively, unto the Council; who shall peruse the said returns, and examine whether the persons so elected and returned be such as is agreeable to the qualifications, and not disabled to be elected: and that every person and persons being so duly elected, and being approved of by the major part of the Council to be persons not disabled, but qualified as aforesaid, shall be esteemed a member of Parliament, and be admitted to sit in Parliament, and not otherwise.

XXII. That the persons so chosen and assembled in manner aforesaid, or any sixty of them, shall be, and be deemed the Parliament of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and the supreme legislative power to be and reside in the Lord Protector and such Parliament, in manner herein expressed.

XXIII. That the Lord Protector, with the advice of the major part of the Council, shall at any other time than is before expressed, when the necessities of the State shall require it, summon Parliaments in manner before expressed, which shall not be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved without their own consent, during the first three months of their sitting. And in case of future war with any foreign State, a Parliament shall be forthwith summoned for their advice concerning the same.

XXIV. That all Bills agreed unto by the Parliament, shall be presented to the Lord Protector for his consent; and in case he shall not give his consent thereto within twenty days after they shall be presented to him, or give satisfaction to the Parliament within the time limited, that then, upon declaration of the Parliament that the Lord Protector hath not consented nor given satisfaction, such Bills shall pass into and become laws, although he shall not give his consent thereunto; provided such Bills contain nothing in them contrary to the matters contained in these presents.

XXV. That [Henry Lawrence, esq.; Philip lord vise. Lisle; the majors general Lambert, Desborough, and Skippon; lieutenant general Fleetwood; the colonels Edward Montagu, Philip Jones, and Wm. Sydenham; sir Gilbert Pickering, sir Ch. Wolseley, and sir Anth. Ashley Cooper, Barts., Francis Rouse, esq., Speaker of the late Convention, Walter Strickland, and Rd. Major, esqrs.]--or any seven of them, shall be a Council for the purposes expressed in this writing; and upon the death or other removal of any of them, the Parliament shall nominate six persons of ability, integrity, and fearing God, for everyone that is dead or removed; out of which the major part of the Council shall elect two, and present them to the Lord Protector, of which he shall elect one; and in case the Parliament shall not nominate within twenty days after notice given unto them thereof, the major part of the Council shall nominate three as aforesaid to the Lord Protector, who out of them shall supply the vacancy; and until this choice be made, the remaining part of the Council shall execute as fully in all things, as if their number were full. And in case of corruption, or other miscarriage in any of the Council in their trust, the Parliament shall appoint seven of their number, and the Council six, who, together with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal for the time being, shall have power to hear and determine such corruption and miscarriage, and to award and inflict punishment, as the nature of the offence shall deserve, which punishment shall not be pardoned or remitted by the Lord Protector; and, in the interval of Parliaments, the major part of the Council, with the consent of the Lord Protector, may, for corruption or other miscarriage as aforesaid, suspend any of their number from the exercise of their trust, if they shall find it just, until the matter shall be heard and examined as aforesaid.

XXVI. That the Lord Protector and the major part of the Council aforesaid may, at any time before the meeting of the next Parliament, add to the Council such persons as they shall think fit, provided the number of the Council be not made thereby to exceed twenty-one, and the quorum to be proportioned accordingly by the Lord Protector and the major part of the Council.

XXVII. That a constant yearly revenue shall be raised, settled, and established for maintaining of 10,000 horse and dragoons, and 20,000 foot, in England, Scotland and Ireland, for the defence and security thereof, and also for a convenient number of ships for guarding of the seas; besides £200,000 per annum for defraying the other necessary charges of administration of justice, and other expenses of the Government, which revenue shall be raised by the customs, and such other ways and means as shall be agreed upon by the Lord Protector and the Council, and shall not be taken away or diminished, nor the way agreed upon for raising the same altered, but by the consent of the Lord Protector and the Parliament.

XXVIII. That the said yearly revenue shall be paid into the public treasury, and shall be issued out for the uses aforesaid.

XXIX. That in case there shall not be cause hereafter to keep up so great a defence both at land or sea, but that there be an abatement made thereof, the money which will be saved thereby shall remain in bank for the public service, and not be employed to any other use but by consent of Parliament, or, in the intervals of Parliament, by the Lord Protector and major part of the Council.

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XXX. That the raising of money for defraying the charge of the present extraordinary forces, both at sea and land, in respect of the present wars, shall be by consent of Parliament, and not otherwise: save only that the Lord Protector, with the consent of the major part of the Council, for preventing the disorders and dangers which might otherwise fall out both by sea and land, shall have power, until the meeting of the first Parliament, to raise money for the purposes aforesaid; and also to make laws and ordinances for the peace and welfare of these nations where it shall be necessary, which shall be binding and in force, until order shall be taken in Parliament concerning the same.

XXXI. That the lands, tenements, rents, royalties, jurisdictions and hereditaments which remain yet unsold or undisposed of, by Act or Ordinance of Parliament, belonging to the Commonwealth (except the forests and chases, and the honours and manors belonging to the same; the lands of the rebels in Ireland, lying in the four counties of Dublin, Cork, Kildare, and Carlow; the lands forfeited by the people of Scotland in the late wars, and also the lands of Papists and delinquents in England who have not yet compounded), shall be vested in the Lord Protector, to hold, to him and his successors, Lords Protectors of these nations, and shall not be alienated but by consent in Parliament. And all debts, fines, issues, amercements, penalties and profits, certain and casual, due to the Keepers of the liberties of England by authority of Parliament, shall be due to the Lord Protector, and be payable into his public receipt, and shall be recovered and prosecuted in his name.

XXXII. That the office of Lord Protector over these nations shall be elective and not hereditary; and upon the death of the Lord Protector, another fit person shall be forthwith elected to succeed him in the Government; which election shall be by the Council, who, immediately upon the death of the Lord Protector, shall assemble in the Chamber where they usually sit in Council; and, having given notice to an their members of the cause of their assembling, shall, being thirteen at least present, proceed to the election; and, before they depart the said Chamber, shall elect a fit person to succeed in the Government, and forthwith cause proclamation thereof to be made in an the three nations as shall be requisite; and the person that they, or the major part of them, shall elect as aforesaid, shall be, and shall be taken to be, Lord Protector over these nations of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging. Provided that none of the children of the late King, nor any of his line or family, be elected to be Lord Protector or other Chief Magistrate over these nations, or any the dominions thereto belonging. And until the aforesaid election be past, the Council shall take care of the Government, and administer in an things as fully as the Lord Protector, or the Lord Protector and Council are enabled to do.

XXXIII. That Oliver Cromwell, Captain-General of the forces of England, Scotland and Ireland, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging, for his life.

XXXIV. That the Chancellor, Keeper or Commissioners of the Great Seal, the Treasurer, Admiral, Chief Governors of Ireland and Scotland, and the Chief Justices of both the Benches, shall be chosen by the approbation of Parliament; and, in the intervals of Parliament, by the approbation of the major part of the Council, to be afterwards approved by the Parliament.

XXXV. That the Christian religion, as contained in the Scriptures, be held forth and recommended as the public profession of these nations; and that, as soon as may be, a provision, less subject to scruple and contention, and more certain than the present, be made for the encouragement and maintenance of able and painful teachers, for the instructing the people, and for discovery and confutation of error, hereby, and whatever is contrary to sound doctrine; and until such provision be made, the present maintenance shall not be taken away or impeached.

XXXVI. That to the public profession held forth none shall be compened by penalties or otherwise; but that endeavours be used to win them by sound doctrine and the example of a good conversation.

XXXVII. That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship or discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in, the profession of the faith and exercise of their religion; so as they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury of others and to the actual disturbance of the public peace on their parts: provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as, under the profession of Christ, hold forth and practice licentiousness.

XXXVIII. That all laws, statutes and ordinances, and clauses in any law, statute or ordinance to the contrary of the aforesaid liberty, shall be esteemed as null and void.

XXXIX. That the Acts and Ordinances of Parliament made for the sale or other disposition of the lands, rents and hereditaments of the late King, Queen, and Prince, of Archbishops and Bishops, &c., Deans and Chapters, the lands of delinquents and forest-lands, or any of them, or of any other lands, tenements, rents and hereditaments belonging to the Commonwealth, shall nowise be impeached or made invalid, but shall remain good and firm; and that the securities given by Act and Ordinance of Parliament for any sum or sums of money, by any of the said lands, the excise, or any other public revenue; and also the securities given by the public faith of the nation, and the engagement of the public faith for satisfaction of debts and damages, shall remain firm and good, and not be made void and invalid upon any pretence whatsoever.

XL. That the Articles given to or made with the enemy, and afterwards confirmed by Parliament, shall be performed and made good to the persons concerned therein; and that such appeals as were depending in the last Parliament for relief concerning bills of sale of delinquent's estates, may be heard and determined the next Parliament, anything in this writing or otherwise to the contrary notwithstanding.

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XLI. That every successive Lord Protector over these nations shall take and subscribe a solemn oath, in the presence of the Council, and such others as they shall call to them, that he will seek the peace, quiet and welfare of these nations, cause law and justice to be equally administered; and that he will not violate or infringe the matters and things contained in this writing, and in all other things will, to his power and to the best of his understanding, govern these nations according to the laws, statutes and customs thereof.

XLII. That each person of the Council shall, before they enter upon their trust, take and subscribe an oath, that they will be true and faithful in their trust, according to the best of their knowledge; and that in the election of every successive Lord Protector they shall proceed therein impartially, and do nothing therein for any promise, fear, favour or reward.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1654. Re-conquest of Acadia (Nova Scotia).

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1654 (April). Incorporation of Scotland with the Commonwealth.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1654.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1654-1658. The Protector, his Parliaments and his Major-Generals. The Humble Petition and Advice. Differing views of the Cromwellian autocracy.

"Oliver addressed his first Protectorate Parliament on Sunday, the 3d of September. ... Immediately, under the leadership of old Parliamentarians, Haslerig, Scott, Bradshaw, and many other republicans, the House proceeded to debate the Instrument of Government, the constitutional basis of the existing system. By five votes, it decided to discuss 'whether the House should approve of government by a Single Person and a Parliament.' This was of course to set up the principle of making the Executive dependent on the House; a principle, in Oliver's mind, fatal to settlement and order. He acted at once. Calling on the Lord Mayor to secure the city, and disposing his own guard round Westminster Hall, he summoned the House again on the 9th day. ... Members were called on to sign a declaration, 'not to alter the government as settled in a Single Person and a Parliament.' Some, 300 signed; the minority--about a fourth--refused and retired. ... The Parliament, in spite of the declaration, set itself from the first to discuss the constitution, to punish heretics, suppress blasphemy, revise the Ordinances of the Council; and they deliberately withheld all supplies for the services and the government. At last they passed an Act for revising the constitution de novo. Not a single bill had been sent up to the Protector for his assent. Oliver, as usual, acted at once. On the expiration of their five lunar months, 22d January 1655, he summoned the House and dissolved it, with a speech full of reproaches."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 11.

"In 1656, the Protector called a second Parliament. By excluding from it about a hundred members whom he judged to be hostile to his government, he found himself on amicable terms with the new assembly. It presented to him a Humble Petition and Advice, asking that certain changes of the Constitution might be agreed to by mutual consent, and that he should assume the title of King. This title he rejected, and the Humble Petition and Advice was passed in an amended form on May 25, 1657, and at once received the assent of the Protector. On June 26, it was modified in some details by the Additional Petition and Advice. Taking the two together, the result was to enlarge the power of Parliament and to diminish that of the Council. The Protector, in turn, received the right of appointing his successor, and to name the life-members of 'the other House,' which was now to take the place of the House of Lords. ... In accordance with the Additional Petition and Advice, the Protector summoned 'certain persons to sit in the other House.' A quarrel between the two Houses broke out, and the Protector [February 4, 1658] dissolved the Parliament in anger."

S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, pages lxiii-lxiv., and 334-350.

"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can seldom be in his power. The protector [in 1655] abandoned all thought of it. Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a major-general as a sort of military magistrate, responsible for the subjection of his prefecture. These were eleven in number, men bitterly hostile to the royalist party, and insolent towards all civil authority. They were employed to secure the payment of a tax of 10 per cent., imposed by Cromwell's arbitrary will on those who had ever sided with the king during the late wars, where their estates exceeded £100 per annum. The major-generals, in their correspondence printed among Thurloe's papers, display a rapacity and oppression beyond their master's. ... All illusion was now gone as to the pretended benefits of the civil war. It had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost Charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance. For what was ship-money, a general burthen, by the side of the present decimation of a single class, whose offence had long been expiated by a composition and effaced by an act of indemnity? or were the excessive punishments of the star-chamber so odious as the capital executions inflicted without trial by peers, whenever it suited the usurper to erect his high court of justice? ... I cannot ... agree in the praises which have been showered upon Cromwell for the just administration of the laws under his dominion. That, between party and party, the ordinary civil rights of men were fairly dealt with, is no extraordinary praise; and it may be admitted that he filled the benches of justice with able lawyers, though not so considerable as those of the reign of Charles II.; but it is manifest that, so far as his own authority was concerned, no hereditary despot, proud in the crimes of a hundred ancestors, could more have spurned at every limitation than this soldier of a commonwealth."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10, part 2.

"Cromwell was, and felt himself to be, a dictator called in by the winning cause in a revolution to restore confidence and secure peace. He was, as he said frequently, 'the Constable set to keep order in the Parish.' Nor was he in any sense a military despot. ... Never did a ruler invested with absolute power and overwhelming military force more obstinately strive to surround his authority with legal limits and Parliamentary control."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 11.

"To this condition, then, England was now reduced. After the gallantest fight for liberty that had ever been fought by any nation in the world, she found herself trampled under foot by a military despot. All the vices of old kingly rule were nothing to what was now imposed upon her."

_J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell._

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"His [Cromwell's] wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of the laws for that of the sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by being absolute. ... Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume the kingly title, stood by him when he ventured on acts of power as high as any English king has ever attempted. The government, therefore, though in form a republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sobriety and the magnanimity of the despot."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1.

England: A. D. 1655-1658. War with Spain, alliance with France. Acquisition of Dunkirk.

"Though the German war ['the Thirty Years' War,' concluded in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia] was over, the struggle between France and Spain was continued with great animosity, each country striving to crush her rival and become the first power in Europe. Both Louis XIV. and Philip IV. of Spain were bidding for the protector's support. Spain offered the possession of Calais, when taken from France; France the possession of Dunkirk when taken from Spain (1655). Cromwell determined to ally himself with France against Spain. ... It was in the West Indies that the obstructive policy of Spain came most into collision with the interests of England. Her kings based their claims to the possession of two continents on the bull of Pope Alexander VI., who in 1493 had granted them all lands they should discover from pole to pole, at the distance of 100 leagues west from the Azores and Cape Verd Islands. On the strength of this bull they held that the discovery of an island gave them the right to the group, the discovery of a headland the right to a continent. Though this monstrous claim had quite broken down as far as the North American continent was concerned, the Spaniards, still recognizing 'no peace beyond the line,' endeavoured to shut all Europeans but themselves out of any share in the trade or colonization of at least the southern half of the New World. ... While war was now proclaimed with Spain, a treaty of peace was signed between France and England, Louis XIV. agreeing to banish Charles Stuart and his brothers from French territory (October 24, 1655). This treaty was afterwards changed into a league, offensive and defensive (March 23, 1657), Cromwell undertaking to assist Louis with 6,000 men in besieging Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, on condition of receiving the two latter towns when reduced by the allied armies. By the occupation of these towns Cromwell intended to control the trade of the Channel, to hold the Dutch in check, who were then but unwilling friends, and to lessen the danger of invasion from any union of Royalists and Spaniards. The war opened in the year 1657 [Jamaica, however, had already been taken from the Spaniards and St. Domingo attacked], with another triumph by sea." This was Blake's last exploit. He attacked and destroyed the Spanish bullion fleet, from Mexico, in the harbor of Santa Cruz, island of Teneriffe, and silenced the forts which guarded it. The great sea-captain died on his voyage home, after striking this blow. The next spring "the siege of Dunkirk was commenced (May, 1658). The Spaniards tried to relieve the town, but were completely defeated in an engagement called the Battle of the Dunes from the sand hills among which it was fought; the defeat was mainly owing to the courage and discipline of Oliver's troops, who won for themselves the name of 'the Immortal Six Thousand.' ... Ten days after the battle Dunkirk surrendered, and the French had no choice but to give over to the English ambassador the keys of a town they thought 'unsi bon morceau' ['a good ...'] (June 25)."

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, book 9, speech 5 and book 10, letters 152-157.

J. Campbell, Naval History of Great Britain, chapter 15 (volume 2).

J. Waylen, The House of Cromwell and the Story of Dunkirk, pages 173-272.

W. H. Dixon, Robert Blake, chapters 9-10.

D. Hannay, Admiral Blake, chapter 9-11.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1658-1660. The fall of the Protectorate and Restoration of the Stuarts. King Charles II.

When Oliver Cromwell died, on the 3d day of September, 1658--the anniversary of his victories at Dunbar and at Worcester--his eldest son Richard, whom he had nominated, it was said, on his death-bed, was proclaimed Protector, and succeeded him "as quietly as any King had ever been succeeded by any Prince of Wales. During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell went on so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly established on the chair of state." But Richard had none of his father's genius or personal power, and the discontents and jealousies which the former had rigorously suppressed soon tossed the latter from his unstable throne by their fierce upheaval. He summoned a new Parliament (January 27, 1659), which recognized and confirmed his authority, though containing a powerful opposition, of uncompromising republicans and secret royalists. But the army, which the great Protector had tamed to submissive obedience, was now stirred into mischievous action once more as a political power in the state, subservient to the ambition of Fleetwood and other commanders. Richard Cromwell could not make himself the master of his father's battalions. "He was used by the army as an instrument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament [April 22], and was then contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified their republican allies by declaring that the expulsion of the Rump had been illegal, and by inviting that assembly to resume its functions. The old Speaker and a quorum of the old members came together [May 9] and were proclaimed, amidst the scarcely stifled derision and execration of the whole nation, the supreme power in the Commonwealth. It was at the same time expressly declared that there should be no first magistrate and no House of Lords. But this state of things could not last. On the day on which the Long Parliament revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. Again the Rump forgot that it owed its existence to the pleasure of the soldiers, and began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the House of Commons were closed by military violence [October 13]; and a provisional government, named by the officers, assumed the direction of affairs." The troops stationed in Scotland, under Monk, had not been consulted, however, in these transactions, and were evidently out of sympathy with their comrades in England. Monk, who had never meddled with politics before, was now induced to interfere. {893} He refused to acknowledge the military provisional government, declared himself the champion of the civil power, and marched into England at the head of his 7,000 veterans. His movement was everywhere welcomed and encouraged by popular demonstrations of delight. The army in England lost courage and lost unity, awed and paralyzed by the public feeling at last set free. Monk reached London without opposition, and was the recognized master of the realm. Nobody knew his intentions--himself, perhaps, as little as any--and it was not until after a period of protracted suspense that he declared himself for the convening of a new and free Parliament, in the place of the Rump--which had again resumed its sittings--for the settlement of the state. "The result of the elections was such as might have been expected from the temper of the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The Presbyterians formed the majority. ... The new Parliament, which, having been called without the royal writ, is more accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster [April 26, 1660]. The Lords repaired to the hall, from which they had, during more than eleven years, been excluded by force. Both Houses instantly invited the King to return to his country. He was proclaimed with pomp never before known. A gallant fleet convoyed him from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he landed [May 25, 1660], the cliffs of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely one could be found who was not weeping with delight. The journey to London was a continued triumph."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1.

The only guarantee with which the careless nation took back their ejected kings of the faithless race of Stuarts was embodied in a Declaration which Charles sent over from "Our Court at Breda" in April, and which was read in Parliament with an effusive display of respect and thankfulness. In this Declaration from Breda, "a general amnesty and liberty of conscience were promised, with such exceptions and limitations only as the Parliament should think fit to make. All delicate questions, among others the proprietorship of confiscated estates, were in like manner referred to the decision of Parliament, thus leaving the King his liberty while diminishing his responsibility; and though fully asserting the ancient rights of the Crown, he announced his intention to associate the two Houses with himself in all great affairs of State."

F. P. Guizot, History of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration, book 4 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 2, 1660-61.

Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 16 (volume 6).

D. Masson, Life of Milton, volume 5, book 3.

J. Corbett, Monk, chapter 9-14.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1660-1685. The Merry Monarch.

"There never were such profligate times in England as under Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in his Court at Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess. It has been a fashion to call Charles the Second 'The Merry Monarch.' Let me try to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that were done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne, in merry England. The first merry proceeding was--of course--to declare that he was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. The next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for the Parliament, in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon him for life that old disputed 'tonnage and poundage' which had been so bravely fought for. Then, General Monk, being made Earl of Albemarle, and a few other Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see what was to be done to those persons (they were called Regicides) who had been concerned in making a martyr of the late King. Ten of these were merrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the Guards, and Hugh Peters, a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all his heart. These executions were so extremely merry, that every horrible circumstance which Cromwell had abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. ... Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against Stratford, and was one of the most staunch of the Republicans, was also tried, found guilty, and ordered for execution. ... These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even merrier. On the anniversary of the late King's death, the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, "Were torn out of their graves in 'Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, hanged there on a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared to look the living Oliver in the face for half a moment! Think, after you have read this reign, what England was under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out of his grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it, like a merry Judas, over and over again. Of course, the remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were not to be spared, either, though they had been most excellent women. The base clergy of that time gave up their bodies, which had been buried in the Abbey, and--to the eternal disgrace of England--they were thrown into a pit, together with the mouldering bones of Pym, and of the brave and bold old Admiral Blake. ... The whole Court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched men and shameless women; and Catherine's merry husband insulted and outraged her in every possible way, until she consented to receive those worthless creatures as her very good friends, and to degrade herself by their companionship. A Mrs. Palmer, whom the King made Lady Castlemaine, and afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, was one of the most powerful of the bad women about the Court, and had great influence with the King nearly all through his reign. Another merry lady named Moll Davies, a dancer at the theatre, was afterwards her rival. So was Nell Gwyn, first an orange girl and then an actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one of the worst things I know is, that actually she does seem to have been fond of the King. The first Duke of St. Albans was this orange girl's child. In like manner the son of a merry waiting-lady, whom the King created Duchess of Portsmouth, became the Duke of Richmond. {894} Upon the whole it is not so bad a thing to be a commoner. The Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these merry ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) lords and gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred thousand pounds, and then, by way of raising a little pocket-money, made a merry bargain. He sold Dunkirk to the French King for five millions of livres. When I think of the dignity to which Oliver Cromwell raised England in the eyes of foreign powers, and when I think of the manner in which he gained for England this very Dunkirk, I am much inclined to consider that if the Merry Monarch had been made to follow his father for this action, he would have received his just deserts."

C. Dickens, Child's History of England, chapter 35.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1661. Acquisition of Bombay.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1661. The Savoy Conference.

"The Restoration had been the joint work of Episcopalian and Presbyterian; would it be possible to reconcile them on this question too [i. e., of the settlement of Church government]? The Presbyterian indeed was willing enough for a compromise, for he had an uneasy feeling that the ground was slipping from beneath his feet. Of Charles's intentions he was still in doubt; but he knew that Clarendon was the sworn friend of the Church. The Churchman on the other hand was eagerly expecting the approaching hour of triumph. It soon appeared that as King and Parliament, so King and Church were inseparable in the English mind; that indeed the return of the King was the restoration of the Church even more than it was the restoration of Parliament. In the face of the present Presbyterian majority however it was necessary to temporise. The former incumbents of Church livings were restored, and the Commons took the Communion according to the rites of the Church; but in other respects the Presbyterians were carefully kept in play; Charles taking his part in the elaborate farce by appointing ten of their leading ministers royal chaplains, and even attending, their sermons." In October, 1660, Charles "took the matter more completely into his own hands by issuing a Declaration. Refusing, on the ground of constraint, to admit the validity of the oaths imposed upon him in Scotland, by which he was bound to uphold the Covenant, and not concealing his preference for the Anglican Church, as 'the best fence God hath yet raised against popery in the world,' he asserted that nevertheless, to his own knowledge, the Presbyterians were not enemies to Episcopacy or a set liturgy, and were opposed to the alienation of Church revenues. The Declaration then went on to limit the power of bishops and archdeacons in a degree sufficient to satisfy many of the leading Presbyterians, one of whom, Reynolds, accepted a bishopric. Charles then proposed to choose an equal number of learned divines of both persuasions to discuss alterations in the liturgy; meanwhile no one was to be troubled regarding differences of practice. The majority in the Commons at first welcomed the Declaration, ... and a bill was accordingly introduced by Sir Matthew Hale to turn the Declaration into a law. But Clarendon at any rate had no intention of thus baulking the Church of her revenge. Anticipating Hale's action, he had in the interval been busy in securing a majority against any compromise. The Declaration had done its work in gaining time, and when the bill was brought in it was rejected by 183 to 157 votes. Parliament was at once (December 24) dissolved. The way was now open for the riot of the Anglican triumph. Even before the new House met the mask was thrown off by the issuing of an order to the justices to restore the full liturgy. The conference indeed took place in the Savoy Palace. It failed, like the Hampton Court Conference of James I., because it was intended to fail. Upon the two important points, the authority of bishops and the liturgy, the Anglicans would not give way an inch. Both parties informed the King that, anxious as they were for agreement, they saw no chance of it. This last attempt at union having fallen through, the Government had their hands free; and their intentions were speedily made plain."

O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 7.

"The Royal Commission [for the Savoy Conference] bore date the 25th of March. It gave the Commissioners authority to review the Book of Common Prayer, to compare it with the most ancient Liturgies, to take into consideration all things which it contained, to consult respecting the exceptions against it, and by agreement to make such necessary alterations as should afford satisfaction to tender consciences, and restore to the Church unity and peace; the instrument appointed 'the Master's lodgings in the Savoy' as the place of meeting. ... The Commissioners were summoned to meet upon the 15th of April. ... The Bill of Uniformity, hereafter to be described, actually passed the House of Commons on the 9th of July, about a fortnight before the Conference broke up. The proceedings of a Royal Commission to review the Prayer Book, and make alterations for the satisfaction of tender consciences were, by this premature act, really treated with mockery, a circumstance which could not but exceedingly offend and annoy the Puritan members, and serve to embitter the language of Baxter as the end of these fruitless sittings approached."

J. Stoughton, History of Religion in English, volume 3, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: E. Calamy, Nonconformists' Memorial, introduction, section 3.

W. Orme, Life and Times of Richard Baxter, chapter 7.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1662. The sale of Dunkirk.

"Unable to confine himself within the narrow limits of his civil list, with his favorites and mistresses, he [Charles II.] would have sought even in the infernal regions the gold which his subjects measured out to him with too parsimonious a hand. ... [He] proposed to sell to France Dunkirk and its dependencies, which, he said, cost him too much to keep up. He asked twelve million francs; he fell at last to five millions, and the treaty was signed October 27, 1662. It was time; the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, informed of the negotiation, had determined to offer Charles II. whatever he wished in behalf of their city not to alienate Dunkirk. Charles dared not retract his word, which would have been, as D'Estrades told him, to break forever with Louis XIV., and on the 2d of December Louis joyfully made his entry into his good city, reconquered by gold instead of the sword."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., translated by M. L. Booth, chapter 4 (volume 1).

{895}

England: A. D. 1662-1665. The Act of Uniformity and persecution of the Nonconformists.

The failure of the Savoy Conference "was the conclusion which had been expected and desired. Charles had already summoned the Convocation, and to that assembly was assigned the task which had failed in the hands of the commissioners at the Savoy. ... The act of uniformity followed [passed by the Commons July 9, 1661; by the Lords May 8, 1662; receiving the royal assent May 19, 1662], by which it was enacted that the revised Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordination of Ministers, and no other, should be used in all places of public worship; and that all beneficed clergymen should read the service from it within a given time, and, at the close, profess in a set form of words, their 'unfeigned assent and consent to everything contained and prescribed in it.' ... The act of uniformity may have been necessary for the restoration of the church to its former discipline and doctrine; but if such was the intention of those who framed the declaration from Breda, they were guilty of infidelity to the king and of fraud to the people, by putting into his mouth language which, with the aid of equivocation, they might explain away, and by raising in them expectations which it was never meant to fulfil."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 11, chapter. 4.

"This rigorous act when it passed, gave the ministers, who could not conform, no longer time than till Bartholomewday, August 24th, 1662, when they were all cast out. ... This was an action without a precedent: The like to this the Reformed church, nay the Christian world, never saw before. Historians relate, with tragical exclamations, that between three and four score bishops were driven at once into the island of Sardinia by the African vandals; that 200 ministers were banished by Ferdinand, king of Bohemia; and that great havock was, a few years after, made among the ministers of Germany by the Imperial Interim. But these all together fall short of the number ejected by the act of uniformity, which was not less than 2,000. The succeeding hardships of the latter were also by far the greatest. They were not only silenced, but had no room left for any sort of usefulness, and were in a manner buried alive. Far greater tenderness was used towards the Popish clergy ejected at the Reformation. They were suffered to live quietly; but these were oppressed to the utmost, and that even by their brethren who professed the same faith themselves: not only excluded preferments, but turned out into the wide world without any visible way of subsistence. Not so much as a poor vicarage, not an obscure chapel, not a school was left them. Nay, though they offered, as some of them did, to preach gratis, it must not be allowed them. ... The ejected ministers continued for ten years in a state of silence and obscurity. ... The act of uniformity took place August the 24th, 1662. On the 26th of December following, the king published a Declaration, expressing his purpose to grant some indulgence or liberty in religion. Some of the Nonconformists were hereupon much encouraged, and waiting privately on the king, had their hopes confirmed, and would have persuaded their brethren to have thanked him for his declaration; but they refused, lest they should make way for the toleration of the Papists, whom they understood the king intended to include in it. ... Instead of indulgence or comprehension, on the 30th of June, an act against private meetings, called the Conventicle Act, passed the House of Commons, and soon after was made a law, viz.: 'That every person above sixteen years of age, present at any meeting, under pretence of any exercise of religion, in other manner than is the practice of the church of England, where there are five persons more than the household, shall for the first offence, by a justice of peace be recorded, and sent to gaol three months, till he pay £5, and for the second offence six months, till he pay £10, and the third time being convicted by a jury, shall be banished to some of the American plantations, excepting New England or Virginia." ... In the year 1665 the plague broke out"--and the ejected ministers boldly took possession for the time of the deserted London pulpits. "While God was consuming the people by this judgment, and the Nonconformists were labouring to save their souls, the parliament, which sat at Oxford, was busy in making an act [called the Five Mile Act] to render their case incomparably harder than it was before, by putting upon them a certain oath ['that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king,' &c.], which, if they refused, they must not come (unless upon the road) within five miles of any city or corporation, any place that sent burgesses to parliament, any place where they had been ministers, or had preached after the act of oblivion. ... When this act came out, those ministers who had any maintenance of their own, found out some place of residence in obscure villages, or market-towns, that were not corporations."

E. Calamy, The Nonconformist's Memorial, introduction, sections 4-6.

ALSO IN: J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 3, chapters 6-9.

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 4, chapter 6-7.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1663. The grant of the Carolinas to Monk, Clarendon, Shaftesbury, and others.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1663. The King's charter to Rhode Island.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1660-1663.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1664. The conquest of New Netherland (New York).

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1664-1665. The first refractory symptoms in Massachusetts.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1660-1665.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1665. The grant of New Jersey to Carteret and Berkeley.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1665-1666. War with Holland renewed. The Dutch fleet in the Thames.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1668. The Triple Alliance with Holland and Sweden against Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1668. Cession of Acadia (Nova Scotia) to France.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670. The secret Catholicism and the perfidy of the King. His begging of bribes from Louis XIV. His betrayal of Holland. His breaking of the Triple Alliance.

In 1668, the royal treasury being greatly embarrassed by the king's extravagances, an attempt was made "to reduce the annual expenditure below the amount of the royal income. ... But this plan of economy accorded not with the royal disposition, nor did it offer any prospect of extinguishing the debt. Charles remembered the promise of pecuniary assistance from France in the beginning of his reign; and, though his previous efforts to cultivate the friendship of Louis had been defeated by an unpropitious course of events, he resolved to renew the experiment. {896} Immediately after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Buckingham opened a negotiation with the duchess of Orleans, the king's sister, in France, and Charles, in his conversations with the French resident, apologised for his conduct in forming the triple alliance, and openly expressed his wish to enter into a closer union, a more intimate friendship, with Louis. ... About the end of the year the communications between the two princes became more open and confidential; French money, or the promise of French money, was received by the English ministers; the negotiation began to assume a more regular form, and the most solemn assurances of secrecy were given, that their real object might be withheld from the knowledge, or even the suspicion, of the States. In this stage of the proceedings Charles received an important communication from his brother James. Hitherto that prince had been an obedient and zealous son of the Church of England; but Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation had shaken his religious credulity, and the result of the inquiry was a conviction that it became his duty to reconcile himself with the Church of Rome. He was not blind to the dangers to which such a change would expose him; and he therefore purposed to continue outwardly in communion with the established church, while he attended at the Catholic service in private. But, to his surprise, he learned from Symonds, a Jesuit missionary, that no dispensation could authorise such duplicity of conduct: a similar answer was returned to the same question from the pope; and James immediately took his resolution. He communicated to the king in private that he was determined to embrace the Catholic faith; and Charles without hesitation replied that he was of the same mind, and would consult with the duke on the subject in the presence of lord Arundell, lord Arlington, and Arlington's confidential friend, sir Thomas Clifford. ... The meeting was held in the duke's closet. Charles, with tears in his eyes, lamented the hardship of being compelled to profess a religion which he did not approve, declared his determination to emancipate himself from this restraint, and requested the opinion of those present, as to the most eligible means of effecting his purpose with safety and success. They advised him to communicate his intention to Louis, and to solicit the powerful aid of that monarch. Here occurs a very interesting question,--was Charles sincere or not? ... He was the most accomplished dissembler in his dominions; nor will it be any injustice to his character to suspect that his real object was to deceive both his brother and the king of France. ... Now, however, the secret negotiation proceeded with greater activity; and lord Arundell, accompanied by sir Richard Bellings, hastened to the French court. He solicited from Louis the present of a considerable sum, to enable the king to suppress any insurrection which might be provoked by his intended conversion, and offered the co-operation of England in the projected invasion of Holland, on the condition of an annual subsidy during the continuation of hostilities." On the advice of Louis, Charles postponed, for the time being, his intention to enter publicly the Romish church and thus provoke a national revolt; but his proposals were otherwise accepted, and a secret treaty was concluded at Dover, in May, 1670, through the agency of Charles' sister, Henrietta, the duchess of Orleans, who came over for that purpose. "Of this treaty, ... though much was afterwards said, little was certainly known. All the parties concerned, both the sovereigns and the negotiators, observed an impenetrable secrecy. What became of the copy transmitted to France is unknown; its counterpart was confided to the custody of sir Thomas Clifford, and is still in the keeping of his descendant, the lord Clifford of Chudleigh. The principal articles were:

1. That the king of England should publicly profess himself a Catholic at such time as should appear to him most expedient, and subsequently to that profession should join with Louis in a war against the Dutch republic at such time as the most Christian king should judge proper.

2. That to enable the king of England to suppress any insurrection which might be occasioned by his conversion, the king of France should grant him an aid of 2,000,000 of livres, by two payments, one at the expiration of three months, the other of six months, after the ratification of the treaty, and should also assist him with an armed force of 6,000 men, if ... necessary. ...

4. That if, eventually, any new rights on the Spanish monarchy should accrue to the king of France, the king of England should aid him with all his power in the acquisition of those rights. 5. That both princes should make war on the united provinces, and that neither should conclude peace or truce with them without the advice and consent of his ally.".

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 11, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11.

O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 16.

G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 2 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1671. The Cabal.

"It was remarked that the committee of council, established for foreign affairs, was entirely changed; and that Prince Rupert, the Duke of Ormond, Secretary Trevor, and Lord-keeper Bridgeman, men in whose honour the nation had great confidence, were never called to any deliberations. The whole secret was intrusted to five persons, Clifford, Ashley [afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury], Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. These men were known by the appellation of the Cabal, a word which the initial letters of their names happened to compose. Never was there a more dangerous ministry in England, nor one more noted for pernicious counsels."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter. 65 (volume 6).

See, also, CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1673. The Declaration of Indulgence and the Test Act.

"It would have been impossible to obtain the consent of the party in the Royal Council which represented the old Presbyterians, of Ashley or Lauderdale or the Duke of Buckingham, to the Treaty of Dover. But it was possible to trick them into approval of a war with Holland by playing on their desire for a toleration of the Nonconformists. The announcement of the King's Catholicism was therefore deferred. ... His ministers outwitted, it only remained for Charles to outwit his Parliament. A large subsidy was demanded for the fleet, under the pretext of upholding the Triple Alliance, and the subsidy was no sooner granted than the two Houses were adjourned. {897} Fresh supplies were obtained by closing the Exchequer, and suspending--under Clifford's advice--the payment of either principal or interest on loans advanced to the public treasury. The measure spread bankruptcy among half the goldsmiths of London; but it was followed in 1672 by one yet more startling--the Declaration of Indulgence. By virtue of his ecclesiastical powers, the King ordered 'that all manner of penal laws on matters ecclesiastical against whatever sort of Nonconformists or recusants should be from that day suspended,' and gave liberty of public worship to all dissidents save Catholics, who were allowed to practice their religion only in private houses. ... The Declaration of Indulgence was at once followed by a declaration of war against the Dutch on the part of both England and France. ... It was necessary in 1673 to appeal to the Commons [for war supplies], but the Commons met in a mood of angry distrust. ... There was a general suspicion that a plot was on foot for the establishment of Catholicism and despotism, and that the war and the Indulgence were parts of the plot. The change of temper in the Commons was marked by the appearance of what was from that time called the Country party, with Lords Russell and Cavendish and Sir William Coventry at its head--a party which sympathized with the Nonconformists, but looked on it as its first duty to guard against the designs of the Court. As to the Declaration of Indulgence, however, all parties in the House were at one. The Commons resolved 'that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by consent of Parliament,' and refused supplies till the Declaration was recalled. The King yielded; but the Declaration was no sooner recalled than a Test Act was passed through both Houses without opposition, which required from everyone in the civil and military employment of the State the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, a declaration against transubstantiation, and a reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. Clifford at once counseled resistance, and Buckingham talked flightily about bringing the army to London, but Arlington saw that all hope of carrying the 'great plan' through was at an end, and pressed Charles to yield. ... Charles sullenly gave way. No measure has ever brought about more startling results. The Duke of York owned himself a Catholic, and resigned his office as Lord High Admiral. ... Clifford, too, ... owned to being a Catholic, and ... laid down his staff of office. Their resignation was followed by that of hundreds of others in the army and the civil service of the Crown. ... The resignations were held to have proved the existence of the dangers which the Test Act had been passed to meet. From this moment all trust in Charles was at an end."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, section 3.

"It is very true that the [Test Act] pointed only at Catholics, that it really proposed an anti-Popish test, yet the construction of it, although it did not exclude from office such Dissenters as could occasionally conform, did effectually exclude all who scrupled to do so. Aimed at the Romanists, it struck the Presbyterians. It is clear that, had the Nonconformists and the Catholics joined their forces with those of the Court, in opposing the measure, they might have defeated it; but the first of these classes for the present submitted to the inconvenience, from the horror which they entertained of Popery, hoping, at the same time, that some relief would be afforded for this personal sacrifice in the cause of a common Protestantism. Thus the passing of an Act, which, until a late period, inflicted a social wrong upon two large sections of the community, is to be attributed to the course pursued by the very parties whose successors became the sufferers."

J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 3, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 4, chapter 8, and volume 5, chapter 1.

J. Collier, Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, part 2, book 9 (volume 8).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1674. Alliance with Louis XIV. of France in war with Holland.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1673. Loss of New York, retaken by the Dutch.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1674. Peace with the Dutch. Treaty of Westminster. Recovery of New York.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1675-1688. Concessions to France in Newfoundland.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1678-1679. The Popish Plot.

"There was an uneasy feeling in the nation that it was being betrayed, and just then [August, 1678] a strange story caused a panic throughout all England. A preacher of low character, named Titus Oates, who had gone over to the Jesuits, declared that he knew of a plot among the Catholics to kill the king and set up a Catholic Government. He brought his tale to a magistrate, named Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, and shortly afterwards [October 17] Godfrey was found murdered in a ditch near St. Pancras Church. The people thought that the Catholics had murdered him to hush up the 'Popish plot,' and when Parliament met a committee was appointed to examine into the matter. Some papers belonging to a Jesuit named Coleman alarmed them, and so great was the panic that an Act was passed shutting out all Catholics, except the Duke of York, from Parliament. After this no Catholic sat in either House for a hundred and fifty years. But worse followed. Oates became popular, and finding tale-bearing successful, he and other informers went on to swear away the lives of a great number of innocent Catholics. The most noted of these was Lord Stafford, an upright and honest peer, who was executed in 1681, declaring his innocence. Charles laughed among his friends at the whole matter, but let it go on, and Shaftesbury, who wished to turn out Lord Danby, did all he could to fan the flame."

A. B. Buckley, History of England for Beginners, chapter 19.

"The capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were busied in searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The train bands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for barricading the great thoroughfares. Patroles marched up and down the streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to brain the Popish assassins."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter. 2 (volume 1).

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"It being expected that printed Bibles would soon become rare, or locked up in an unknown tongue, many honest people, struck with the alarm, employed themselves in copying the Bible into short-hand that they might not be destitute of its consolations in the hour of calamity. ... It was about the year 1679 that the famous King's Head Club was formed, so named from its being held at the King's Head Tavern in Fleet Street. ... They were terrorists and spread alarm with great effect. It was at this club that silk armour, pistol proof, was recommended as a security against assassination at the hands of the Papists; and the particular kind of life-preserver of that day, called a Protestant flail, was introduced."

G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapter 5 (volume 1).

"And now commenced, before the courts of justice and the upper house, a sombre prosecution of the catholic lords Arundel, Petre, Stafford, Powis, Bellasis, the Jesuits Coleman, Ireland, Grieve, Pickering, and, in succession, all who were implicated by the indefatigable denunciations of Titus Oates and Bedloe. Unhappily, these courts of justice, desiring, in common with the whole nation, to condemn rather than to examine, wanted neither elements which might, if strictly acted upon, establish legal proof of conspiracy against some of the accused, nor terrible laws to destroy them when found guilty. And it was here that a spectacle, at first imposing, became horrible. No friendly voice arose to save those men who were guilty only of impracticable wishes, of extravagant conceptions. The king, the duke of York, the French ambassador, thoroughly acquainted as they were with the real nature of these imputed crimes, remained silent; they were thoroughly cowed."

A. Carrel, History of the Counter-Revolution in England, part 1, chapter 4.

"Although, ... upon a review of this truly shocking transaction, we may be fairly justified ... in imputing to the greater part of those concerned in it, rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity than the deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the perpetration of legal murders; yet the proceedings on the popish plot must always be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their respective, though certainly not equal, shares."

C. J. Fox, History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II., introduction, ch.

"In this dreadful scene of wickedness, it is difficult not to assign the pre-eminence of guilt to Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury. If he did not first contrive, he certainly availed himself of the revelations of Oates, to work up the nation to the fury which produced the subsequent horrors. ... In extenuation of the delusion of the populace, something may be offered. The defamation of half a century had made the catholics the objects of protestant odium and distrust: and these had been increased by the accusation, artfully and assiduously fomented, of their having been the authors of the fire of the city of London. The publication, too, of Coleman's letters, certainly announced a considerable activity in the catholics to promote the catholic religion; and contained expressions, easily distorted to the sense, in which the favourers of the belief of the plot wished them to be understood. Danby's correspondence, likewise, which had long been generally known, and was about this time made public, had discovered that Charles was in the pay of France. These, with several other circumstances, had inflamed the imaginations of the public to the very highest pitch. A dreadful something (and not the less dreadful because its precise nature was altogether unknown), was generally apprehended. ... For their supposed part in the plot, ten laymen and seven priests, one of whom was seventy, another eighty, years of age, were executed. Seventeen others were condemned, but not executed. Some died in prison, and some were pardoned. On the whole body of catholics the laws were executed with horrible severity."

C. Butler, Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, chapter 32, section 3 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapter 89 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (May). The Habeas Corpus Act.

"Arbitrary imprisonment is a grievance which, in some degree, has place in almost every government, except in that of Great Britain; and our absolute security from it we owe chiefly to the present Parliament; a merit which makes some atonement for the faction and violence into which their prejudices had, in other particulars, betrayed them. The great charter had laid the foundation of this valuable part of liberty; the petition of right had renewed and extended it; but some provisions were still wanting to render it complete, and prevent all evasion or delay from ministers and judges. The act of habeas corpus, which passed this session, served these purposes. By this act it was prohibited to send anyone to a prison beyond sea. No judge, under severe penalties, must refuse to any prisoner a writ of habeas corpus, by which the gaoler was directed to produce in court the body of the prisoner (whence the writ has its name), and to certify the cause of his detainer and imprisonment. If the gaol lie within twenty miles of the judge, the writ must be obeyed in three days; and so proportionably for greater distances; every prisoner must be indicted the first term after his commitment, and brought to trial in the subsequent term. And no man, after being enlarged by order of court, can be recommitted for the same offence."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 67 (volume 6).

"The older remedies serving as a safeguard against unlawful imprisonment, were--

1. The writ of Mainprise, ensuring the delivery of the accused to a friend of the same, who gave security to answer for his appearance before the court when required, and in token of such undertaking he held him by the hand ('le prit par le main').

2. The writ 'De odio et atiâ,' i. e., of hatred and malice, which, though not abolished, has long since been antiquated. ... It directed the sheriff to make inquisition in the county court whether the imprisonment proceeded from malice or not. ...

3. The writ 'De homine replegiando,' or replevying a man, that is, delivering him out on security to answer what may be objected against him.

A writ is, originally, a royal writing, either an open patent addressed to all to whom it may come, and issued under the great seal; or, 'litteræ clausæ,' a sealed letter addressed to a particular person; such writs were prepared in the royal courts or in the Court of Chancery. The most usual instrument of protection, however, against arbitrary imprisonment is the writ of 'Habeas corpus,' so called from its beginning with the words, 'Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum,' which, on account of its universal application and the security it affords, has, insensibly, taken precedence of all others. {899} This is an old writ of the common law, and must be prayed for in any of the Superior courts of common law. ... But this writ . . . proved but a feeble, or rather wholly ineffectual protection against the arbitrary power of the sovereign. The right of an English subject to a writ of habeas corpus, and to a release from imprisonment unless sufficient cause be shown for his detention, was fully canvassed in the first years of the reign of Charles I. ... The parliament endeavoured to prevent such arbitrary imprisonment by passing the 'Petition of Right,' which enacted that no freeman, in any such manner ... should be imprisoned or detained. Even this act was found unavailing against the malevolent interpretations put by the judges; hence the 16 Charles I., c. 10, was passed, which enacts, that when any person is restrained of his liberty by the king in person, or by the Privy Council, or any member thereof, he shall, on demand of his counsel, have a writ of habeas corpus, and, three days after the writ, shall be brought before the court to determine whether there is ground for further imprisonment, for bail, or for his release. Notwithstanding these provisions, the immunity of English subjects from arbitrary detention was not ultimately established in full practical efficiency until the passing of the statute of Charles II., commonly called the 'Habeas Corpus Act.'"

E. Fischel, The English Constitution, book 1, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: Sir W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, book 3, chapter 8.

H. J. Stephen, Commentaries, book 5, chapter 12, section 5 (volume 4).

The following is the text of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679:

I. Whereas great Delays have been used by Sheriffs, Gaolers and other Officers, to whose Custody any of the King's Subjects have been committed, for criminal or supposed criminal Matters, in making Returns of Writs of Habeas Corpus to them directed, by standing out an Alias and Pluries Habeas Corpus, and sometimes more, and by other Shifts, to avoid their yielding Obedience to such Writs, contrary to their Duty, and the known Laws of the Land, whereby many of the King's Subjects have been, and hereafter may be long detained in Prison, in such cases where by Law they are bailable, to their great Charges and Vexation.

II. For the Prevention whereof, and the more speedy Relief of all Persons imprisoned for any such Criminal, or supposed Criminal Matters: (2.) Be it Enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority thereof, that whensoever any Person or Persons shall bring any Habeas Corpus directed unto any Sheriff, or Sheriffs, Gaoler, Minister, or other Person whatsoever, for any Person in his or their Custody, and the said Writ shall be served upon the said Officer, or left at the Gaol or Prison, with any of the under Officers, under Keepers, or Deputy of the said Officers or Keepers, that the said Officer or Officers, his or their Under Officers, Under Keepers or Deputies, shall within three Days after the Service thereof, as aforesaid (unless the Commitment aforesaid were for Treason or Felony, plainly and specially expressed in the Warrant of Commitment), upon Payment or Tender of the Charges of bringing the said Prisoner, to be ascertained by the Judge or Court that awarded the same, and endorsed upon the said Writ, not exceeding Twelve-pence per Mile, and upon Security given by his own Bond, to pay the Charges of carrying back the Prisoner, if he shall be remanded by the Court or Judge, to which he shall be brought, according to the true Intent of this present Act, and that he will not make any Escape by the way, make Return of such Writ. (3.) And bring or cause to be brought the Body of the Party so committed or restrained, unto or before the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England for the time being, or the Judges or Barons of the said Court from whence the said Writ shall Issue, or unto and before such other Person or Persons before whom the said Writ is made returnable, according to the Command thereof. (4.) And shall then likewise certifie the true causes of his Detainer, or Imprisonment, unless the commitment of the said party be in any place beyond the Distance of twenty Miles from the Place or Places where such Court or Person is, or shall be residing; and if beyond the Distance of twenty Miles, and not above One Hundred Miles, then within the Space of Ten Days, and if beyond the Distance of One Hundred Miles, then within the space of Twenty Days, after such Delivery aforesaid, and not longer.

III. And to the Intent that no Sheriff, Gaoler or other Officer may pretend Ignorance of the Import of any such Writ, (2.) Be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That all such Writs shall be marked in this manner, Per Statutum Tricesimo Primo Caroli Secundi Regis, and shall be signed by the Person that awards the same. (3.) And if any Person or Persons shall be or stand committed or detained, as aforesaid, for any Crime, unless for Felony or Treason, plainly expressed in the Warrant of Commitment, in the Vacation-time, and out of Term, it shall and may be lawful to and for the Person or Persons so committed or detained (other than Persons convict, or in Execution by legal Process) or anyone on his or their Behalf, to appeal, or complain to the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or anyone of His Majesty's Justices, either of the one Bench, or of the other, or the Barons of the Exchequer of the Degree of the Coif. (4.) And the said Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, Justices, or Barons, or any of them, upon View of the Copy or Copies of the Warrant or Warrants of Commitment and Detainer, or otherwise upon Oath made, that such Copy or Copies were denied to be given by such Person or Persons in whose custody the Prisoner or Prisoners is or are detained, are hereby authorized and required, upon Request made in Writing by such Person or Persons, or any on his, her, or their Behalf, attested and subscribed by two Witnesses, who were present at the Delivery of the same, to award and grant an Habeas Corpus under the Seal of such Court, whereof he shall then be one of the Judges, (5.) to be directed to the Officer or Officers in whose Custody the Party so committed or detained shall be, returnable immediate before the said Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or such Justice, Baron, or any other Justice or Baron, of the Degree of the Coif, of any of the said Courts. (6.) And upon Service thereof as aforesaid, the Officer or Officers, his or their under Officer or under Officers, under Keeper or under Keepers, or their Deputy, in whose Custody the Party is so committed or detained, shall within the times respectively before limited, bring such Prisoner or Prisoners before the said Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or such Justices, Barons, or one of them, before whom the said Writ is made returnable, and in case of his Absence, before any of them, with the Return of such Writ, and the true Causes of the Commitment and Detainer. {900} (7.) And thereupon within two Days after the Party shall be brought before them the said Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or such Justice or Baron, before whom the Prisoner shall be brought as aforesaid, shall discharge the said Prisoner from his Imprisonment, taking his or their Recognizance, with one or more Surety or Sureties, in any Sum, according to their Discretions, having regard to the Quality of the Prisoner, and Nature of the Offence, for his or their Appearance in the Court of King's Bench the Term following, or at the next Assizes, Sessions, or general Gaol-Delivery, of and for such County, City or Place, where the Commitment was, or where the Offence was committed, or in such other Court where the said Offence is properly cognizable, as the Case shall require, and then shall certify the said Writ with the Return thereof, and the said Recognizance or Recognizances into the said Court, where such Appearance is to be made. (8.) Unless it shall appear unto the said Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or Justice, or Justices, or Baron or Barons, that the Party so committed is detained upon a legal Process, Order, or Warrant out of some Court that hath Jurisdiction of Criminal Matters, or by some Warrant signed and sealed with the Hand and Seal of any of the said Justices or Barons, or some Justice or Justices of the Peace, for such Matters or Offences, for the which by the Law, the Prisoner is not bailable.

IV. Provided always, and be it enacted, That if any Person shall have wilfully neglected by the Space of two whole Terms after his Imprisonment to pray a Habeas Corpus for his Enlargement, such Person so wilfully neglecting, shall not have any Habeas Corpus to be granted in Vacation-time in Pursuance of this Act.

V. And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That if any Officer or Officers, his or their under Officer, or under Officers, under Keeper or under Keepers, or Deputy, shall neglect or refuse to make the Returns aforesaid, or to bring the Body or Bodies of the Prisoner or Prisoners, according to the Command of the said Writ, within the respective times aforesaid, or upon Demand made by the Prisoner, or Person in his Behalf, shall refuse to deliver, or within the Space of six Hours after Demand shall not deliver, to the Person so demanding, a true Copy of the Warrant or Warrants of Commitment and Detainer of such Prisoner, which he and they are hereby required to deliver accordingly; all and every the Head Gaolers and Keepers of such Prisons, and such other Person, in whose Custody the Prisoner shall be detained, shall for the first Offence, forfeit to the Prisoner, or Party grieved, the Sum of One Hundred Pounds. (2.) And for the second Offence, the Sum of Two Hundred Pounds, and shall and is hereby made incapable to hold or execute his said Office. (3.) The said Penalties to be recovered by the Prisoner or Party grieved, his Executors or Administrators, against such Offender, his Executors or Administrators, by any Action of Debt, Suit, Bill, Plaint or Information, in any of the King's Courts at Westminster, wherein no Essoin, Protection, Priviledge, Injunction, Wager of Law, or stay of Prosecution, by Non vult ulterius prosequi, or otherwise, shall be admitted or allowed, or any more than one Imparlance. (4.) And any Recovery or Judgment at the Suit of any Party grieved, shall be a sufficient Conviction for the first Offence; and any after Recovery or Judgment at the Suit of a Party grieved, for any Offence after the first Judgment, shall be a sufficient Conviction to bring the Officers or Person within the said Penalty for the Second Offence.

VI. And for the Prevention of unjust Vexation, by reiterated Commitments for the same offence; (2.) Be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Person or Persons, which shall be delivered or set at large upon any Habeas Corpus, shall at any time hereafter be again imprisoned or committed for the same Offence, by any Person or Persons whatsoever, other than by the legal Order and Process of such Court wherein he or they shall be bound by Recognizance to appear, or other Court having Jurisdiction of the Cause. (3.) And if any other Person or Persons shall knowingly, contrary to this Act, recommit or imprison, or knowingly procure or cause to be recommitted or imprisoned for the same Offence, or pretended Offence, any Person or Persons delivered or set at large as aforesaid, or be knowingly aiding or assisting therein, then he or they shall forfeit to the Prisoner or Party grieved, the Sum of Five Hundred Pounds; any colourable Pretence or Variation in the Warrant or Warrants of Commitment notwithstanding, to be recovered as aforesaid.

VII. Provided always, and be it further enacted, That if any Person or Persons shall be committed for High Treason or Felony, plainly and specially expressed in the Warrant of Commitment, upon his Prayer or Petition in open Court the first Week of the Term, or first Day of the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, or general Gaol Delivery, to be brought to his Tryal, shall not be indicted sometime in the next Term, Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, or general Gaol-Delivery after such Commitment, it shall and may be lawful to and for the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, and Justices of Oyer and Terminer, or general Gaol-Delivery, and they are hereby required, upon Motion to them made in open Court the last Day of the Term, Sessions or Gaol-Delivery, either by the Prisoner, or anyone in his Behalf, to set at Liberty the Prisoner upon Bail, unless it appear to the Judges and Justices upon Oath made, that the Witnesses for the King could not be produced the same Term, Sessions, or general Gaol-Delivery. (2.) And if any Person or Persons committed as aforesaid, upon his Prayer or Petition in open Court, the first Week of the Term, or first Day of the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, and general Gaol-Delivery, to be brought to his Tryal, shall not be indicted and tryed the second Term, Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, or general Gaol-Delivery, after his Commitment, or upon his Tryal shall be acquitted, he shall be discharged from his Imprisonment.

VIII. Provided always, that nothing in this Act shall extend to discharge out of Prison, any Person charged in Debt, or other Action, or with Process in any Civil Cause, but that after he shall be discharged of his Imprisonment for such his criminal Offence, he shall be kept in Custody, according to the Law for such other Suit.

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IX. Provided always, and be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That if any Person or Persons, Subjects of this Realm, shall be committed to any Prison, or in Custody of any Officer or Officers whatsoever, for any Criminal or supposed Criminal Matter, that the said Person shall not be removed from the said Prison and Custody, into the Custody of any other Officer or Officers. (2.) Unless it be by Habeas Corpus, or some other legal Writ; or where the Prisoner is delivered to the Constable or other inferiour Officer, to carry such Prisoner to some common Gaol. (3.) Or where any Person is sent by Order of any Judge of Assize, or Justice of the Peace, to any common Workhouse, or House of Correction. (4.) Or where the Prisoner is removed from one Prison or Place to another within the same County, in order to his or her Tryal or Discharge in due Course of Law. (5.) Or in case of sudden Fire, or Infection, or other Necessity. (6.) And if any Person or Persons shall after such Commitment aforesaid, make out and sign, or countersign, any Warrant or Warrants for such Removal aforesaid, contrary to this Act, as well he that makes or signs, or countersigns, such Warrant or Warrants, as the Officer or Officers, that obey or execute the same, shall suffer & incur the Pains & Forfeitures in this Act before-mentioned, both for the 1st & 2nd Offence, respectively, to be recover'd in manner aforesaid, by the Party grieved.

X. Provided also, and be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That it shall and may be lawful to and for any Prisoner & Prisoners as aforesaid, to move, and obtain his or their Habeas Corpus, as well out of the High Court of Chancery, or Court of Exchequer, as out of the Courts of King's Bench, or Common Pleas, or either of them. (2.) And if the said Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or any Judge or Judges, Baron or Barons for the time being, of the Degree of the Coif, of any of the Courts aforesaid, in the Vacation time, upon view of the Copy or Copies of the Warrant or Warrants of Commitment or Detainer, or upon Oath made that such Copy or Copies were denied as aforesaid, shall deny any Writ of Habeas Corpus by this Act required to be granted, being moved for as aforesaid, they shall severally forfeit to the Prisoner or Party grieved, the Sum of Five Hundred Pounds, to be recovered in manner aforesaid.

XI. And be it declared and enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That an Habeas Corpus according to the true Intent and meaning of this Act, may be directed, and run into any County Palatine, the Cinque Ports, or other priviledged Places, within the Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, and the Isles of Jersey or Guernsey, any Law or Usage to the contrary notwithstanding.

XII. And for preventing illegal Imprisonments in Prisons beyond the Seas; (2.) Be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Subject of this Realm that now is, or hereafter shall be, an Inhabitant or Resiant of this Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, shall or may be sent Prisoner into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Tangier, or into Parts, Garrisons, Islands, or Places beyond the Seas, which are, or at any time hereafter shall be within or without the Dominions of his Majesty, his Heirs or Successors. (3.) And that every such Imprisonment is hereby enacted and adjudged to be illegal. (4.) And that if any of the said Subjects now is, or hereafter shall be so imprisoned, every such Person and Persons so imprisoned, shall and may for every such Imprisonment, maintain by Virtue of this Act, an Action or Actions of False Imprisonment, in any of his Majesty's Courts of Record, against the Person or Persons by whom he or she shall be so committed, detained, imprisoned, sent Prisoner or transported, contrary to the true meaning of this Act, and against all or any Person or Persons, that shall frame, contrive, write, seal or countersign any Warrant or Writing for such Commitment, Detainer, Imprisonment or Transportation, or shall be advising, aiding or assisting in the same, or any of them. (5.) And the Plaintiff in every such Action, shall have judgment to recover his treble Costs, besides Damages; which Damages so to be given, shall not be less than Five Hundred Pounds. (6.) In which Action, no Delay, Stay, or Stop of Proceeding, by Rule, Order or Command, nor no Injunction, Protection, or Priviledge whatsoever, nor any more than one Imparlance shall be allowed, excepting such Rule of the Court wherein the Action shall depend, made in open Court, as shall be thought in justice necessary, for special Cause to be expressed in the said Rule. (7.) And the Person or Persons who shall knowingly frame, contrive, write, seal or countersign any Warrant for such Commitment, Detainer, or Transportation, or shall so commit, detain, imprison, or transport any Person or Persons contrary to this Act, or be any ways advising, aiding or assisting therein, being lawfully convicted thereof, shall be disabled from thenceforth to bear any Office of Trust or Profit within the said Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, or any of the Islands, Territories or Dominions thereunto belonging. (8.) And shall incur and sustain the Pains, Penalties, and Forfeitures, limited, ordained, and Provided in and by the Statute of Provision and Premunire made in the Sixteenth Year of King Richard the Second. (9.) And be incapable of any Pardon from the King, his Heirs or Successors, of the said Forfeitures, Losses, or Disabilities, or any of them.

XIII. Provided always, That nothing in this Act shall extend to give Benefit to any Person who shall by Contract in Writing, agree with any Merchant or Owner, of any Plantation, or other Person whatsoever, to be transported to any part beyond the Seas, and receive Earnest upon such Agreement, altho' that afterwards such Person shall renounce such Contract.

XIV. Provided always, and be it enacted, That if any Person or Persons, lawfully convicted of any Felony, shall in open Court pray to be transported beyond the Seas, and the Court shall think fit to leave him or them in Prison for that Purpose, such Person or Persons may be transported into any Parts beyond the Seas; This Act, or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

XV. Provided also, and be it enacted, That nothing herein contained, shall be deemed, construed, or taken to extend to the Imprisonment of any Person before the first Day of June, One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy and Nine, or to any thing advised, procured, or otherwise done, relating to such Imprisonment; Any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

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XVI. Provided also, That if any Person or Persons, at any time resiant in this Realm, shall have committed any Capital Offence in Scotland or Ireland, or any of the Islands, or foreign Plantations of the King, his Heirs or Successors, where he or she ought to be tryed for such Offence, such Person or Persons may be sent to such Place, there to receive such Tryal, in such manner as the same might have been used before the making this Act; Any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

XVII. Provided also, and be it enacted, That no Person or Persons, shall be sued, impleaded, molested or troubled for any Offence against this Act, unless the Party offending be sued or impleaded for the same within two Years at the most after such time wherein the Offence shall be committed, in Case the Party grieved shall not be then in Prison; and if he shall be in Prison, then within the space of two Years after the Decease of the Person imprisoned, or his, or her Delivery out of Prison, which shall first happen.

XVIII. And to the Intent no Person may avoid his Tryal at the Assizes, or general Gaol Delivery, by procuring his Removal before the Assizes at such time as he cannot be brought back to receive his Tryal there; (2.) Be it enacted, That after the Assizes proclaimed for that County where the Prisoner is detained, no Person shall be removed from the Common Gaol upon any Habeas Corpus granted in pursuance of this Act, but upon any such Habeas Corpus shall be brought before the Judge of Assize in open Court, who is thereupon to do what to Justice shall appertain.

XIX. Provided nevertheless, That after the Assizes are ended, any Person or Persons detained may have his or her Habeas Corpus, according to the Direction and Intention of this Act.

XX. And be it also enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That if any Information, Suit or Action, shall be brought or exhibited against any Person or Persons, for any Offence committed or to be committed against the Form of this Law, it shall be lawful for such Defendants to plead the general Issue, that they are not guilty, or that they owe nothing, and to give such special Matter in Evidence to the Jury, that shall try the same, which Matter being pleaded, had been good and sufficient matter in Law to have discharged the said Defendant or Defendants against the said Information, Suit or Action, and the said Matter shall be then as available to him or them, to all Intents and Purposes, as if he or they had sufficiently pleaded, set forth, or alleged the same Matter in Bar, or Discharge of such Information, Suit or Action.

XXI. And because many times Persons charged with Petty-Treason or Felony, or as Accessaries thereunto, are committed upon Suspicion only, whereupon they are bailable or not, according as the Circumstances making out that Suspicion are more or less weighty, which are best known to the Justices of Peace that committed the Persons, and have the Examinations before them, or to other Justices of the Peace in the County; (2.) Be it therefore enacted, That where any Person shall appear to be committed by any Judge, or Justice of the Peace, and charged as necessary before the Fact, to any Petty-Treason or Felony, or upon Suspicion thereof, or with Suspicion of Petty-Treason or Felony, which Petty-Treason or Felony, shall be plainly and specially expressed in the Warrant of Commitment, that such Person shall not be removed or bailed by Virtue of this Act, or in any other manner than they might have been before the making of this Act.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (June). The Meal-tub Plot.

"Dangerfield, a subtle and dexterous man, who had gone through all the shapes and practices of roguery, and in particular was a false coiner, undertook now to coin a plot for the ends of the papists. He ... got into all companies, and mixed with the hottest men of the town, and studied to engage others with himself to swear that they had been invited to accept of commissions, and that a new form of government was to be set up, and that the king and the royal family were to be sent away. He was carried with this story, first to the duke, and then to the king, and had a weekly allowance of money, and was very kindly used by many of that side; so that a whisper run about town, that some extraordinary thing would quickly break out: and he having some correspondence with one colonel Mansel, he made up a bundle of seditious but ill contrived letters, and laid them in a dark corner of his room: and then some searchers were sent from the custom house to look for some forbidden goods, which they heard were in Mansel's chamber. There were no goods found: but as it was laid, they found that bundle of letters: and upon that a great noise was made of a discovery: but upon inquiry it appeared the letters were counterfeited, and the forger of them was suspected; so they searched into all Dangerfield's haunts, and in one of them they found a paper that contained the scheme of this whole fiction, which, because it was found in a meal-tub, came to be called the meal-tub plot. ... This was a great disgrace to the popish party, and the king suffered much by the countenance he had given him."

G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 3, 1679.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1679-1681. The Exclusion Bill.

"Though the duke of York was not charged with participation in the darkest schemes of the popish conspirators, it was evident that his succession was the great aim of their endeavours, and evident also that he had been engaged in the more real and undeniable intrigues of Coleman. His accession to the throne, long viewed with just apprehension, now seemed to threaten such perils to every part of the constitution as ought not supinely to be waited for, if any means could be devised to obviate them. This gave rise to the bold measure of the exclusion bill, too bold, indeed, for the spirit of the country, and the rock on which English liberty was nearly shipwrecked. In the long parliament, full as it was of pensioners and creatures of court influence, nothing so vigorous would have been successful. ... But the zeal they showed against Danby induced the king to put an end [January 24, 1679] to this parliament of seventeen years' duration; an event long ardently desired by the popular party, who foresaw their ascendancy in the new elections. The next house of commons accordingly came together with an ardour not yet quenched by corruption; and after reviving the impeachments commenced by their predecessors, and carrying a measure long in agitation, a test which shut the catholic peers out of parliament, went upon the exclusion bill [the second reading of which was carried, May 21, 1679, by 207 to 128].

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Their dissolution put a stop to this; and in the next parliament the lords rejected it [after the commons had passed the bill, without a division, October, 1680]. ... The bill of exclusion ... provided that the imperial crown of England should descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons successively during the life of the duke of York as would have inherited or enjoyed the same in case he were naturally dead. ... But a large part of the opposition had unfortunately other objects in view." Under the contaminating influence of the earl of Shaftesbury, "they broke away more and more from the line of national opinion, till a fatal reaction involved themselves in ruin, and exposed the cause of public liberty to its most imminent peril. The countenance and support of Shaftesbury brought forward that unconstitutional and most impolitic scheme of the duke of Monmouth's succession. [James, duke of Monmouth, was the acknowledged natural son of king Charles, by Lucy Walters, his mistress while in exile at the Hague.] There could hardly be a greater insult to a nation used to respect its hereditary line of kings, than to set up the bastard of a prostitute, without the least pretence of personal excellence or public services, against a princess of known virtue and attachment to the protestant religion. And the effrontery of this attempt was aggravated by the libels eagerly circulated to dupe the credulous populace into a belief of Monmouth's legitimacy."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: A. Carrel, History of the Counter-Revolution in England, part 2, chapter 1.

G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapter 4-8 (volume 1).

G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 3, 1679-81.

Sir W. Temple, Memoirs, part 3 (Works, volume 2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1680. Whigs and Tories acquire their respective names.

"Factions indeed were at this time [A. D. 1680] extremely animated against each other. The very names by which each party denominated its antagonist discover the virulence and rancour which prevailed. For besides petitioner and abhorrer, appellations which were soon forgotten, this year is remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of Whig and Tory, by which, and sometimes without any material difference, this island has been so long divided. The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of Whigs: the country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the appellation of Tory was affixed: and after this manner these foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 68 (volume 6).

"The definition of the nickname Tory, as it originally arose, is given in 'A New Ballad' (Narcissus Luttrell's Collection):--

The word Tory's of Irish Extraction, 'Tis a Legacy that they have left here They came here in their brogues, And have acted like Rogues, In endeavouring to learn us to swear."

J. Grego, History of Parliamentary Elections, page 36.

ALSO IN: G. W. Cooke, History of Party, volume 1, chapter 2.

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 2.

For the origin of the name of the 'Whig party,

See WHIGS (WIGGAMORS); also, RAPPAREES.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683. The Tory reaction and the downfall of the Whigs. The Rye-house Plot.

"Shaftesbury's course rested wholly on the belief that the penury of the Treasury left Charles at his mercy, and that a refusal of supplies must wring from the King his assent to the exclusion. But the gold of France had freed the King from his thraldom. He had used the Parliament [of 1681] simply to exhibit himself as a sovereign whose patience and conciliatory temper was rewarded with insult and violence; and now that he saw his end accomplished, he suddenly dissolved the Houses in April, and appealed in a Royal declaration to the justice of the nation at large. The appeal was met by an almost universal burst of loyalty. The Church rallied to the King; his declaration was read from every pulpit; and the Universities solemnly decided that 'no religion, no law, no fault, no forfeiture' could avail to bar the sacred right of hereditary succession. ... The Duke of York returned in triumph to St. James's. ... Monmouth, who had resumed his progresses through the country as a means of checking the tide of reaction, was at once arrested. ... Shaftesbury, alive to the new danger, plunged desperately into conspiracies with a handful of adventurers as desperate as himself, hid himself in the City, where he boasted that ten thousand 'brisk boys' were ready to appear at his call, and urged his friends to rise in arms. But their delays drove him to flight. ... The flight of Shaftesbury proclaimed the triumph of the King. His wonderful sagacity had told him when the struggle was over and further resistance useless. But the Whig leaders, who had delayed to answer the Earl's call, still nursed projects of rising in arms, and the more desperate spirits who had clustered around him as he lay hidden in the City took refuge in plots of assassination, and in a plan for murdering Charles and his brother as they passed the Rye-house [a Hertfordshire farm house, so-called] on their road from London to Newmarket. Both the conspiracies were betrayed, and, though they were wholly distinct from one another, the cruel ingenuity of the Crown lawyers blended them into one. Lord Essex, the last of an ill-fated race, saved himself from a traitor's death by suicide in the Tower. Lord Russell, convicted on a charge of sharing in the Rye-house Plot, was beheaded in Lincoln Inn Fields. The same fate awaited Algernon Sidney. Monmouth fled in terror over sea, and his flight was followed by a series of prosecutions for sedition directed against his followers. In 1683 the Constitutional opposition which had held Charles so long in check lay crushed at his feet. ... On the very day when the crowd around Russell's scaffold were dipping their handkerchiefs in his blood, as in the blood of a martyr, the University of Oxford solemnly declared that the doctrine of passive obedience, even to the worst of rulers, was a part of religion." During the brief remainder of his reign Charles was a prudently absolute monarch, governing without a Parliament, coolly ignoring the Triennial Act, and treating on occasions the Test Act, as well as other laws obnoxious to him, with contempt. He died unexpectedly, early in February, 1685, and his brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne, as James II., with no resistance, but with much feeling opposed to him.

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, sections 5-6.

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ALSO IN: G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth; chapters 8-10 (volume 1).

D. Hume, History of England, chapters 68-69 (volume 6).

G. W. Cooke, History of Party, volume 1, chapters 6-11.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685. Accession of James II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (February). The new King proclaims his religion.

"The King [James II.] early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the proof. While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came to pay their duty to him might see the ceremony. When the host was elevated there was a strange confusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell on their knees: the Protestants hurried out of the room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace; and, during Lent, a series of sermons was preached there by Popish divines."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 4 (volume 2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (May-July). Monmouth's Rebellion.

"The Parliament which assembled on the 22nd of May ... was almost entirely Tory. The failure of the Rye-House Plot had produced a reaction, which for a time entirely annihilated the Whig influence. ... The apparent triumph of the King and the Tory party was completed by the disastrous failure of the insurrection planned by their adversaries. A knot of exiled malcontents, some Scotch, some English, had collected in Holland. Among them was Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle, son of that Marquis of Argyle who had taken so prominent a part on the Presbyterian side in the Scotch troubles of Charles I.'s reign. Monmouth had kept aloof from politics till, on the accession of James, he was induced to join the exiles at Amsterdam, whither Argyle, a strong Presbyterian, but a man of lofty and moderate views, also repaired. National jealousy prevented any union between the exiles, and two expeditions were determined on,--the one under Argyle, who hoped to find an army ready to his hand among his clansmen in the West of Scotland, the other under Monmouth in the West of England. Argyle's expedition set sail on the 2nd of May [1685]. ... Argyle's invasion was ruined by the limited authority intrusted to him, and by the jealousy and insubordination of his fellow leaders. ... His army disbanded. He was himself taken in Renfrewshire, and, after an exhibition of admirable constancy, was beheaded. ... A week before the final dispersion of Argyle's troops, Monmouth had landed in England [at Lyme, June 11]. He was well received in the West. He had not been twenty-four hours in England before he found himself at the head of 1,500 men; but though popular among the common people, he received no support from the upper classes. Even the strongest Whigs disbelieved the story of his legitimacy, and thought his attempt ill-timed and fraught with danger. ... Meanwhile Monmouth had advanced to Taunton, had been there received with enthusiasm, and, vainly thinking to attract the nobility, had assumed the title of King. Nor was his reception at Bridgewater less flattering. But difficulties already began to gather round him; he was in such want of arms, that, although rustic implements were converted into pikes, he was still obliged to send away many volunteers; the militia were closing in upon him in all directions; Bristol had been seized by the Duke of Beaufort, and the regular army under Feversham and Churchill were approaching." After feebly attempting several movements, against Bristol and into Wiltshire, Monmouth lost heart and fell back to Bridgewater. "The Royalist army was close behind him, and on the fifth of July encamped about three miles from Bridgewater, on the plain of Sedgemoor." Monmouth was advised to undertake a night surprise, and did so in the early morning of the 6th. "The night was not unfitting for such an enterprise, for the mist was so thick that at a few paces nothing could be seen. Three great ditches by which the moor was drained lay between the armies; of the third of these, strangely enough, Monmouth knew nothing." The unexpected discovery of this third ditch, known as "the Bussex Rhine," which his cavalry could not cross, and behind which the enemy rallied, was the ruin of the enterprise. "Monmouth saw that the day was lost, and with the love of life which was one of the characteristics of his soft nature, he turned and fled. Even after his flight the battle was kept up bravely. At length the arrival of the King's artillery put an end to any further struggle. The defeat was followed by all the terrible scenes which mark a suppressed insurrection. ... Monmouth and Grey pursued their flight into the New Forest, and were there apprehended in the neighbourhood of Ringwood." Monmouth petitioned abjectly for his life, but in vain. He was executed on the 15th of July. "The failure of this insurrection was followed by the most terrible cruelties. Feversham returned to London, to be flattered by the King and laughed at by the Court for his military exploits. He left Colonel Kirke in command at Bridgewater. This man had learned, as commander at Tangier, all the worst arts of cruel despotism. His soldiery in bitter pleasantry were called Kirke's 'Lambs,' from the emblem of their regiment. It is impossible to say how many suffered at the hands of this man and his brutal troops; 100 captives are said by some to have been put to death the week after the battle. But this military revenge did not satisfy the Court."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, pages 764-768.

The number of Monmouth's men killed is computed by some at 2,000, by others at 300; a disparity, however, which may be easily reconciled by supposing that the one account takes in those who were killed in battle, while the other comprehends the wretched fugitives who were massacred in ditches, cornfields, and other hiding places, the following day."

C. J. Fox, History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II., chapter 3.

ALSO IN: G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapters 13-28 (volumes 1-2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (September). The Bloody Assizes.

"Early in September, Jeffreys [Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench], accompanied by four other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as long as our race and language. ... At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his commission. Hampshire had not been the theatre of war; but many of the vanquished rebels had, like their leader, fled thither." Two among these had been found concealed in the house of Lady Alice Lisle, a widow of eminent nobility of character, and Jeffreys' first proceeding was to arraign Lady Alice for the technical reason of the concealment. {905} She was tried with extraordinary brutality of manner on the part of the judge; the jury was bullied into a verdict of guilty, and the innocent woman was condemned by the fiend on the bench to be burned alive. By great exertion of many people, the sentence was commuted from burning to beheading. No mercy beyond this could be obtained from Jeffreys or his fit master, the king. "In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only victim: but, on the day following her execution, Jeffreys reached Dorchester, the principal town of the county in which Monmouth had landed, and the judicial massacre began. The court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the multitude to indicate a bloody purpose. ... More than 300 prisoners were to be tried. The work seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for making it light. He let it be understood that the only chance of obtaining pardon or respite was to plead guilty. Twenty-nine persons, who put themselves on their country and were convicted, were ordered to be tied up without delay. The remaining prisoners pleaded guilty by scores. Two hundred and ninety-two received sentence of death. The whole number hanged in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four. From Dorchester Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had barely grazed the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore, comparatively few persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire, the chief seat of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last and most fearful vengeance. In this county two hundred and thirty-three prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn and quartered. At every spot where two roads met, on every market place, on the green of every large village which had furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air, and made the traveller sick with horror. ... The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits rose higher and higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way that many thought him drunk from morning to night. ... Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest. ... Yet those rebels who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than some of the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable to bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of misdemeanours and were sentenced to scourging not less terrible than that which Oates had undergone. ... The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who suffered death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed favour at court. The conditions of the gift were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their banishment should be some West Indian island. ... It was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. There was therefore much angry competition for grants. ... And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned to claim his reward. He arrived at Windsor from the West, leaving carnage, mourning and terror behind him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. ... But at the court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with interest and delight. ... At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the wicked Judge and the wicked King attempted to vindicate themselves by throwing the blame on each other."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: Sir James Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England, chapter 1.

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapter 100 (volume 3).

G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapter 29-31 (volume 2).

See, also, TAUNTON: A. D. 1685.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1686. Faithless and tyrannical measures against the New England colonies.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687; and MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1689. The Despotism of James II. in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1681-1689.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1686. The Court of High Commission revived.

"James conceived the design of employing his authority as head of the Church of England as a means of subjecting that church to his pleasure, if not of finally destroying it. It is hard to conceive how he could reconcile to his religion the exercise of supremacy in an heretical sect, and thus sanction by his example the usurpations of the Tudors on the rights of the Catholic Church. ... He, indeed, considered the ecclesiastical supremacy as placed in his hands by Providence to enable him to betray the Protestant establishment. 'God,' said he to Barillon, 'has permitted that all the laws made to establish Protestantism now serve as a foundation for my measures to re-establish true religion, and give me a right to exercise a more extensive power than other Catholic princes possess in the ecclesiastical affairs of their dominions.' He found legal advisers ready with paltry expedients for evading the two statutes of 1641 and 1660 [abolishing, and re-affirming the abolition of the Court of High Commission], under the futile pretext that they forbade only a court vested with such powers of corporal punishment as had been exercised by the old Court of High Commission; and in conformity to their pernicious counsel, he issued, in July, a commission to certain ministers, prelates, and judges, to act as a Court of Commissioners in Ecclesiastical Causes. The first purpose of this court was to enforce directions to preachers, issued by the King, enjoining them to abstain from preaching on controverted questions."

Sir James Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 5, chapter 3.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1686. The consolidation of New England under a royal Governor-General.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1687. Riddance of the Test Act by royal dispensing power.

"The abolition of the tests was a thing resolved upon in the catholic council, and for this a sanction of some kind or other was required, as they dared not yet proceed upon the royal will alone. Chance, or the machinations of the catholics, created an affair which brought the question of the tests under another form before the court of king's bench. {906} This court had not the power to abolish the Test Act, but it might consider whether the king had the right of exempting particular subjects from the formalities. ... The king ... closeted himself with the judges one by one, dismissed some, and got those who replaced them, 'ignorant men,' says an historian, 'and scandalously incompetent,' to acknowledge his dispensing power. ... The judges of the king's bench, after a trial, ... declared, almost in the very language used by the crown counsel:

1. That the kings of England are sovereign princes;

2. That the laws of England are the king's laws;

3. That therefore it is an inseparable prerogative in the kings of England to dispense with penal laws in particular cases, and upon particular necessary reasons;

4. That of those reasons, and those necessities, the king himself is sole judge; and finally, which is consequent upon all,

5. That this is not a trust invested in, or granted to the king by the people, but the ancient remains of the sovereign power and prerogative of the kings of England, which never yet was taken from them, nor can be.

The case thus decided, the king thought he might rely upon the respect always felt by the English people for the decisions of the higher courts, to exempt all his catholic subjects from the obligations of the test. And upon this, it became no longer a question merely of preserving in their commissions and offices those whose dismissal had been demanded by parliament. ... To obtain or to retain certain employments, it was necessary to be of the same religion with the king. Papists replaced in the army and in the administration all those who had pronounced at all energetically for the maintenance of the tests. Abjurations, somewhat out of credit during the last session of parliament, again resumed favour."

A. Carrel, History of the Counter-Revolution in England, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 4, chapter 4.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688. Declarations of Indulgence. Trial of the Seven Bishops.

"Under pretence of toleration for Dissenters, James endeavoured, under another form, to remove obstacles from Romanists. He announced an Indulgence. He began in Scotland by issuing on the 12th of February, 1687, in Edinburgh, a Proclamation granting relief to scrupulous consciences. Hereby he professed to relieve the Presbyterians, but the relief of them amounted to nothing; to the Romanists it was complete. ... On the 18th of March, 1687, he announced to the English Privy Council his intention to prorogue Parliament, and to grant upon his own authority entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. Accordingly on the 4th of April he published his Indulgence, declaring his desire to see all his subjects become members of the Church of Rome, and his resolution (since that was impracticable) to protect them in the free exercise of their religion; also promising to protect the Established Church: then he annulled a number of Acts of Parliament, suspended all penal laws against Nonconformists, authorised Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform worship publicly, and abrogated all Acts of Parliament imposing any religious test for civil or military offices. This declaration was then notoriously illegal and unconstitutional. James now issued a second and third declaration for Scotland, and courted the Dissenters in England, but with small encouragement. ... On the 27th of April, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of Indulgence for England. ... On the 4th of May, by an order in Council, he directed his Declaration of the 27th of April to be publicly read during divine service in all Churches and Chapels, by the officiating ministers, on two successive Sundays--namely, on the 20th and 27th of May in London, and on the 3d and 10th of June in the country; and desired the Bishops to circulate this Declaration through their dioceses. Hitherto the Bishops and Clergy had held the doctrine of passive obedience to the sovereign, however bad in character or in his measures--now they were placed by the King himself in a dilemma. Here was a violation of existing law, and an intentional injury to their Church, if not a plan for the substitution of another. The Nonconformists, whom James pretended to serve, coincided with and supported the Church. A decided course must be taken. The London Clergy met and resolved not to read the Declaration. On the 12th of May, at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Prelates assembled. They resolved that the Declaration ought not to be read. On Friday, the 18th of May, a second meeting of the Prelates and eminent divines was held at Lambeth Palace. A petition to the King was drawn up by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own handwriting, disclaiming all disloyalty and all intolerance, ... but stating that Parliament had decided that the King could not dispense with Statutes in matters ecclesiastical--that the Declaration was therefore illegal--and could not be solemnly published by the petitioners in the House of God and during divine service. This paper was signed by Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawny of Bristol. It was approved by Compton, Bishop of London, but not signed, because he was under suspension. The Archbishop had long been forbidden to appear at Court, therefore could not present it. On Friday evening the six Bishops who had signed were introduced by Sunderland to the King, who read the document and pronounced it libellous [and seditious and rebellious], and the Bishops retired. On Sunday, the 20th of May, the first day appointed, the Declaration was read in London only in four Churches out of one hundred. The Dissenters and Church Laymen sided with the Clergy. On the following Sunday the Declaration was treated in the same manner in London, and on Sunday, the 3d of June, was disregarded by Bishops and Clergy in all parts of England. James, by the advice of Jeffreys, ordered the Archbishop and Bishops to be indicted for a seditious libel. They were, on the 8th of June, conveyed to the Tower amidst the most enthusiastic demonstrations of respect and affection from all classes. The same night the Queen was said to have given birth to a son; but the national opinion was that some trick had been played. On the 29th of June the trial of the seven Bishops came on before the Court of King's Bench. ... The Jury, who, after remaining together all night (one being stubborn) pronounced a verdict of not guilty on the morning of the 30th June, 1688."

W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 2.

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"The court met at nine o'clock. The nobility and gentry covered the benches, and an immense concourse of people filled the Hall, and blocked up the adjoining streets. Sir Robert Langley, the foreman of the jury, being, according to established form, asked whether the accused were guilty or not guilty, pronounced the verdict 'Not guilty.' No sooner were these words uttered than a loud huzza arose from the audience in the court. It was instantly echoed from without by a shout of joy, which sounded like a crack of the ancient and massy roof of Westminster Hall. It passed with electrical rapidity from voice to voice along the infinite multitude who waited in the streets. It reached the Temple in a few minutes. ... 'The acclamations,' says Sir John Reresby, 'were a very rebellion in noise.' In no long time they ran to the camp at Hounslow, and were repeated with an ominous voice by the soldiers in the hearing of the King, who, on being told that they were for the acquittal of the bishops, said, with an ambiguity probably arising from confusion, 'So much the worse for them.'"

Sir J. Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England in 1688, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: _A. Strickland, Lives of the Seven Bishops._

R. Southey, Book of the Church, chapter 18.

G. G. Perry, History of the Church of England, chapter 30 (volume 2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (July). William and Mary of Orange the hope of the nation.

"The wiser among English statesmen had fixed their hopes steadily on the succession of Mary, the elder daughter and heiress of James. The tyranny of her father's reign made this succession the hope of the people at large. But to Europe the importance of the change, whenever it should come about, lay not so much in the succession of Mary as in the new power which such an event would give to her husband, William, Prince of Orange. We have come, in fact, to a moment when the struggle of England against the aggression of its King blends with the larger struggle of Europe against the aggression of Lewis XIV."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, section 7.

"William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the republic of the United Provinces, was, before the birth of the Prince of Wales, first prince of the blood royal of England [as son of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I., and, therefore, nephew as well as son-in-law of James II.]; and his consort, the Lady Mary, the eldest daughter of the King, was, at that period, presumptive heiress to the crown."

Sir J. Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England, chapter 10.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (JULY-NOVEMBER). Invitation to William of Orange and his acceptance of it.

"In July, in almost exact coincidence of time with the Queen's accouchement [generally doubted and suspected], came the memorable trial of the Seven Bishops, which gave the first demonstration of the full force of that popular animosity which James's rule had provoked. Some months before, however, Edward Russell, nephew of the Earl of Bedford, and cousin of Algernon Sidney's fellow-victim, had sought the Hague with proposals to William [prince of Orange] to make an armed descent upon England, as vindicator of English liberties and the Protestant religion. William had cautiously required a signed invitation from at least a few representative statesmen before committing himself to such an enterprise, and on the day of the acquittal of the Seven Bishops a paper, signed in cipher by Lords Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley, by Compton, Bishop of Northampton, by Edward Russell, and by Henry Sidney, brother of Algernon, was conveyed by Admiral Herbert to the Hague. William was now furnished with the required security for English assistance in the projected undertaking, but the task before him was still one of extreme difficulty. ... On the 10th of October, matters now being ripe for such a step, William, in conjunction with some of his English advisers, put forth his famous declaration. Starting with a preamble to the effect that the observance of laws is necessary to the happiness of states, the instrument proceeds to enumerate fifteen particulars in which the laws of England had been set at naught. The most important of these were--

(1) the exercise of the dispensing power;

(2) the corruption, coercion, and packing of the judicial bench;

(3) the violation of the test laws by the appointment of papists to offices (particularly judicial and military offices, and the administration of Ireland), and generally the arbitrary and illegal measures resorted to by James for the propagation of the Catholic religion;

(4) the establishment and action of the Court of High Commission;

(5) the infringement of some municipal charters, and the procuring of the surrender of others;

(6) interference with elections by turning out of all employment such as refused to vote as they were required; and

(7) the grave suspicion which had arisen that the Prince of Wales was not born of the Queen, which as yet nothing had been done to remove.

Having set forth these grievances, the Prince's manifesto went on to recite the close interest which he and his consort had in this matter as next in succession to the crown, and the earnest solicitations which had been made to him by many lords spiritual and temporal, and other English subjects of all ranks, to interpose, and concluded by affirming in a very distinct and solemn manner that the sole object of the expedition then preparing was to obtain the assembling of a free and lawful Parliament, to which the Prince pledged himself to refer all questions concerning the due execution of the laws, and the maintenance of the Protestant religion, and the conclusion of an agreement between the Church of England and the Dissenters, as also the inquiry into the birth of the 'pretended Prince of Wales'; and that this object being attained, the Prince would, as soon as the state of the nation should permit of it, send home his foreign forces. About a week after, on the 16th of October, all things being now in readiness, the Prince took solemn leave of the States-General. ... On the 19th William and his armament set sail from Helvoetsluys, but was met on the following day by a violent storm which forced him to put back on the 21st. On the 1st of November the fleet put to sea a second time. ... By noon of the 5th of November, the Prince's fleet was wafted safely into Torbay."

H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: _G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, 1688 (volume 3)._

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 18, chapters 1-4 (volume 4).

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapters 106-107: Somers (volume 4).

T. P. Courtenay, Life of Danby (Lardner's Cab. Cyclop.), pages 315-324.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER). The Revolution. Ignominious flight of James.

"The declaration published by the prince [on landing] consisted of sixteen articles. It enumerated those proceedings of the government since the accession of the king, which were regarded as in the greatest degree opposed to the liberty of the subject and to the safety of the Protestant religion. ... To provide some effectual remedy against these and similar evils, was the only design of the enterprise in which the prince, in compliance with earnest solicitations from many lords, both spiritual and temporal, from numbers among the gentry and all ranks of people, had now embarked. ... Addresses were also published to the army and navy. ... The immediate effect of these appeals did not correspond with the expectations of William and his followers. On the 8th of November the people of Exeter received the prince with quiet submission. The memory of Monmouth's expedition was still fresh and terrible through the west. On the 12th, lord Cornbury, son of the earl of Clarendon, went over, with some officers, and about a hundred of his regiment, to the prince; and most of the officers, with a larger body of the privates belonging to the regiment commanded by the duke of St. Alban's, followed their example. Of three regiments, however, quartered near Salisbury, the majority could not be induced to desert the service of the king. ... Every day now brought with it new accessions to the standard of the prince, and tidings of movements in different parts of the kingdom in his favour; while James was as constantly reminded, by one desertion after another, that he lived in an atmosphere of treachery, with scarcely a man or woman about him to be trusted. The defection of the lords Churchill and Drumlaneric, and of the dukes of Grafton and Ormond, was followed by that of prince George and the princess Anne. Prince George joined the invader at Sherburne; the princess made her escape from Whitehall at night, under the guardianship of the bishop of London, and found an asylum among the adherents of the prince of Orange who were in arms in Northamptonshire. By this time Bristol and Plymouth, Hull, York, and Newcastle, were among the places of strength which had been seized by the partisans of the prince. His standard had also been unfurled with success in the counties of Derby, Nottingham, York, and Cheshire. ... Even in Oxford, several of the heads of colleges concurred in sending Dr. Finch, warden of All Souls' College, to invite the prince from Dorsetshire to their city, assuring him of their willingness to receive him, and to melt down their plate for his service, if it should be needed. So desperate had the affairs of James now become, that some of his advisers urged his leaving the kingdom, and negotiating with safety to his person from a distance; but from that course he was dissuaded by Halifax and Godolphin. In compliance with the advice of an assembly of peers, James issued a proclamation on the 13th of November, stating that writs had been signed to convene a parliament on the 15th of January; that a pardon of all offences should previously pass the great seal; and that commissioners should proceed immediately to the head-quarters of the prince of Orange, to negotiate on the present state of affairs. The commissioners chosen by the king were Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin; but William evaded for some days the conference which they solicited. In the meantime a forged proclamation in the name of the prince was made public in London, denouncing the Catholics of the metropolis as plotting the destruction of life and property on the largest possible scale. ... No one doubted the authenticity of this document, and the ferment and disorder which it spread through the city filled the king with the greatest apprehension for the safety of himself and family. On the morning of the 9th of December, the queen and the infant prince of Wales were lodged on board a yacht at Gravesend, and commenced a safe voyage to Calais. James pledged himself to follow within 24 hours. In the course of that day the royal commissioners sent a report of their proceedings to Whitehall. The demands of the prince were, that a parliament should be assembled; that all persons holding public trusts in violation of the Test-laws should relinquish them; that the city should have command of the Tower; that the fleet, and the places of strength through the kingdom should be placed in the hands of Protestants; that the expense of the Dutch armament should be defrayed, in part, from the English Treasury; and that the king and the prince, and their respective forces, should remain at an equal distance from London during the sitting of parliament. James read these articles with some surprise, observing that they were much more moderate than he had expected. But his pledge had been given to the queen; the city was still in great agitation; and private letters, intimating that his person was not beyond the reach of danger, suggested that his interests might possibly be better served by his absence than by his presence. Hence his purpose to leave the kingdom remained unaltered. At three o'clock on the following morning the king left Whitehall with sir Edward Hales, disguising himself as an attendant. The vessel provided to convey him to France was a miserable fishing-boat. It descended the river without interruption until it came near to Feversham, where some fishermen, suspecting Hales and the king to be Catholics, probably priests endeavouring to make their escape in disguise, took them from the vessel. ... The arrest of the monarch at Feversham on Wednesday was followed by an order of the privy council, commanding that his carriage and the royal guards should be sent to reconduct him to the capital. ... After some consultation the king was informed that the public interests required his immediate withdrawment to some distance from Westminster, and Hampton Court was named. James expressed a preference for Rochester, and his wishes in that respect were complied with. The day on which the king withdrew to Rochester William took up his residence in St. James's. The king chose his retreat, deeming it probable that it might be expedient for him to make a second effort to reach the continent. ... His guards left him so much at liberty, that no impediment to his departure was likely to arise; and on the last day of this memorable year--only a week after his removal from Whitehall, James embarked secretly at Rochester, and with a favourable breeze safely reached the French coast."

R. Vaughan, History of England under the House of Stuart, volume 2, pages 914-918.

ALSO IN: Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapters 9-10 (volume 2).

H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapter 4.

Continuation of Sir J. Mackintosh's History of the Revolution in 1688, chapters 16-17.

Sir J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 1, books 6-7 (volume 2).

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY). The settlement of the Crown on William and Mary. The Declaration of Rights.

"The convention met on the 22nd of January. Their first care was to address the prince to take the administration of affairs and disposal of the revenue into his hands, in order to give a kind of parliamentary sanction to the power he already exercised. On the 28th of January the commons, after a debate in which the friends of the late king made but a faint opposition, came to their great vote: That king James II., having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant. They resolved unanimously the next day, That it hath been found by experience inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a popish prince. This vote was a remarkable triumph of the Whig party, who had contended for the exclusion bill. ... The lords agreed with equal unanimity to this vote; which, though it was expressed only as an abstract proposition, led by a practical inference to the whole change that the whigs had in view. But upon the former resolution several important divisions took place." The lords were unwilling to commit themselves to the two propositions, that James had "abdicated" the government by his desertion of it, and that the throne had thereby become "vacant." They yielded at length, however, and adopted the resolution as the commons had passed it. They "followed this up by a resolution, that the prince and princess of Orange shall be declared king and queen of England, and all the dominions thereunto belonging. But the commons, with a noble patriotism, delayed to concur in this hasty settlement of the crown, till they should have completed the declaration of those fundamental rights and liberties for the sake of which alone they had gone forward with this great revolution. That declaration, being at once an exposition of the mis-government which had compelled them to dethrone the late king, and of the conditions upon which they elected his successors, was incorporated in the final resolution to which both houses came on the 13th of February, extending the limitation of the crown as far as the state of affairs required: That William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, be, and be declared, king and queen of England, France and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the crown and dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to them, the said prince and princess, during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in, and executed by, the said prince of Orange, in the names of the said prince and princess, during their joint lives; and after their decease the said crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to be to the heirs of the body of the said princess; for default of such issue, to the princess Anne of Denmark [younger daughter of James II.], and the heirs of her body; and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the body of the said prince of Orange. ... The Declaration of Rights presented to the prince of Orange by the marquis of Halifax, as speaker of the lords, in the presence of both houses, on the 18th of February, consists of three parts: a recital of the illegal and arbitrary acts committed by the late king, and of their consequent vote of abdication; a declaration, nearly following the words of the former part, that such enumerated acts are illegal; and a resolution, that the throne shall be filled by the prince and princess of Orange, according to the limitations mentioned. ... This declaration was, some months afterwards [in October], confirmed by a regular act of the legislature in the bill of rights."

See ENGLAND: 1689 (OCTOBER).

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapters 14-15 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 10 (volume 2).

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 19, chapters 2-3 (volume 4).

R. Gneist, History of English Constitution, chapter 42 (volume 2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST). The Church and the Revolution. The Toleration Act. The Non-Jurors.

"The men who had been most helpful in bringing about the late changes were not all of the same way of thinking in religion; many of them belonged to the Church of England; many were Dissenters. It seemed, therefore, a fitting time to grant the Dissenters some relief from the harsh laws passed against them in Charles II.'s reign. Protestant Dissenters, save those who denied the Trinity, were no longer forbidden to have places of worship and services of their own, if they would only swear to be loyal to the king, and that his power was as lawful in Church as in State matters. The law that gave them this is called the Toleration Act. Men's notions were still, however, very narrow; care was taken that the Roman Catholics should get no benefit from this law. Even a Protestant Dissenter might not yet lawfully be a member of either House of Parliament, or take a post in the king's service; for the Test Acts were left untouched. King William, who was a Presbyterian in his own land, wanted very much to see the Dissenters won back to the Church of England. To bring this about, he wished the Church to alter those things in the Prayer Book which kept Dissenters from joining with her. But most of the clergy would not have any change; and because these were the stronger party in Convocation--as the Parliament of the Church is called--William could get nothing done. At the same time a rent, which at first seemed likely to be serious, was made in the Church itself. There was a strong feeling among the clergy in favour of the banished king. So a law was made by which every man who held a preferment in the Church, or either of the Universities, had to swear to be true to King William and Queen Mary, or had to give up his preferment. Most of the clergy were very unwilling to obey this law; but only 400 were found stout-hearted enough to give up their livings rather than do what they thought to be a wicked thing. These were called 'non-jurors,' or men who would not swear. Among them were five out of the seven Bishops who had withstood James II. only a year before. The sect of non-jurors, who looked upon themselves as the only true Churchmen, did not spread. But it did not die out altogether until seventy years ago [i. e., early in the 19th century]. It was at this time that the names High-Church and Low-Church first came into use."

J. Rowley, The Settlement of the Constitution, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 5, chapters 4-11.

_T. Lathbury, History of the Non-jurors._

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (MAY). War declared against France. The Grand Alliance.

See FRANCE: A.. D. 1689-1690.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (OCTOBER). The Bill of Rights.

The following is the text of the Bill of Rights, passed by Parliament at its sitting in October, 1689:

Whereas the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely representing all the estates of the people of this realm, did upon the Thirteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty-eight [o. s.], present unto their Majesties, then called and known by the names and style of William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, being present in their proper persons, a certain Declaration in writing, made by the said Lords and Commons, in the words following, viz.:

"Whereas the late King James II., by the assistance of divers evil counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom:

1. By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws, and the execution of laws, without consent of Parliament.

2. By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power.

3. By issuing and causing to be executed a commission under the Great Seal for erecting a court, called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes.

4. By levying money for and to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament.

5. By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace, without consent of Parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law.

6. By causing several good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when Papists were both armed and employed contrary to law.

7. By violating the freedom of election of members to serve in Parliament.

8. By prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for matters and causes cognisable only in Parliament, and by divers other arbitrary and illegal causes.

9. And whereas of late years, partial, corrupt, and unqualified persons have been returned, and served on juries in trials, and particularly divers jurors in trials for high treason, which were not freeholders.

10. And excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subjects.

11. And excessive fines have been imposed; and illegal and cruel punishments inflicted.

12. And several grants and promises made of fines and forfeitures before any conviction or judgment against the persons upon whom the same were to be levied.

All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws and statutes, and freedom of this realm. And whereas the said late King James II. having abdicated the government, and the throne being thereby vacant, his Highness the Prince of Orange (whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious instrument of delivering this kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power) did (by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and divers principal persons of the Commons) cause letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, being Protestants, and other letters to the several counties, cities, universities, boroughs, and Cinque ports, for the choosing of such persons to represent them as were of right to be sent to Parliament, to meet and sit at Westminster upon the two-and-twentieth day of January, in this year One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty and Eight, in order to such an establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties might not again be in danger of being subverted; upon which letters elections have been accordingly made. And thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled in a full and free representation of this nation, taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare:

1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of Parliament, is illegal.

2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal.

3. That the commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all other commissions and courts of like nature, are illegal and pernicious.

4. That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence and prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal.

5. That it is the right of the subjects to petition the King, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.

6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law.

7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.

8. That election of members of Parliament ought to be free.

9. That the freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in Parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.

10. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

11. That jurors ought to be duly impanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders.

12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void.

13. And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, Parliament ought to be held frequently.

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And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties; and that no declarations, judgments, doings or proceedings, to the prejudice of the people in any of the said premises, ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into consequence or example. To which demand of their rights they are particularly encouraged by the declaration of his Highness the Prince of Orange, as being the only means for obtaining a full redress and remedy therein. Having therefore an entire confidence that his said Highness the Prince of Orange will perfect the deliverance so far advanced by him, and will still preserve them from the violation of their rights, which they have here asserted, and from all other attempts upon their religion, rights, and liberties:

II. The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at Westminster, do resolve, that William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be declared, King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to them the said Prince and Princess during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in, and executed by, the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princess, during their joint lives; and after their deceases, the said crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to be to the heirs of the body of the said Princess; and for default of such issue to the Princess Anne of Denmark, and the heirs of her body; and for default of such issue to the heirs of the body of the said Prince of Orange. And the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do pray the said Prince and Princess to accept the same accordingly.

III. And that the oaths hereafter mentioned be taken by all persons of whom the oaths of allegiance and supremacy might be required by law instead of them; and that the said oaths of allegiance and supremacy be abrogated. 'I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear, That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary: So help me God.' 'I, A. B., do swear, That I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure as impious and heretical that damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever. And I do declare, that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm: So help me God.'"

IV. Upon which their said Majesties did accept the crown and royal dignity of the kingdoms of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, according to the resolution and desire of the said Lords and Commons contained in the said declaration.

V. And thereupon their Majesties were pleased, that the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, being the two Houses of Parliament, should continue to sit, and with their Majesties' royal concurrence make effectual provision for the settlement of the religion, laws and liberties of this kingdom, so that the same for the future might not be in danger again of being subverted; to which the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, did agree and proceed to act accordingly.

VI. Now in pursuance of the premises, the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, for the ratifying, confirming, and establishing the said declaration, and the articles, clauses, matters, and things therein contained, by the force of a law made in due form by authority of Parliament, do pray that it may be declared and enacted, That all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and claimed in the said declaration are the true, ancient, and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom, and so shall be esteemed, allowed, adjudged, deemed, and taken to be, and that all and every the particulars aforesaid shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed, as they are expressed in the said declaration; and all officers and ministers whatsoever shall serve their Majesties and their successors according to the same in all times to come.

VII. And the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, seriously considering how it hath pleased Almighty God, in his marvellous providence, and merciful goodness to this nation, to provide and preserve their said Majesties' royal persons most happily to reign over us upon the throne of their ancestors, for which they render unto Him from the bottom of their hearts their humblest thanks and praises, do truly, firmly, assuredly, and in the sincerity of their hearts, think, and do hereby recognise, acknowledge, and declare, that King James II. having abdicated the Government, and their Majesties having accepted the Crown and royal dignity as aforesaid, their said Majesties did become, were, are, and of right ought to be, by the laws of this realm, our sovereign liege Lord and Lady, King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, in and to whose princely persons the royal state, crown, and dignity of the said realms, with all honours, styles, titles, regalities, prerogatives, powers, jurisdictions, and authorities to the same belonging and appertaining, are most fully, rightfully, and entirely invested and incorporated, united, and annexed.

VIII. And for preventing all questions and divisions in this realm, by reason of any pretended titles to the Crown, and for preserving a certainty in the succession thereof, in and upon which the unity, peace, tranquillity, and safety of this nation doth, under God, wholly consist and depend, the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do beseech their Majesties that it may be enacted, established, and declared, that the Crown and regal government of the said kingdoms and dominions, with all and singular the premises thereunto belonging and appertaining, shall be and continue to their said Majesties, and the survivor of them, during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them. And that the entire, perfect, and full exercise of the regal power and government be only in, and executed by, his Majesty, in the names of both their Majesties, during their joint lives; and after their deceases the said Crown and premises shall be and remain to the heirs of the body of her Majesty: and for default of such issue, to her Royal Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark, and the heirs of her body; and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the body of his said Majesty: And thereunto the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities, for ever: and do faithfully promise, that they will stand to, maintain, and defend their said Majesties, and also the limitation and succession of the Crown herein specified and contained, to the utmost of their powers, with their lives and estates, against all persons whatsoever that shall attempt anything to the contrary.

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IX. And whereas it hath been found by experience, that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a Popish prince, or by any king or queen marrying a Papist, the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do further pray that it may be enacted, That all and every person and persons that is, are, or shall be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with, the See or Church of Rome, or shall profess the Popish religion, or shall marry a Papist, shall be excluded, and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and Government of this realm, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, or any part of the same, or to have, use, or exercise, any regal power, authority, or jurisdiction within the same; and in all and every such case or cases the people of these realms shall be and are hereby absolved of their allegiance, and the said Crown and government shall from time to time descend to, and be enjoyed by, such person or persons, being Protestants, as should have inherited and enjoyed the same, in case the said person or persons so reconciled, holding communion, or professing, or marrying, as aforesaid, were naturally dead.

X. And that every King and Queen of this realm, who at any time hereafter shall come to and succeed in the Imperial Crown of this kingdom, shall, on the first day of the meeting of the first Parliament, next after his or her coming to the Crown, sitting in his or her throne in the House of Peers, in the presence of the Lords and Commons therein assembled, or at his or her coronation, before such person or persons who shall administer the coronation oath to him or her, at the time of his or her taking the said oath (which shall first happen), make, subscribe, and audibly repeat the declaration mentioned in the statute made in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Charles II., intituled "An Act for the more effectual preserving the King's person and Government, by disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament." But if it shall happen that such King or Queen, upon his or her succession to the Crown of this realm, shall be under the age of twelve years, then every such King or Queen shall make, subscribe, and audibly repeat the said declaration at his or her coronation, or the first day of meeting of the first Parliament as aforesaid, which shall first happen after such King or Queen shall have attained the said age of twelve years.

XI. All which their Majesties are contented and pleased shall be declared, enacted, and established by authority of this present Parliament, and shall stand, remain, and be the law of this realm for ever; and the same are by their said Majesties, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, declared, enacted, or established accordingly.

XII. And be it further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after this present session of Parliament, no dispensation by "non obstante" of or to any statute, or any part thereof, shall be allowed, but that the same shall be held void and of no effect, except a dispensation be allowed of in such statute, and except in such cases as shall be specially provided for by one or more bill or bills to be passed during this present session of Parliament.

XIII. Provided that no charter, or grant, or pardon granted before the three-and-twentieth day of October, in the year of our Lord One thousand six hundred eighty-nine, shall be any ways impeached or invalidated by this Act, but that the same shall be and remain of the same force and effect in law, and no other, than as if this Act had never been made.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1689-1696. The war of the League of Augsburg, or the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV. (called in American history "King William's War ").

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690; 1689-1691; 1692; 1693 (JULY); 1694; 1695-1696.

Also, CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; 1692-1697; and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694--1697.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1690 (JUNE). The Battle of Beachy Head. The great peril of the kingdom.

"In June, 1690, whilst William was in Ireland, the French sent a fleet, under Tourville, to threaten England. He left Brest and entered the British Channel. Herbert (then Earl of Torrington) commanded the English fleet lying in the Downs, and sailed to Saint Helens, where he was joined by the Dutch fleet under Evertsen. On the 26th of June the English and French fleets were close to each other, and an important engagement was expected, when unexpectedly Torrington abandoned the Isle of Wight and retreated towards the Straits of Dover. ... The Queen and her Council, receiving this intelligence, sent to Torrington peremptory orders to fight. Torrington received these orders on the 29th June. Next day he bore down on the French fleet in order of battle. He had less than 60 ships of the line, whilst the French had 80. He placed the Dutch in the van, and during the whole fight rendered them little or no assistance. He gave the signal to engage, which was immediately obeyed by Evertsen, who fought with the most splendid courage, but at length, being unsupported, his second in command and many other officers of high rank having fallen, and his ships being fearfully shattered, Evertsen was obliged to draw off his contingent from the unequal battle. Torrington destroyed some of these injured ships, took the remainder in tow, and sailed along the coast of Kent for the Thames. When in that river he pulled up all the buoys to prevent pursuit. ... Upon his return to London he was sent to the Tower, and in December was tried at Sheerness by court-martial, and on the third day was acquitted; but William refused to see him, and ordered him to be dismissed from the navy."

W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 24.

"There has scarcely ever been so sad a day in London as that on which the news of the Battle of Beachy Head arrived. The shame was insupportable; the peril was imminent. ... At any moment London might be appalled by news that 20,000 French veterans were in Kent. It was notorious that, in every part of the kingdom, the Jacobites had been, during some months, making preparations for a rising. All the regular troops who could be assembled for the defence of the island did not amount to more than 10,000 men. It may be doubted whether our country has ever passed through a more alarming crisis than that of the first week of July 1690."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 15 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: J. Campbell, Naval History of Great Britain, chapter 18 (volume 2).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1690-1691. Defeat of James and the Jacobites in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1692. The new charter to Massachusetts as a royal province.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1689-1692.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1692. Attempted invasion from France. Battle of La Hogue.

"The diversion in Ireland having failed, Louis wished to make an effort to attack England without and within. James II., who had turned to so little advantage the first aid granted by the King of France saw therefore in preparation a much more powerful assistance, and obtained what had been refused him after the days of the Boyne and Beachy-Head,--an army to invade England. News received from that country explained this change in the conduct of Louis. The opinion of James at Versailles was no better than in the past; but England was believed to be on the eve of counter-revolution, which it would be sufficient to aid with a vigorous and sudden blow. ... Many eminent personages, among the Whigs as well as among the Tories, among others the Duke of Marlborough (Churchill), had opened a secret correspondence with the royal exile at Saint-Germain. James had secret adherents in the English fleet which he had so long commanded before reigning, and believed himself able to count on Rear-Admiral Carter, and even on Admiral Russell. Louis gave himself up to excessive confidence in the result of these plots, and arranged his plan of naval operations accordingly. An army of 30,000 men, with 500 transports, was assembled on the coast of Normandy, the greater part at La Hogue and Cherbourg, the rest at Havre: this was composed of all the Irish troops, a number of Anglo-Scotch refugees, and a corps of French troops. Marshal de Bellefonds commanded under King James. Tourville was to set ut from Brest in the middle of April with fifty ships of the line, enter the Channel, attack the English fleet before it could be reinforced by the Dutch, and thus secure the invasion. Express orders were sent to him to engage the enemy 'whatever might be his numbers.' It was believed that half of the English fleet would go over to the side of the allies of its king. The landing effected, Tourville was to return to Brest, to rally there the squadron of Toulon, sixteen vessels strong, and the rest of our large ships, then to hold the Channel during the whole campaign. They had reckoned without the elements, which, hitherto hostile to the enemies of France, this time turned against her." The French fleets were detained by contrary winds and by incomplete preparations. Tourville was not reinforced, as he expected to be, by the squadrons of Toulon and Rochefort. Before he found it possible to sail from Brest, the Jacobite plot had been discovered in England, the government was on its guard, and the Dutch and English fleets had made their junction. Still, the French admiral was under orders which left him no discretion, and he went out to seek the enemy. "May 29, at daybreak, between the Capes of La Hogue and Barfleur, Tourville found himself in presence of the allied fleet, the most powerful that had ever appeared on the sea. He had been joined by seven ships from the squadron of Rochefort, and numbered 44 vessels against 99, 78 of which carried over 50 guns, and, for the most part, were much larger than a majority of the French. The English had 63 ships and [4,540] guns; the Dutch, 36 ships and 2,614 guns; in all, 7,154 guns; the French counted only 3,114. The allied fleet numbered nearly 42,000 men; the French fleet less than 20,000." Notwithstanding this great inferiority of numbers and strength, it was the French fleet which made the attack, bearing down under full sail "on the immense mass of the enemy." The attempt was almost hopeless; and yet, when night fell, after a day of tremendous battle, Tourville had not yet lost a ship; but his line of battle had been broken, and no chance of success remained. "May 30, at break of day, Tourville rallied around him 35 vessels. The other nine had strayed, five towards La Hogue, four towards the English coast, whence they regained Brest. If there had been a naval port at La Hogue or at Cherbourg, as Colbert and Vauban had desired, the French fleet would have preserved its laurels! There was no place of retreat on all that coast. The fleet of the enemy advanced in full force. It was impossible to renew the prodigious effort of the day before." In this emergency, Tourville made a daring attempt to escape with his fleet through the dangerous channel called the Race of Alderney, which separates the Channel Islands from the Normandy coast. Twenty-two vessels made the passage safely and found a place of refuge at St. Malo; thirteen were too late for the tide and failed. Most of these were destroyed, during the next few days, by the English and Dutch at Cherbourg and in the bay of La Hogue,--in the presence and under the guns of King James' army of invasion. "James II. had reason to say that 'his unlucky star' everywhere shed a malign influence around him; but this influence was only that of his blindness and incapacity. Such was that disaster of La Hogue, which has left among us such a fatal renown, and the name of which resounds in our history like another Agincourt or Cressy. Historians have gone so far as to ascribe to this the destruction of the French navy. ... La Hogue was only a reprisal for Beachy-Head. The French did not lose in it a vessel more than the allies had lost two years before, and the 15 vessels destroyed were soon replaced."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV: (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 2.'

ALSO IN: Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 18 (volume 4).

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 20, chapter 4 (volume 5).

Sir J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 2, book 7 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1695. Expiration of censorship law. Appearance of first newspapers.

See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1695.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1696-1749. Measures of commercial and industrial restriction in the American colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1697. The Peace of Ryswick. Recognition of William III. by France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1698. The founding of Calcutta.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1698-1700. The question of the Spanish Succession. The Treaties of Partition. The Spanish king's will.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1701. The Act of Settlement. The source of the sovereignty of the House of Hanover or Brunswick.

"William and Mary had no children; and in 1700 the young Duke of Gloucester, the only child of Anne that lived beyond infancy, died. There was now no hope of there being anyone to inherit the crown by the Bill of Rights after the death of William and of Anne. In 1701, therefore, Parliament settled the crown on the Electress Sophia of Hanover, and her heirs. Sophia was one of the children of that Elizabeth, daughter of James I., who in 1613 had married the Palsgrave Frederick. She was chosen to come after William and Anne because she was the nearest to the Stuart line who was a Protestant. The law that did this is called the Act of Settlement; it gives Queen Victoria her title to the throne. Parliament in passing it tried to make the nation's liberties still safer. It was now made impossible (1) for any foreigner to sit in Parliament or to hold an office under the Crown; (2). for the king to go to war in defence of countries that did not belong to England, unless Parliament gave him leave; or (3) to pardon anyone so that the Commons might not be able to impeach him."

J. Rowley, The Settlement of the Constitution, book 1, chapter 5.

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"Though the choice was truly free in the hands of parliament, and no pretext of absolute right could be advanced on any side, there was no question that the princess Sophia was the fittest object of the nation's preference. She was indeed very far removed from any hereditary title. Besides the pretended prince of Wales, and his sister, whose legitimacy no one disputed, there stood in her way the duchess of Savoy, daughter of Henrietta duchess of Orleans, and several of the Palatine family. These last had abjured the reformed faith, of which their ancestors had been the strenuous assertors; but it seemed not improbable that some one might return to it. ... According to the tenor and intention of the act of settlement, all prior claims of inheritance, save that of the issue of king William and the princess Anne, being set aside and annulled, the princess Sophia became the source of a new royal line. The throne of England and Ireland, by virtue of the paramount will of parliament, stands entailed upon the heirs of her body, being protestants. In them the right is as truly hereditary as it ever was in the Plantagenets or the Tudors. But they derive it not from those ancient families. The blood indeed of Cerdic and of the Conqueror flows in the veins of his present majesty [George IV.]. Our Edwards and Henries illustrate the almost unrivalled splendour and antiquity of the house of Brunswic. But they have transmitted no more right to the allegiance of England than Boniface of Este or Henry the Lion. That rests wholly on the act of settlement, and resolves itself into the sovereignty of the legislature.

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 15 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, book 10 (volume 2).

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702. The rousing of the nation to war with France.

When Louis XIV. procured and accepted for his grandson the bequest of the Spanish crown, throwing over the Partition Treaty, "William had the intolerable chagrin of discovering not only that he had been befooled, but that his English subjects had no sympathy with him or animosity against the royal swindler who had tricked him. 'The blindness of the people here,' he writes sadly to the Pensionary Heinsius, 'is incredible. For though the affair is not public, yet it was no sooner said that the King of Spain's will was in favour of the Duke of Anjou, that it was the general opinion that it was better for England that France should accept the will than fulfil the Treaty of Partition.' ... William dreaded the idea of a Bourbon reigning at Madrid, but he saw no very grave objection, as the two treaties showed, to Naples and Sicily passing into French hands. With his English subjects the exact converse was the case. They strongly deprecated the assignment of the Mediterranean possessions of the Spaniard to the Dauphin; but they were undisturbed by the sight of the Duke of Anjou seating himself on the Spanish throne. ... But just as, under a discharge from an electric battery, two repugnant chemical compounds will sometimes rush into sudden combination, so at this juncture the King and the nation were instantaneously united by the shock of a gross affront. The hand that liberated the uniting fluid was that of the Christian king. On the 16th of September 1701 James II. breathed his last at St. Germains, and, obedient to one of those impulses, half-chivalrous, half-arrogant, which so often determined his policy, Louis XIV. declared his recognition of the Prince of Wales as de jure King of England. No more timely and effective assistance to the policy of its de facto king could possibly have been rendered. Its effect upon English public opinion was instantaneous; and when William returned from Holland on the 4th of November, he found the country in the temper in which he could most have wished it to be." Dissolving the Parliament in which his plans had long been factiously opposed, he summoned a new one, which met on the last day of the year 1701. "Opposition in Parliament--in the country it was already inaudible--was completely silenced. The two Houses sent up addresses assuring the King of their firm resolve to defend the succession against the pretended Prince of Wales and all other pretenders whatsoever. ... Nor did the goodwill of Parliament expend itself in words. The Commons accepted without a word of protest the four treaties constituting the new Grand Alliance. ... The votes of supply were passed unanimously." But scarcely had the nation and the King arrived at this agreement with one another than the latter was snatched from his labors. On the 21st of February, 1702, William received an injury, through the stumbling of his horse, which his frail and diseased body could not bear. His death would not have been long delayed in any event, but it was hastened by this accident, and occurred on the 8th of March following. He was succeeded by Anne, the sister of his deceased queen, Mary, and second daughter of the deposed Stuart king, James II.

H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapters 14-15.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 21, chapters 7-10 (volume 5).

See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702. Accession of Queen Anne.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702. Union of rival East India Companies.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702. The War of the Spanish Succession. Failure at Cadiz. The treasure ships in Vigo Bay. Marlborough's first campaigns.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1702; and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1711. The War of the Spanish Succession in America (called "Queen Anne's War").

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1714. The Age of Anne in literature.

"That which was once called the Augustan age of English literature was specially marked by the growing development of a distinct literary class. It was a period of transition from the early system of the patronage of authors to the later system of their professional independence. Patronage was being changed into influence. The system of subscription, by which Pope made his fortune, was a kind of joint-stock patronage. The noble did not support the poet, but induced his friends to subscribe. The noble, moreover, made another discovery. He found that he could dispense a cheaper and more effective patronage than of old by patronising at the public expense. During the reign of Queen Anne, the author of a successful poem or an effective pamphlet might look forward to a comfortable place. The author had not to wear the livery, but to become the political follower, of the great man. Gradually a separation took place. The minister found it better to have a regular corps of politicians and scribblers in his pay than occasionally to recruit his ranks by enlisting men of literary taste. And, on the other hand, authors, by slow degrees, struggled into a more independent position as their public increased. In the earlier part of the century, however, we find a class of fairly cultivated people, sufficiently numerous to form a literary audience, and yet not so numerous as to split into entirely distinct fractions. The old religious and political warfare has softened; the statesman loses his place, but not his head; and though there is plenty of bitterness, there is little violence. We have thus a brilliant society of statesmen, authors, clergymen, and lawyers, forming social clubs, meeting at coffee-houses, talking scandal and politics, and intensely interested in the new social phenomena which emerge as the old order decays; more excitable, perhaps, than their fathers, but less desperately in earnest, and waging a constant pamphleteering warfare upon politics, literature, and theology, which is yet consistent with a certain degree of friendly intercourse. The essayist, the critic, and the novelist appear for the first time in their modern shape; and the journalist is slowly gaining some authority as the wielder of a political force. The whole character of contemporary literature, in short, is moulded by the social conditions of the class for which and by which it was written, still more distinctly than by the ideas current in contemporary speculation. ... Pope is the typical representative of the poetical spirit of the day. He may or may not be regarded as the intellectual superior of Swift or Addison; and the most widely differing opinions may be formed of the intrinsic merits of his poetry. The mere fact, however, that his poetical dynasty was supreme to the end of the century proved that, in some sense, he is a most characteristic product. Nor is it hard to see the main sources of his power. Pope had at least two great poetical qualities. He was amongst the most keenly sensitive of men, and he had an almost unique felicity of expression, which has enabled him to coin more proverbs than any writer since Shakespeare. Sensitive, it may be said, is a polite word for morbid, and his felicity of phrase was more adapted to coin epigrams than poetry. The controversy is here irrelevant. Pope, whether, as I should say, a true poet, or, as some have said, only the most sparkling of rhymesters, reflects the thoughts of his day with a curious completeness. ... There is, however, another wide province of literature in which writers of the eighteenth century did work original in character and of permanent value. If the seventeenth century is the great age of dramatists and theologians, the eighteenth century was the age in which the critic, the essayist, the satirist, the novelist, and the moralist first appeared, or reached the highest mark. Criticism, though still in its infancy, first became an independent art with Addison. Addison and his various colleagues set the first example of that kind of social essay which is still popular. Satire had been practised in the preceding century, and in the hands of Dryden had become a formidable political weapon; but the social satire of which Pope was, and remains, the chief master, began with the century, and may be said to have expired with it, in spite of the efforts of Byron and Gifford. De Foe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett developed the modern novel out of very crude rudiments; and two of the greatest men of the century, Swift and Johnson, may be best described as practical moralists in a vein peculiar to the time. ... The English novel, as the word is now understood, begins with De Foe. Though, like all other products of mind or body, it was developed out of previously existing material, and is related to the great family of stories with which men have amused themselves in all ages, it is, perhaps, as nearly an original creation as anything can be. The legends of saints which amused the middle ages, or the chivalrous romances which were popular throughout the seventeenth century, had become too unreal to amuse living human beings. De Foe made the discovery that a history might be equally interesting if the recorded events had never happened."

L. Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, chapter 12, sections 23-56 (volume 2).

"This so-called classic age of ours has long ceased to be regarded with that complacency which led the most flourishing part of it to adopt the epithet 'Augustan.' It will scarcely be denied by its greatest admirer, if he be a man of wide reading, that it cannot be ranked with the poorest of the five great ages of literature. Deficient in the highest intellectual beauty, in the qualities which awaken the fullest critical enthusiasm, the eighteenth century will be enjoyed more thoroughly by those who make it their special study than by those who skim the entire surface of literature. It has, although on the grand scale condemned as second-rate, a remarkable fulness and sustained richness which endear it to specialists. If it be compared, for instance, with the real Augustan age in Rome, or with the Spanish period of literary supremacy, it may claim to hold its own against these rivals in spite of their superior rank, because of its more copious interest. If it has neither a Horace nor a Calderon, it has a great extent and variety of writers just below these in merit, and far more numerous than what Rome or Spain can show during those blossoming periods. It is, moreover, fertile at far more points than either of these schools. This sustained and variegated success, at a comparatively low level of effort, strikes one as characteristic of an age more remarkable for persistent vitality than for rapid and brilliant growth. The Elizabethan vivida vis is absent, the Georgian glow has not yet dawned, but there is a suffused prosaic light of intelligence, of cultivated form, over the whole picture, and during the first half of the period, at least, this is bright enough to be very attractive. Perhaps, in closing, the distinguishing mark of eighteenth-century literature may be indicated as its mastery of prose as a vehicle for general thought."

_E. Gosse, The Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature (New Princeton Rev., July, 1888, page 21)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1703. The Methuen Treaty with Portugal.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1703; and SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.

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England: A. D. 1703. The Aylesbury election case.

"Ashby, a burgess of Aylesbury, sued the returning officer for maliciously refusing his vote. Three judges of the King's Bench decided, against the opinion of Chief Justice Holt, that the verdict which a jury had given in favor of Ashby must be set aside, as the action was not maintainable. The plaintiff went to the House of Lords upon a writ of error, and there the judgment was reversed by a large majority of Peers. The Lower House maintained that 'the qualification of an elector is not cognizable elsewhere than before the Commons of England'; that Ashby was guilty of a breach of privilege; and that all persons who should in future commence such an action, and all attorneys and counsel conducting the same, are also guilty of a high breach of privilege. The Lords, led by Somers, then came to counter-resolutions. ... The prorogation of Parliament put an end to the quarrel in that Session; but in the next it was renewed with increased violence. The judgment against the Returning Officer was followed up by Ashby levying his damages. Other Aylesbury men brought new actions. The Commons imprisoned the Aylesbury electors. The Lords took strong measures that affected, or appeared to affect, the privileges of the Commons. The Queen finally stopped the contest by a prorogation; and the quarrel expired when the Parliament expired under the Triennial Act. Lord Somers 'established the doctrine which has been acted on ever since, that an action lies against a Returning Officer for maliciously refusing the vote of an elector.'"

C. Knight, Popular History of England, volume 5, chapter 17.

ALSO IN: Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors: Somers, chapter. 110 (volume 4).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1704-1707. Marlborough's campaigns in the War of the Spanish Succession. Campaigns in Spain.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704; SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704, to 1707; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705, and 1706-1707.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1707. The Union with Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1707-1708. Hostility to the Union in Scotland. Spread of Jacobitism.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1708-1709. The War of the Spanish Succession: Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709; and SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1709. The Barrier Treaty with Holland.

"The influence of the Whig party in the affairs of government in England, always irksome to the Queen, had now began visibly to decline; and the partiality she was suspected of entertaining for her brother, with her known dislike of the house of Hanover, inspired them with alarm, lest the Tories might seek still further to propitiate her favour, by altering, in his favour, the line of succession, as at present established. They had, accordingly, made it one of the preliminaries of the proposed treaty of peace, that the Protestant succession, in England, should be secured by a general guarantee, and now sought to repair, as far as possible, the failure caused by the unsuccessful termination of the conferences, by entering into a treaty to that effect with the States. The Marquis Townshend, accordingly, repaired for this purpose to the Hague, when the States consented to enter into an engagement to maintain the present succession to the crown, with their whole force, and to make the recognition of that succession, and the expulsion of the Pretender from France, an indispensable preliminary to any peace with that kingdom. In return for this important guarantee, England was to secure to the States a barrier, formed of the towns of Nieuport, Furnes and the fort of Knokke, Menin, Lille, Ryssel, Tournay, Conde, and Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Charleroi, Namur, Lier, Halle, and some forts, besides the citadels of Ghent and Dendermonde. It was afterwards asserted, in excuse for the dereliction from that treaty on the part of England, that Townshend had gone beyond his instructions; but it is quite certain that it was ratified without hesitation by the queen, whatever may have been her secret feelings regarding it."

_C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapter 11 (volume 3 ). _ ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712. Opposition to the war. Trial of Sacheverell. Fall of the Whigs and Marlborough.

"A 'deluge of blood' such as that of Malplaquet increased the growing weariness of the war, and the rejection of the French offers was unjustly attributed to a desire on the part of Marlborough of lengthening out a contest which brought him profit and power. The expulsion of Harley and St. John [Bolingbroke] from the Ministry had given the Tories leaders of a more vigorous stamp, and St. John brought into play a new engine of political attack whose powers soon made themselves felt. In the Examiner, and in a crowd of pamphlets and periodicals which followed in its train, the humor of Prior, the bitter irony of Swift, and St. John's own brilliant sophistry spent themselves on the abuse of the war and of its general. ... A sudden storm of popular passion showed the way in which public opinion responded to these efforts. A High-Church divine, Dr. Sacheverell, maintained the doctrine of non-resistance [the doctrine, that is, of passive obedience and non-resistance to government, implying a condemnation of the Revolution of 1688 and of the Revolution settlement], in a sermon at St. Paul's, with a boldness which deserved prosecution; but in spite of the warning of Marlborough and of Somers the Whig Ministers resolved on his impeachment. His trial in 1710 at once widened into a great party struggle, and the popular enthusiasm in Sacheverell's favor showed the gathering hatred of the Whigs and the war. ... A small majority of the peers found him guilty, but the light sentence they inflicted was in effect an acquittal, and bonfires and illuminations over the whole country welcomed it as a Tory triumph. The turn of popular feeling freed Anne at once from the pressure beneath which she had bent; and the skill of Harley, whose cousin, Mrs. Masham, had succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough in the Queen's favor, was employed in bringing about the fall both of Marlborough and the Whig Ministers. ... The return of a Tory House of Commons sealed his [Marlborough's] fate. His wife was dismissed from court. A masterly plan for a march into the heart of France in the opening of 1711 was foiled by the withdrawal of a part of his forces, and the negotiations which had for some time been conducted between the French and English Ministers without his knowledge marched rapidly to a close. ... At the opening of 1712 the Whig majority of the House of Lords was swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers. Marlborough was dismissed from his command, charged with peculation, and condemned as guilty by a vote of the House of Commons. He at once withdrew from England, and with his withdrawal all opposition to the peace was at an end."

J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, section 9, chapter 9.

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Added to other reasons for opposition to the war, the death of the Emperor Joseph I., which occurred in April, 1711, had entirely reversed the situation in Europe out of which the war proceeded. The Archduke Charles, whom the allies had been striving to place on the Spanish throne, was now certain to be elected Emperor. He received the imperial crown, in fact, in December, 1711. By this change of fortune, therefore, he became a more objectionable claimant of the Spanish crown than Louis XIV. 's grandson had been.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.

Earl Stanhope, History of England, Reign of Anne, chapters 12-15.

"Round the fall of Marlborough has gathered the interest attaching to the earliest political crisis at all resembling those of quite recent times. It is at this moment that Party Government in the modern sense actually commenced. William the Third with military instinct had always been reluctant to govern by means of a party. Bound as he was, closely, to the Whigs, he employed Tory Ministers. ... The new idea of a homogeneous government was working itself into shape under the mild direction of Lord Somers; but the form finally taken under Sir Robert Walpole, which has continued to the present time, was as yet some way off. Marlborough's notions were those of the late King. Both abroad and at home he carried out the policy of William. He refused to rely wholly upon the Whigs, and the extreme Tories were not given employment. The Ministry of Godolphin was a composite administration, containing at one time, in 1705, Tories like Harley and St. John as well as Whigs such as Sunderland and Halifax. ... Lord Somers was a type of statesman of a novel order at that time. ... In the beginning of the eighteenth century it was rare to find a man attaining the highest political rank who was unconnected by birth or training or marriage with any of the great 'governing families,' as they have been called. Lord Somers was the son of a Worcester attorney. ... It was fortunate for England that Lord Somers should have been the foremost man of the Whig party at the time when constitutional government, as we now call it, was in course of construction. By his prudent counsel the Whigs were guided through the difficult years at the end of Queen Anne's reign; and from the ordeal of seeing their rivals in power they certainly managed, as a party, to emerge on the whole with credit. Although he was not nominally their leader, the paramount influence in the Tory party was Bolingbroke's; and that the Tories suffered from the defects of his great qualities, no unprejudiced critic can doubt. Between the two parties, and at the head of the Treasury through the earlier years of the reign, stood Godolphin, without whose masterly knowledge of finance and careful attention to the details of administration Marlborough's policy would have been baffled and his campaigns remained unfought. To Godolphin, more than to any other one man, is due the preponderance of the Treasury control in public affairs. It was his administration, during the absence of Marlborough on the Continent, which created for the office of Lord Treasurer its paramount importance, and paved the way for Sir Robert Walpole's government of England under the title of First Lord of the Treasury. ... Marlborough saw and always admitted that his victories were due in large measure to the financial skill of Godolphin. To this statesman's lasting credit it must be remembered that in a venal age, when the standards of public honesty were so different from those which now prevail, Godolphin died a poor man. ... Bolingbroke is interesting to us as the most striking figure among the originators of the new parliamentary system. With Marlborough disappeared the type of Tudor statesmen modified by contact with the Stuarts. He was the last of the Imperial Chancellors. Bolingbroke and his successor Walpole were the earlier types of constitutional statesmen among whom Mr. Pitt and, later, Mr. Gladstone stand pre-eminent. ... He and his friends, opponents of Marlborough, and contributors to his fall, are interesting to us mainly as furnishing the first examples of 'Her Majesty's Opposition,' as the authors of party government and the prototypes of cabinet ministers of to-day. Their ways of thought, their style of speech and of writing, may be dissimilar to those now in vogue, but they show greater resemblance to those of modern politicians than to those of the Ministers of William or of the Stuarts. Bolingbroke may have appeared a strange product of the eighteenth century to his contemporaries, but he would not have appeared peculiarly misplaced among the colleagues of Lord Randolph Churchill or Mr. Chamberlain."

R. B. Brett, Footprints of Statesmen, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 89-107.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of Walpole, volume 1, chapters 5-6.

_G. Saintsbury, Marlborough._

G. W. Cooke, Memoirs of Bolingbroke, volume 1, chapters 6-13.

_J. C. Collins, Bolingbroke._

A. Hassall, Life of Bolingbroke, chapter 3.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714. The Occasional Conformity Bill and the Schism Act.

"The Test Act, making the reception of the Anglican Sacrament a necessary qualification for becoming a member of corporations, and for the enjoyment of most civil offices, was very efficacious in excluding Catholics, but was altogether insufficient to exclude moderate Dissenters. ... Such men, while habitually attending their own places of worship, had no scruple about occasionally entering an Anglican church, or receiving the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman. The Independents, it is true, and some of the Baptists, censured this practice, and Defoe wrote vehemently against it, but it was very general, and was supported by a long list of imposing authorities. ... In 1702, in 1703, and in 1704, measures for suppressing occasional conformity were carried through the Commons, but on each occasion they were defeated by the Whig preponderance in the Lords." In 1711, the Whigs formed a coalition with one section of the Tories to defeat the negotiations which led to the Peace of Utrecht; but the Tories "made it the condition of alliance that the Occasional Conformity Bill should be accepted by the Whigs. {918} The bargain was made; the Dissenters were abandoned, and, on the motion of Nottingham, a measure was carried providing that all persons in places of profit or trust, and all common councilmen in corporations, who, while holding office, were proved to have attended any Nonconformist place of worship, should forfeit the place, and should continue incapable of public employment till they should depose that for a whole year they had not attended a conventicle. The House of Commons added a fine of £40, which was to be paid to the informer, and with this addition the Bill became a law. Its effects during the few years it continued in force were very inconsiderable, for the great majority of conspicuous Dissenters remained in office, abstaining from public worship in conventicles, but having Dissenting ministers as private chaplains in their houses. ... The object of the Occasional Conformity Bill was to exclude the Dissenters from all Government positions of power, dignity or profit. It was followed in 1714 by the Schism Act, which was intended to crush their seminaries and deprive them of the means of educating their children in their faith. ... As carried through the House of Commons, it provided that no one, under pain of three months' imprisonment, should keep either a public or a private school, or should even act as tutor or usher, unless he had obtained a licence from the Bishop, had engaged to conform to the Anglican liturgy, and had received the sacrament in some Anglican church within the year. In order to prevent occasional conformity it was further provided that if a teacher so qualified were present at any other form of worship he should at once become liable to three months' imprisonment, and should be incapacitated for the rest of his life from acting as schoolmaster or tutor. ... Some important clauses, however, were introduced by the Whig party qualifying its severity. They provided that Dissenters might have school-mistresses to teach their children to read; that the Act should not extend to any person instructing youth in reading, writing, or arithmetic, in any part of mathematics relating to navigation, or in any mechanical art only. ... The facility with which this atrocious Act was carried, abundantly shows the danger in which religious liberty was placed in the latter years of the reign of Queen Anne."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 1.

The Schism Act was repealed in 1719, during the administration of Lord Stanhope.

Cobbett's Parliamentary History, volume 7, pages 567-587.

ALSO IN: J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 5, chapters 14-16.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht. Acquisitions from Spain and France.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714; CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713; also, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713; and SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713. Second Barrier Treaty with the Dutch.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1713-1715.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713-1714. The desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1714. The end of the Stuart line and the beginning of the Hanoverians.

Queen Anne died, after a short illness, on the morning of August 1, 1714. The Tories, who had just gained control of the ministry, were wholly unprepared for this emergency. They assembled in Privy Council, on the 29th of July, when the probably fatal issue of the Queen's illness became apparent, and "a strange scene is said to have occurred. Argyle and Somerset, though they had contributed largely by their defection to the downfall of the Whig ministry of Godolphin, were now again in opposition to the Tories, and had recently been dismissed from their posts. Availing themselves of their rank of Privy Councillors, they appeared unsummoned in the council room, pleading the greatness of the emergency. Shrewsbury, who had probably concocted the scene, rose and warmly thanked them for their offer of assistance; and these three men appear to have guided the course of events. ... Shrewsbury, who was already Chamberlain and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, became Lord Treasurer, and assumed the authority of Prime Minister. Summons were at once sent to all Privy Councillors, irrespective of party, to attend; and Somers and several other of the Whig leaders were speedily at their post. They had the great advantage of knowing clearly the policy they should pursue, and their measures were taken with admirable promptitude and energy. The guards of the Tower were at once doubled. Four regiments were ordered to march from the country to London, and all seamen to repair to their vessels. An embargo was laid on all shipping. The fleet was equipped, and speedy measures were taken to protect the seaports and to secure tranquility in Scotland and Ireland. At the same time despatches were sent to the Netherlands ordering seven of the ten British battalions to embark without delay; to Lord Strafford, the ambassador at the Hague, desiring the States-General to fulfil their guarantee of the Protestant succession in England; to the Elector, urging him to hasten to Holland, where, on the death of the Queen, he would be met by a British squadron, and escorted to his new kingdom." When the Queen's death occurred, "the new King was at once proclaimed, and it is a striking proof of the danger of the crisis that the funds, which had fallen on a false rumour of the Queen's recovery, rose at once when she died. Atterbury is said to have urged Bolingbroke to proclaim James III. at Charing Cross, and to have offered to head the procession in his lawn sleeves, but the counsel was mere madness, and Bolingbroke saw clearly that any attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement would be now worse than useless. ... The more violent spirits among the Jacobites now looked eagerly for a French invasion, but the calmer members of the party perceived that such an invasion was impossible. ... The Regency Act of 1705 came at once into operation. The Hanoverian minister produced the sealed list of the names of those to whom the Elector entrusted the government before his arrival, and it was found to consist of eighteen names taken from the leaders of the Whig party. ... Parliament, in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, was at once summoned, and it was soon evident that there was nothing to fear. The moment for a restoration was passed."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 1 (volume 1).

{919}

"George I., whom circumstances and the Act of Settlement had thus called to be King of Great Britain and Ireland, had been a sovereign prince for sixteen years, during which time he had been Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second who ever bore that title. By right of his father he was Elector; it was by right of his mother that he now became ruler of the United Kingdom. The father was Ernest Augustus, Sovereign Bishop of Osnaburg, who, by the death of his elder brothers, had become Duke of Hanover, and then Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. In 1692 he was raised by the Emperor to the dignity of Elector. ... The mother of George I. was Sophia, usually known as the Electress Sophia. The title was merely one of honour, and only meant wife of an Elector. ... The Electress Sophia was the daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of King James I., and Frederick, the Elector Palatine [whose election to the throne of Bohemia and subsequent expulsion from that kingdom and from his Palatine dominions were the first acts in the Thirty Years' War]. ... The new royal house in England is sometimes called the House of Hanover, sometimes the House of Brunswick. It will be found that the latter name is more generally used in histories written during the last century, the former in books written in the present day. If the names were equally applicable, the modern use is the more convenient, because there is another, and in some respects well known, branch of the House of Brunswick; but no other has a right to the name of Hanover. It is, however, quite certain that, whatever the English use may be, Hanover is properly the name of a town and of a duchy, but that the electorate was Brunswick-Lüneburg. ... The House of Brunswick was of noble origin, tracing itself back to a certain Guelph d'Este, nicknamed 'the Robust,' son of an Italian nobleman, who had been seeking his fortunes in Germany. Guelph married Judith, widow of the English King, Harold, who fell on the hill of Senlac. ... One of Guelph's descendants, later, married Maud, the daughter of King Henry II., probably the most powerful king in Europe of his day, at whose persuasion the Emperor conferred on the Guelphs the duchy of Brunswick."

E. E. Morris, The Early Hanoverians, book 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: P. M. Thornton, The Brunswick Accession, chapters 1-10.

Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, book 10 (volume 2).

J. McCarthy, History of the Four Georges, chapters 1-4.

W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges, lecture 1.

_A. W. Ward, The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (English History Review, volume 1)._

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1701, THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1714-1721. First years of George I. The rise of Walpole to power and the founding of Parliamentary Government.

"The accession of the house of Hanover in the person of the great-grandson of James I. was once called by a Whig of this generation the greatest miracle in our history. It took place without domestic or foreign disturbance. ... Within our own borders a short lull followed the sharp agitations of the last six months. The new king appointed an exclusively Whig Ministry. The office of Lord Treasurer was not revived, and the title disappears from political history. Lord Townshend was made principal Secretary of State, and assumed the part of first Minister. Mr. Walpole [Sir Robert] took the subaltern office of paymaster of the forces, holding along with it the paymastership of Chelsea Hospital. Although he had at first no seat in the inner Council or Cabinet, which seems to have consisted of eight members, only one of them a commoner, it is evident that from the outset his influence was hardly second to that of Townshend himself. In little more than a year (October 1715) he had made himself so prominent and valuable in the House of Commons, that the opportunity of a vacancy was taken to appoint him to be First Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. ... Besides excluding their opponents from power, the Whigs instantly took more positive measures. The new Parliament was strongly Whig. A secret committee was at once appointed to inquire into the negotiations for the Peace. Walpole was chairman, took the lead in its proceedings, and drew the report." On Walpole's report, the House "directed the impeachment of Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Ormond for high treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanours mainly relating to the Peace of Utrecht. ... The proceedings against Oxford and Bolingbroke are the last instance in our history of a political impeachment. They are the last ministers who were ever made personally responsible for giving bad advice and pursuing a discredited policy, and since then a political mistake has ceased to be a crime. ... The affair came to an abortive end. ... The opening years of the new reign mark one of the least attractive periods in political history. George I. ... cared very little for his new kingdom, and knew very little about its people or its institutions. ... His expeditions to Hanover threw the management of all domestic affairs almost without control into the hands of his English ministers. If the two first Hanoverian kings had been Englishmen instead of Germans, if they had been men of talent and ambition, or even men of strong and commanding will without much talent, Walpole would never have been able to lay the foundations of government by the House of Commons and by Cabinet so firmly that even the obdurate will of George III. was unable to overthrow it

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

Happily for the system now established, circumstances compelled the first two sovereigns of the Hanoverian line to strike a bargain with the English Whigs, and it was faithfully kept until the accession of the third George. The king was to manage the affairs of Hanover, and the Whigs were to govern England. It was an excellent bargain for England. Smooth as this operation may seem in historic description, Walpole found its early stages rough and thorny." The king was not easily brought to understand that England would not make war for Hanoverian objects, nor allow her foreign policy to be shaped by the ambitions of the Electorate. Differences arose which drove Townshend from the Cabinet, and divided the Whig party. Walpole retired from the government with Townshend, and was in opposition for three years, while Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Sunderland controlled the administration. The Whig schism came to an end in 1720, and Townshend and Walpole rejoined the administration, the latter as Paymaster of the Forces without a seat in the Cabinet. "His opposition was at an end, but he took no part in the active work of government. ... Before many months had passed the country was overtaken by the memorable disasters of the South Sea Bubble.

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

{920}

All eyes were turned to Walpole. Though he had privately dabbled in South Sea stock on his own account, his public predictions came back to men's minds; they remembered that he had been called the best man for figures in the House, and the disgrace of' his most important colleagues only made his sagacity the more prominent. ... He returned to his old posts, and once more became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer (April 1721), while Townshend was again Secretary of State. Walpole held his offices practically without a break for twenty-one years. The younger Pitt had an almost equal span of unbroken supremacy, but with that exception there is no parallel to Walpole's long tenure of power. To estimate aright the vast significance of this extraordinary stability, we must remember that the country had just passed through eighty years of revolution. A man of 80 in 1721 could recall the execution of Charles I., the protectorate of Oliver, the fall of Richard Cromwell, the restoration of Charles II., the exile of James II., the change of the order of succession to William of Orange, the reactionary ministry of Anne, and finally the second change to the House of Hanover. The interposition, after so long a series of violent perturbations as this, of twenty years of settled system and continuous order under one man, makes Walpole's government of capital and decisive importance in our history, and constitutes not an artificial division like the reign of a king, but a true and definite period, with a beginning, an end, a significance, and a unity of its own."

J. Morley, Walpole, chapters 3-4.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, chapters 9-21 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1715. The Jacobite rising.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1716. The Septennial Act.

The easy suppression of the Jacobite rebellion was far from putting an end to the fears of the loyal supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty. They regarded with especial anxiety the approaching Parliamentary elections. "As, by the existing statute of 6 William and Mary [the Triennial Act, of 1694], Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a new election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great probability of a renewal of the contest, or at least of very serious riots during the election time. With this in view, the ministers proposed that the existing Parliament should be continued for a term of seven instead of three years. This, which was meant for a temporary measure, has never been repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are held. It has been often objected to this action of Parliament, that it was acting arbitrarily in thus increasing its own duration. 'It was a direct usurpation,' it has been said, 'of the rights of the people, analogous to the act of the Long Parliament in declaring itself indestructible.' It has been regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the peculiar conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the constituencies for the support of the popular liberty. The return of members in the smaller boroughs was in the hands of corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the counties, of great landowners; in the larger towns, of small place-holders under Government. A general election in fact only gave fresh occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of the House of Lords--freedom and independence in the presence of these two permanent powers could be secured only by the greater permanence of the third element of the Legislature, the House of Commons. It was thus that, though no doubt in some degree a party measure for securing a more lengthened tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received, upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation of the best statesmen of the time."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, page 938.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, volume 1, chapter 6.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1717-1719. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance. War with Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1720. The South Sea Bubble.

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1721-1742. Development of the Cabinet System of ministerial government.

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1725. The Alliance of Hanover.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1726-1731. Fresh differences with Spain. Gibraltar besieged. The Treaty of Seville. The Second Treaty of Vienna.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1727. Accession of King George II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1727-1741. Walpole's administration under George II.

"The management of public affairs during the six years of George the First's reign in which Walpole was Prime Minister, was easy. ... His political fortunes seemed to be ruined by George the First's death [1727]. That King's successor had ransacked a very copious vocabulary of abuse, in order to stigmatise the minister and his associates. Rogue and rascal, scoundrel and fool, were his commonest utterances when Robert Walpole's name was mentioned. ... Walpole bowed meekly to the coming storm," and an attempt was made to put Sir Spencer Compton in his place. But Compton himself, as well as the king and his sagacious queen, soon saw the futility of it, and the old ministry was retained. "At first, Walpole was associated with his brother-in-law, Townsend. But they soon disagreed, and the rupture was total after the death of Walpole's sister, Townsend's wife. ... After Townsend's dismissal, Walpole reigned alone, if, indeed, he could be said to exercise sole functions while Newcastle was tied to him. Long before he was betrayed by this person, of whom he justly said that his name was perfidy, he knew how dangerous was the association. But Newcastle was the largest proprietor of rotten boroughs in the kingdom, and, fool and knave as he was, he had wit enough to guess at his own importance, and knavery enough to make his market. Walpole's chief business lay in managing the King, the Queen, the Church, the House of Commons, and perhaps the people. I have already said, that before his accession George hated Walpole. But there are hatreds and hatreds, equal in fervency while they last, but different in duration. The King hated Walpole because he had served his father well. But one George was gone, and another George was in possession. Then came before the man in possession the clear vision of Walpole's consummate usefulness. The vision was made clearer by the sagacious hints of the Queen. It became clear as noonday when Walpole contrived to add £115,000 to the civil list. ... Besides, Walpole was sincerely determined to support the Hanoverian succession. He constantly insisted to George that the final settlement of his House on the throne would be fought out in England. ... Hence he was able to check one of the King's ruling passions, a longing to engage in war. ... {921} It is generally understood that Walpole managed the House of Commons by bribery; that the secret service money was thus employed: and that this minister was the father of that corruption which was reported to have disgraced the House during the first half of the last century. I suspect that these influences have been exaggerated. It is a stock story that Walpole said he knew every man's price. It might have been generally true, but the foundation of this apothegm is, in all likelihood, a recorded saying of his about certain members of the opposition. ... Walpole has been designated, and with justice, as emphatically a peace minister. He held 'that the most pernicious circumstances in which this country can be, are those of war, as we must be great losers while the war lasts, and cannot be great gainers when it ends.' He kept George the Second at peace, as well as he could, by insisting on it that the safety of his dynasty lay in avoiding foreign embroilments. He strove in vain against the war which broke out in 1739. ... I do not intend to disparage Walpole's administrative ability when I say that the country prospered independently of any financial policy which he adopted or carried out. ... Walpole let matters take their course, for he understood that the highest merit of a minister consists in his doing no mischief. But Walpole's praise lies in the fact, that, with this evident growth of material prosperity, he steadily set his face against gambling with it. He resolved, as far as lay in his power, to keep the peace of Europe; and he was seconded in his efforts by Cardinal Fleury. He contrived to smooth away the difficulties which arose in 1727; and on January 13, 1730, negotiated the treaty of Seville [see SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731], the benefits of which lasted through ten years of peace, and under which he reduced the army to 5,000 men." But the opposition to Walpole's peace policy became a growing passion, which overcame him in 1741 and forced him to resign. On his resignation he was raised to the peerage, with the title of Earl of Orford, and defeated, though with great difficulty, the determination of his enemies to impeach him.

J. E. T. Rogers, Historical Gleanings, volume 1, chapter 2.

"It is impossible, I think, to consider his [Walpole's] career with adequate attention without recognising in him a great minister, although the merits of his administration were often rather negative than positive, and although it exhibits few of those dramatic incidents, and is but little susceptible of that rhetorical colouring, on which the reputation of statesmen largely depends. ... He was eminently true to the character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their needs, and he had a sufficient ascendancy in English politics to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained, though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which divided the English nation were filled up. Parliamentary government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of normal and pacific action, and the habits of compromise, of moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most essential to its success, were greatly strengthened. These were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power, exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or retaining it, and entirely destitute of that delicacy of honour which marks a high-minded man. ... His estimate of political integrity was very similar to his estimate of female virtue. He governed by means of an assembly which was saturated with corruption, and he fully acquiesced in its conditions and resisted every attempt to improve it. ... It is necessary to speak with much caution on this matter, remembering that no statesman can emancipate himself from the conditions of his time. ... The systematic corruption of Members of Parliament is said to have begun under Charles II., in whose reign it was practised to the largest extent. It was continued under his successor, and the number of scandals rather increased than diminished after the Revolution. ... And if corruption did not begin with Walpole, it is equally certain that it did not end with him. His expenditure of secret service money, large as it was, never equalled in an equal space of time the expenditure of Bute. ... The real charge against him is that in a period of profound peace, when he exercised an almost unexampled ascendancy in politics, and when public opinion was strongly in favour of the diminution of corrupt influence in Parliament, he steadily and successfully resisted every attempt at reform. ... It was his settled policy to maintain his Parliamentary majority, not by attracting to his ministry great orators, great writers, great financiers, or great statesmen, ... but simply by engrossing borough influence and extending the patronage of the Crown."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter. 3 (volume 1).

"But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we should have had wars, which the nation was not strong enough nor united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels and good-humoured resistance, we might have had German despots attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have had revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a quarter of a century of peace, freedom and material prosperity, such as the country never enjoyed, until that corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute tipsy cynic, that courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen, patriot and statesman governed it. ... In private life the old pagan revelled in the lowest pleasures: he passed his Sundays tippling at Richmond; and his holidays bawling after dogs, or boozing at Houghton with Boors over beef and punch. He cared for letters no more than his master did: he judged human nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he was right, and that men could be corrupted by means so base. But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty for us; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. ... He gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and ease, and freedom; the Three per Cents. nearly at par; and wheat at five and six and twenty shillings a quarter."

W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, chapters 31-59 (volume 1).

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 15-23 (volumes 2-3).

_Lord Hervey, Memoirs of the Reign of George II._

{922}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1731-1740. The question of the Austrian Succession. Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1732. The grant of Georgia to General Oglethorpe.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1733. The first Bourbon Family Compact. Its hostility to Great Britain.

See FRANCE, A. D. 1733.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1733-1787 The great inventions which built up the Cotton Manufacture.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741. The War of Jenkins' Ear.

"In spite of Walpole's love of peace, and determined efforts to preserve it, in the year 1739 a war broke out with Spain, which is an illustration of the saying that the occasion of a war may be trifling, though its real cause be very serious. The war is often called the War of Jenkins' Ear. The story ran that eight years before (1731) a certain Captain Jenkins, skipper of the ship 'Rebecca,' of London, had been maltreated by the Spaniards. His ship was sailing from Jamaica, and hanging about the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, when it was boarded by the Spanish coast guard. The Spaniards could find no proof that Jenkins was smuggling, though they searched narrowly, and being angry at their ill-success they hanged him to the yardarm, lowering him just in time to save his life. At length they pulled off his ear and told him to take it to his king. ... Seven years later Captain Jenkins was examined by the House of Commons, on which occasion some member asked him how he felt when being maltreated, and Jenkins answered, 'I recommended my soul to God and my cause to my country.' The answer, whether made at the time or prepared for use in the House of Commons, touched a chord of sympathy, and soon was circulated through the country. 'No need of allies now,' said one politician; 'the story of Jenkins will raise us volunteers.' The truth of the matter is that this story from its somewhat ridiculous aspect has remained in the minds of men, but that it is only a specimen of many stories then afloat, all pointing to insolence of Spaniards in insisting upon what was after all strictly within their rights. But the legal treaty rights of Spain were growing intolerable to Englishmen, though not necessarily to the English Government; and traders and sailors were breaking the international laws which practically stopped the expansion of England in the New World. The war arose out of a question of trade, in this as in so many other cases the English being prepared to fight in order to force an entrance for their trade, which the Spaniards wished to shut out from Spanish America. This question found a place amongst the other matters arranged by the treaty of Utrecht, when the English obtained almost as their sole return for their victories what was known as the Assiento. This is a Spanish word meaning contract, but its use had been for some time confined to the disgraceful privilege of providing Spanish America with negroes kidnapped from their homes in Africa. The Flemings, the Genoese, the Portuguese, and the French Guinea Company received in turn from Spanish kings the monopoly in this shameful traffic, which at the treaty of Utrecht was passed on for a period of thirty years to England, now becoming mistress of the seas, and with her numerous merchant ships better able than others to carry on the business. The English Government committed the contract to the South Sea Company, and the number of negroes to be supplied annually was no less than 4,800 'sound, healthy, merchantable negroes, two-thirds to be male, none under ten or over forty years old.' In the Assiento Treaty there was also a provision for the trading of one English ship each year with Spanish America; but in order to prevent too great advantage therefrom it was carefully stipulated that the ship should not exceed 600 tons burden. There is no doubt that this stipulation was regularly violated by the English sending a ship of the required number of tons, but with it numerous tenders and smaller craft. Moreover smuggling, being very profitable, became common; it was of this smuggling that Captain Jenkins was accused. ... Walpole, always anxious for peace, by argument, by negotiation, by delays, resisted the growing desire for war; at length he could resist no longer. For the sake of his reputation he should have resigned office, but he had enjoyed power too long to be ready to yield it, and most unwisely he allowed himself to be forced into a declaration of war October 19, 1739. The news was received throughout England with a perfect frenzy of delight. ... A year and a day after this declaration of war an event occurred--the death of the Emperor--which helped to swell the volume of this war until it was merged into the European war, called the War of the Austrian Succession, which includes within itself the First and Second Silesian Wars, between Austria and Frederick the Great of Prussia. The European war went on until the general pacification in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. Within another ten years war broke out again on somewhat similar grounds, but on a much wider scale and with the combatants differently arranged, under the title 'Seven Years' War.' The events of this year, whilst the war was only between Spain and England, were the attacks on Spanish settlements in America, the capture of Porto Bello, and the failure before Cartagena, which led to Anson's famous voyage."

E. E. Morris, The Early Hanoverians, book 2, chapter 3.

"Admiral Vernon, setting sail with the English fleet from Jamaica, captured Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Darien, December 1st--an exploit for which he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. His attempt on Carthagena, in the spring of 1741, proved, however, a complete failure through his dissensions, it is said, with General Wentworth, the commander of the land forces. A squadron, under Commodore Anson, despatched to the South Sea for the purpose of annoying the Spanish colonies of Peru and Chili, destroyed the Peruvian town of Paita, and made several prizes; the most important of which was one of the great Spanish galleons trading between Acapulco and Manilla, having a large treasure on board. It was on this occasion that Anson circumnavigated the globe, having sailed from England in 1740 and returned to Spithead in 1744."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 3.

{923}

ALSO IN: _R. Walter, Voyage around the World of George Anson._

Sir J. Barrow, Life of Lord George Anson, chapter 1-2.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain, chapter 43 (volume 3).

See, also, FRANCE, A. D. 1733, and GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1740-1741. Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1742. Naval operations in the Mediterranean.

See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1742-1745. Ministries of Carteret and the Pelhams, Pitt's admission to the Cabinet.

"Walpole resigned in the beginning of February, 1742; but his retirement did not bring Pitt into office. The King had conceived a violent prejudice against him, not only on account of the prominent and effective part he had taken in the general assault upon the late administration, but more especially in consequence of the strong opinions he had expressed on the subject of Hanover, and respecting the public mischiefs arising from George the Second's partiality to the interests of the Electorate. Lord Wilmington was the nominal head of the new administration, which was looked on as little more than a weak continuation of Walpole's. The same character was generally given to Pelham's ministry, (Pelham succeeded Wilmington as Premier, on the death of the latter in 1743,) and Pitt soon appeared in renewed opposition to the Court. It was about this time that he received a creditable and convenient addition to his private fortune, which also attested his celebrity. In 1744, the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough died, leaving him a legacy' of 10,000 l. on account of his merit in the noble defence he has made of the laws of England, to prevent the ruin of his country.' Pitt was now at the head of a small but determined band of Opposition statesmen, with whom he was also connected by intermarriages between members of their respective families and his own. These were Lord Cobham, the Grenvilles, and his schoolfellow Lord Lyttelton. The genius of Pitt had made the opposition of this party so embarrassing to the minister, that Mr. Pelham, the leader of the House of Commons, and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, found it necessary to get rid of Lord Carteret, who was personally most obnoxious to the attacks of Pitt, on account of his supposed zeal in favour of the King's Hanoverian policy. Pitt's friends, Lyttelton and Grenville, were taken into the ministry [called the Broad-bottomed Administration], and the undoubted wish of the Pelhams was to enlist Pitt also among their colleagues. But 'The great Mr. Pitt,' says old Horace Walpole--using in derision an epithet soon confirmed by the serious voice of the country--'the great Mr. Pitt insisted on being Secretary at War';--but it was found that the King's aversion to him was insurmountable; and after much reluctance and difficulty, his friends were persuaded to accept office without him, under an assurance from the Duke of Newcastle that 'he should at no distant day be able to remove this prejudice from his Majesty's mind.' Pitt concurred in the new arrangement, and promised to give his support to the remodelled administration. ... On the breaking out of the rebellion of 1745, Pitt energetically supported the ministry in their measures to protect the established government. George the Second's prejudices against him, were, however, as strong as ever. At last a sort of compromise was effected. Pitt waived for a time his demand of the War Secretaryship, and on the 22nd of February, 1746, he was appointed one of the joint Vice-treasurers for Ireland; and on the 6th of May following he was promoted to the more lucrative office of Paymaster-General of the Forces. ... In his office of Paymaster of the Forces Pitt set an example then rare among statesmen, of personal disinterestedness. He held what had hitherto been an exceedingly lucrative situation: for the Paymaster seldom had less than 100,000 l. in his hands, and was allowed to appropriate the interest of what funds he held to his own use. In addition to this it had been customary for foreign princes in the pay of England to allow the Paymaster of the Forces a per-centage on their subsidies. Pitt nobly declined to avail himself of these advantages, and would accept of nothing beyond his legal salary."

Sir E. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians, chapter 4.

"From Walpole's death in 1745, when the star of the Stuarts set for ever among the clouds of Culloden, to 1754, when Henry Pelham followed his old chief, public life in England was singularly calm and languid. The temperate and peaceful disposition of the Minister seemed to pervade Parliament. At his death the King exclaimed: 'Now I shall have no more peace'; and the words proved to be prophetic. Both in Parliament and in the country, as well as beyond its shores, the elements of discord were swiftly at war. Out of conflicting ambitions and widely divergent interests a new type of statesman, very different from Walpole, or from Bolingbroke, or from Pelham, or from the 'hubble-bubble Newcastle,' was destined to arise. And along with the new statesman a new force, of which he was in part the representative, in part the creator, was to be introduced into political life. This new force was the unrepresented voice of the people. The new statesman was an ex-cornet of horse, William Pitt, better known as Lord Chatham. The characteristics of William Pitt which mainly influenced his career were his ambition and his ill-health. Power, and that conspicuous form of egotism called personal glory, were the objects of his life. He pursued them with all the ardour of a strong-willed purpose; but the flesh was in his case painfully weak. Gout had declared itself his foe while he was still an Eton boy. His failures, and prolonged withdrawal at intervals from public affairs, were due to the inroads of this fatal enemy, from whom he was destined to receive his death-blow. Walpole had not been slow to recognise the quality of this 'terrible cornet of horse,' as he called him."

R. B. Brett, Footprints of Statesmen, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 24-28 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743. The British Pragmatic Army. Battle of Dettingen.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER). The second Bourbon Family Compact.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743-1752. Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India. The founding of British empire by Clive.

See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1744-1745. War of the Austrian Succession: Hostilities in America.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744: and 1745.

{924}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745 (MAY). War of the Austrian Succession in the Netherlands. Fontenoy.

See NETHERLANDS (THE AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1746. The Young Pretender's invasion. Last rising of the Jacobites.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745-1746.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1747. War of the Austrian Succession British incapacity. Final successes at Sea.

"The extraordinary incapacity of English commanders, both by land and sea, is one of the most striking facts in the war we are considering. ... Mismanagement and languor were general. The battle of Dettingen was truly described as a happy escape rather than a great victory; the army in Flanders can hardly be said to have exhibited any military quality except courage, and the British navy, though it gained some successes, added little to its reputation. The one brilliant exception was the expedition of Anson round Cape Horn, for the purpose of plundering the Spanish merchandise and settlements in the Pacific. It lasted for nearly four years. ... The overwhelming superiority of England upon the sea began, however, gradually to influence the war. The island of Cape Breton, which commanded the mouth of Gulf St. Lawrence, and protected the Newfoundland fisheries, was captured in the June of 1745. In 1747 a French squadron was destroyed by a very superior English fleet off Cape Finisterre. Another was defeated near Belleisle, and in the same year as many as 644 prizes were taken. The war on the part of the English, however, was most efficiently conducted by means of subsidies, which were enormously multiplied."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1746-1747. War of the Austrian Succession in Italy. Siege of Genoa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1748 (OCTOBER). End and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748; and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1748-1754. First movements to dispute possession of the Ohio Valley with the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1749-1755. Unsettled boundary disputes with France in America. Preludes of the final contest.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753; and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1751. Reformation of the Calendar.

See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1753. The Jewish Naturalization Bill.

See JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1754. Collision with the French in the Ohio Valley.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755. The Seven Years War. Its causes and provocations.

"The seven years that succeeded the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle are described by Voltaire as among the happiest that Europe ever enjoyed. Commerce revived, the fine arts flourished, and the European nations resembled, it is said, one large family that had been reunited after its dissensions. Unfortunately, however, the peace had not exterminated all the elements of discord. Scarcely had Europe begun to breathe again when new disputes arose, and the seven years of peace and prosperity were succeeded by another seven of misery and war. The ancient rivalry between France and England, which had formerly vented itself in continental struggles, had, by the progress of maritime discovery and colonisation, been extended to all the quarters of the globe. The interests of the two nations came into collision in India, Africa and America, and a dispute about boundaries in this last quarter again plunged them into a war. By the 9th article of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, France and England were mutually to restore their conquests in such state as they were before the war. This clause became a copious source of quarrel. The principal dispute regarded the limits of Acadia, or Nova Scotia, which province had, by the 12th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, been ceded to England 'conformably to its ancient boundaries'; but what these were had never been accurately determined, and each Power fixed them according to its convenience. Thus, while the French pretended that Nova Scotia embraced only the peninsula extending from Cape St. Mary to Cape Canseau, the English further included in it that part of the American continent which extends to Pentagoet on the west, and to the river St. Lawrence on the north, comprising all the province of New Brunswick. Another dispute regarded the western limits of the British North American settlements. The English claimed the banks of the Ohio as belonging to Virginia, the French as forming part of Louisiana; and they attempted to confine the British colonies by a chain of forts stretching from Louisiana to Canada. Commissaries were appointed to settle these questions, who held their conferences at Paris between the years 1750 and 1755. Disputes also arose respecting the occupation by the French of the islands of St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, which had been declared neutral by former treaties. Before the Commissaries could terminate their labours, mutual aggressions had rendered a war inevitable. As is usual in such cases, it is difficult to say who was the first aggressor. Each nation laid the blame on the other. Some French writers assert that the English resorted to hostilities out of jealousy at the increase of the French navy. According to the plans of Rouillé, the French Minister of Marine, 111 ships of the line, 54 frigates, and smaller vessels in proportion, were to be built in the course of ten years. The question of boundaries was, however, undoubtedly the occasion, if not also the true cause, of the war. A series of desultory conflicts had taken place along the Ohio, and on the frontiers of Nova Scotia, in 1754, without being avowed by the mother countries. A French writer, who flourished about this time, the Abbé Raynal, ascribes "this clandestine warfare to the policy of the Court of Versailles, which was seeking gradually to recover what it had lost by treaties. Orders were now issued to the English fleet to attack French vessels wherever found. ... It being known that a considerable French fleet was preparing to sail from Brest and Rochefort for America, Admiral Boscawen was despatched thither, and captured two French men-of-war off Cape Race in Newfoundland, June 1755. Hostilities were also transferred to the shores of Europe. ... A naval war between England and France was now unavoidable; but, as in the case of the Austrian Succession, this was also to be mixed up with a European war. {925} The complicated relations of the European system again caused these two wars to run into one, though their origin had nothing in common. France and England, whose quarrel lay in the New World, appeared as the leading Powers in a European contest in which they had only a secondary interest, and decided the fate of Canada on the plains of Germany. The war in Europe, commonly called the Seven Years' War, was chiefly caused by the pride of one Empress [Maria Theresa], the vanity of another [Elizabeth of Russia], and the subserviency of a royal courtezan [Madame Pompadour], who became the tool of these passions."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 5 (volume 3).

"The Seven Years' War was in its origin not an European war at all; it was a war between England and France on Colonial questions with which the rest of Europe had nothing to do; but the alliances and enmities of England and France in Europe, joined with the fact that the King of England was also Elector of Hanover, made it almost certain that a war between England and France must spread to the Continent. I am far from charging on the English Government of the time--for it was they, and not the French, who forced on the war--as Macaulay might do, the blood of the Austrians who perished at Leuthen, of the Russians sabred at Zorndorf, and the Prussians mown down at Kunersdorf. The States of the Continent had many old enmities not either appeased or fought out to a result; and these would probably have given rise to a war some day, even if no black men, to adapt Macaulay again, had been previously fighting on the coast of Coromandel, nor red men scalping each other by the great lakes of North America. Still, it is to be remembered that it was the work of England that the war took place then and on those lines; and in view of the enormous suffering and slaughter of that war, and of the violent and arbitrary proceedings by which it was forced on, we may well question whether English writers have any right to reprobate Frederick's seizure of Silesia as something specially immoral in itself and disastrous to the world. If the Prussians were highway robbers, the English were pirates. ... The origin of the war between England and France, if a struggle which had hardly been interrupted since the nominal peace could be said to have an origin, was the struggle for America."

A. R. Ropes, The Causes of the Seven Years' War (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series, volume 4).

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 31-32 (volume 4).

F. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, chapters 1-7.

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753; and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (APRIL). Demand of the royal governors in America for taxation of the colonies by act of Parliament.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1755.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JUNE). Boscawen's naval victory over the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JULY). Braddock's defeat in America.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER). Victory at Lake George.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1756. Loss of Minorca and reverses in America.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756; and CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1759. Campaigns on the Continent. Defence of Hanover.

See GERMANY: A D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER), to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1760. The great administration of the elder Pitt.

"In 1754 Henry Pelham died. The important consequence of his death was the fact that it gave Pitt at last an opportunity of coming to the front. The Duke of Newcastle, Henry Pelham's brother, became leader of the administration, with Henry Fox for Secretary at War, Pitt for Paymaster-general of the Forces, and Murray, afterwards to be famous as Lord Mansfield, for Attorney-general. There was some difficulty about the leadership of the House of Commons. Pitt was still too much disliked by the King, to be available for the position. Fox for a while refused to accept it, and Murray was unwilling to do anything which might be likely to withdraw him from the professional path along which he was to move to such distinction. An attempt was made to get on with a Sir Thomas Robinson, a man of no capacity for such a position, and the attempt was soon an evident failure. Then Fox consented to take the position on Newcastle's own terms, which were those of absolute submission to the dictates of Newcastle. Later still he was content to descend to a subordinate office which did not even give him a place in the Cabinet. Fox never recovered the damage which his reputation and his influence suffered by this amazing act. ... The Duke of Newcastle's Ministry soon fell. Newcastle was not a man who had the slightest capacity for controlling or directing a policy of war; and the great struggle known as the Seven Years' War had now broken out. One lamentable event in the war has to be recorded, although it was but of minor importance. This was the capture of Minorca by the French under the romantic, gallant, and profligate Duc de Richelieu. The event is memorable chiefly, or only, because it was followed by the trial and execution [March 14, 1757] of the unfortunate Admiral Byng.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.

The Duke of Newcastle resigned office, and for a short time the Duke of Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry which included Pitt. The King, however, did not stand this long, and one day suddenly turned them all out of office. Then a coalition of another kind was formed, which included Newcastle and Pitt, with Henry Fox in the subordinate position of paymaster. Pitt now for the first time had it all his own way. He ruled everything in the House of Commons. He flung himself with passionate and patriotic energy into the alliance with that great Frederick whose genius and daring were like his own."

Justin McCarthy, History of the Four Georges, volume 2, chapter 41.

"Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much annoyance to the new Government, was silenced with the office of Paymaster, which, during the continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place in the whole Government. He was poor, and the situation was tempting. ... The first acts of the new administration were characterized rather by vigour than by judgment. Expeditions were sent against different parts of the French coast with little success. ... But soon conquests of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as it was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted. {926} In July, 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was reduced. The fleet to which the Court of Versailles had confided the defence of French America was destroyed. The captured standards were borne in triumph from Kensington Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church, amidst the roar of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance. The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe; then Ticonderoga; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe when another great event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky: the night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest danger. 'You have done your duty in remonstrating,' answered Hawke; 'I will answer for everything. I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral.' Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid themselves in the rivers of Brittany. The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was taken; the whole Province of Canada was subjugated; the French fleets underwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America. In the meantime conquests equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the East. In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa and the Carnatic, the authority of the East India Company was more absolute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been. On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one important ally, the King of Prussia; and he was attacked, not only by France, but also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the Continent, the energy of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had condemned the practice of subsidising foreign princes, he now carried that practice farther than Carteret himself would have ventured to do. The active and able Sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary assistance as enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal terms against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence and ardour as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian connection. He now declared, not without much show of reason, that it would be unworthy of the English people to suffer their King to be deprived of his electoral dominions in an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they should be no losers, and that he would conquer America for them in Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the King, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. In Parliament, such was the ascendeney which his eloquence, his success, his high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he took liberties with the House of which there had been no example, and which have never since been imitated. ... The face of affairs was speedily changed. The invaders [of Hanover] were driven out. ... In the meantime, the nation exhibited all the signs of wealth and prosperity. ... The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his [Pitt's] dispositions than to the national resources and the national spirit. But that the national spirit rose to the emergency, that the national resources were contributed with unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his soul had set the whole kingdom on fire. ... The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English history. He had conciliated the King; he domineered over the House of Commons; he was adored by the people; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first Englishman of his time; and he had made England the first country in the world. The Great Commoner, the name by which he was often designated, might look down with scorn on coronets and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride."

_Lord Macaulay, First Essay on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (Essays, volume 3)._

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 33-36 (volume 4).

Sir E. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians, chapter 4.

England: A. D. 1758 (JUNE-AUGUST). The Seven Years War. Abortive expeditions against the coast of France.

Early in 1758 there was sent out "one of those joint military and naval expeditions which Pitt seems at first to have thought the proper means by which England should assist in a continental war. Like all such isolated expeditions, it was of little value. St. Malo, against which it was directed, was found too strong to be taken, but a large quantity of shipping and naval stores was destroyed. The fleet also approached Cherbourg, but although the troops were actually in their boats ready to land, they were ordered to re-embark, and the fleet came home. Another somewhat similar expedition was sent out later in the year. In July General Bligh and Commodore Howe took and destroyed Cherbourg, but on attempting a similar assault on St. Malo they found it too strong for them. The army had been landed in the Bay of St. Cast, and, while engaged in re-embarkation, it was attacked by some French troops which had been hastily collected, and severely handled."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, page 1027.

{927}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1758 (JULY-NOVEMBER). The Seven Years War in America: Final capture of Louisbourg and recovery of Fort Duquesne. Bloody defeat at Ticonderoga.

See CANADA: A. D. 1758; and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1758-1761. Breaking of French power in India.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1759. Great victories in America. Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1759.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1759 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER). British naval supremacy established. Victories off Lagos and in Quiberon Bay.

"Early in the year [1759] the French had begun to make preparations for an invasion of the British Isles on a large scale. Flat-bottomed boats were built at Havre and other places along the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, and large fleets were collected at Brest and Toulon, besides a small squadron at Dunkirk. A considerable force was assembled at Vannes in the south of Brittany, under the command of the Duc d'Aiguillon, which was to be convoyed to the Irish coasts by the combined fleets of Brest and Toulon, while the flat-bottomed boats transported a second army across the channel under cover of a dark night. The Dunkirk squadron, under Admiral Thurot, a celebrated privateer, was to create a diversion by attacking some part of the Scotch coast. The design was bold and well contrived, and would not improbably have succeeded three or even two years before, but the opportunity was gone. England was no longer in 'that enervate state in which 20,000 men from France could shake her.' Had a landing been effected, the regular troops in the country, with the support of the newly created militia, would probably have been equal to the emergency; but a more effectual bulwark was found in the fleet, which watched the whole French coast, ready to engage the enemy as soon as he ventured out of his ports. The first attempt to break through the cordon was made by M. de la Clue from Toulon. The English Mediterranean fleet, under Admiral Boscawen, cruising before that port, was compelled early in July to retire to Gibraltar to take in water and provisions and to refit some of' the ships. Hereupon M. de la Clue put to sea, and hugging the African coast, passed the straits without molestation. Boscawen, however, though his ships were not yet refitted, at once gave chase, and came up with the enemy off [Lagos, on] the coast of Portugal, where an engagement took place [August 18], in which three French ships were taken and two driven on shore and burnt. The remainder took refuge in Cadiz, where they were blockaded till the winter, when, the English fleet being driven off the coast by a storm, they managed to get back to Toulon. The discomfiture of the Brest fleet, under M. de Conflans, was even more complete. On November 9 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, who had blockaded Brest all the summer and autumn, was driven from his post by a violent gale, and on the 14th, Conflans put to sea with 21 sail of the line and 4 frigates. On the same day, Hawke, with 22 sail of the line, stood out from Torbay, where he had taken shelter, and made sail for Quiberon Bay, judging that Conflans would steer thither to liberate a fleet of transports which were blocked up in the river Morbihan, by a small squadron of frigates under Commodore Duff. On the morning of the 20th, he sighted the French fleet chasing Duff in Quiberon Bay. Conflans, when he discerned the English, recalled his chasing ships and prepared for action; but on their nearer approach changed his mind, and ran for shelter among the shoals and rocks of the coast. The sea was running mountains high and the coast was very dangerous and little known to the English, who had no pilots; but Hawke, whom no peril could daunt, never hesitated a moment, but crowded all sail after them. Without regard to lines of battle, every ship was directed to make the best of her way towards the enemy, the admiral telling his officers he was for the old way of fighting, to make downright work with them. In consequence many of the English ships never got into action at all; but the short winter day was wearing away, and all haste was needed if the enemy were not to escape. ... As long as daylight lasted the battle raged with great fury, so near the coast that '10,000 persons on the shore were the sad spectators of the white flag's disgrace.' ... By nightfall two French ships, the Thésée 74, and Superb 70, were sunk, and two, the Formidable 80, and the Héros 74, had struck. The Soleil Royal afterwards went aground, but her crew escaped, as did that of the Héros, whose captain dishonourably ran her ashore in the night. Of the remainder, seven ships of the line and four frigates threw their guns overboard, and escaped up the river Vilaine, where most of them bumped their bottoms out in the shallow water; the rest got away and took shelter in the Charente, all but one, which was wrecked, but very few ever got out again. With two hours more of daylight Hawke thought he could have taken or destroyed all, as he was almost up with the French van when night overtook him. Two English ships, the Essex 64, and the Resolution 74, went ashore in the night and could not be got off, but the crews were saved, and the victory was won with the loss of 40 killed and 200 wounded. The great invasion scheme was completely wrecked. Thurot had succeeded in getting out from Dunkirk, and for some months was a terror to the northern coast-towns, but early in the following year an end was put to his career. For the rest of the war the French never ventured to meet the English in battle on the high seas, and could only look on helplessly while their colonies and commerce fell into the hands of their rivals. From the day of the fight in Quiberon Bay, the naval and commercial supremacy of England was assured."

F. W. Longman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War, chapter 12, section 3.

ALSO IN: C. D. Yonge, History of the British Navy, volume 1, chapter 12.

J. Entick, History of the late War, volume 4, pages 241-290.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760. Completed conquest of Canada. Successes of the Prussians and their allies.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760; and GERMANY: A. D. 1760.

{928}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763. Accession of George III. His ignorance and his despotic notions of kingship. Retirement of the elder Pitt. Rise and fall of Bute. The Grenville Ministry.

"When George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England had been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig families which had been brought into the foreground by the revolution of 1688. ... Under Walpole's wise and powerful sway, the first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than the shadow of sovereignty. It was the third George's ambition to become a real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been impressing upon him the precept, 'George be king!' and this simple lesson had constituted pretty much the whole of his education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant king that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as general culture is concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly correct. ... Nevertheless ... George III. was not destitute of a certain kind of ability, which often gets highly rated in this not too clear-sighted world. He could see an immediate end very distinctly, and acquired considerable power from the dogged industry with which he pursued it. In an age where some of the noblest English statesmen drank their gallon of strong wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in personal habits and pure in domestic relations, and no banker's clerk in London applied himself to the details of business more industriously than he. He had a genuine talent for administration, and he devoted this talent most assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human sympathy, and almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied manner, he could be smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an adept in gaining men's confidence by a show of interest, and securing their aid by dint of fair promises; and when he found them of no further use, he could turn them adrift with wanton insult. Anyone who dared to disagree with him upon even the slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred. As a natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and short-sighted advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad views and independent character he nursed the bitterest rancour. ... Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in 1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to break down the growing system of cabinet government in England."

J. Fiske, The American Revolution, chapter 1 (volume 1).

"The dissolution of Parliament, shortly after his accession, afforded an opportunity of strengthening the parliamentary connection of the king's friends. Parliament was kept sitting while the king and Lord Bute were making out lists of the court candidates, and using every exertion to secure their return. The king not only wrested government boroughs from the ministers, in order to nominate his own friends, but even encouraged opposition to such ministers as he conceived not to be in his interest. ... Lord Bute, the originator of the new policy, was not personally well qualified for its successful promotion. He was not connected with the great families who had acquired a preponderance of political influence; he was no parliamentary debater: his manners were unpopular: he was a courtier rather than a politician: his intimate relations with the Princess of Wales were an object of scandal; and, above all, he was a Scotchman. ... Immediately after the king's accession he had been made a privy councillor, and admitted into the cabinet. An arrangement was soon afterwards concerted, by which Lord Holdernesse retired from office with a pension, and Lord Bute succeeded him as Secretary of State. It was now the object of the court to break up the existing ministry, and to replace it with another, formed from among the king's friends. Had the ministry been united, and had the chiefs reposed confidence in one another, it would have been difficult to overthrow them. But there were already jealousies amongst them, which the court lost no opportunity of fomenting. A breach soon arose between Mr. Pitt, the most powerful and popular of the ministers, and his colleagues. He desired to strike a sudden blow against Spain, which had concluded a secret treaty of alliance with France, then at war with this country.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).

Though war minister he was opposed by all his colleagues except Lord Temple. He bore himself haughtily at the council, --declared that he had been called to the ministry by the voice of the people, and that he could not be responsible for measures which he was no longer allowed to guide. Being met with equal loftiness in the cabinet, he was forced to tender his resignation. The king overpowered the retiring minister with kindness and condescension. He offered the barony of Chatham to his wife, and to himself an annuity of £3,000 a year for three lives. The minister had deserved these royal favours, and he accepted them, but at the cost of his popularity. ... The same Gazette which announced his resignation, also trumpeted forth the peerage and the pension, and was the signal for clamors against the public favourite. On the retirement of Mr. Pitt, Lord Bute became the most influential of the ministers. He undertook the chief management of public affairs in the cabinet, and the sole direction of the House of Lords. ... His ascendency provoked the jealousy and resentment of the king's veteran minister, the Duke of Newcastle: who had hitherto distributed all the patronage of the Crown, but now was never consulted. ... At length, in May 1762, his grace, after frequent disagreements in the cabinet and numerous affronts, was obliged to resign. And now, the object of the court being at length attained, Lord Bute was immediately placed at the head of affairs, as First Lord of the Treasury. ... The king and his minister were resolved to carry matters with a high hand, and their arbitrary attempts to coerce and intimidate opponents disclosed their imperious views of the prerogative. Preliminaries of a treaty of peace with France having been agreed upon, against which a strong popular feeling was aroused, the king's vengeance was directed against all who ventured to disapprove them. The Duke of Devonshire having declined to attend the council summoned to decide upon the peace, was insulted by the king, and forced to resign his office of Lord Chamberlain. A few days afterwards the king, with his own hand, struck his grace's name from the list of privy councillors. ... No sooner had Lord Rockingham heard of the treatment of the Duke of Devonshire than he ... resigned his place in the household. A more general proscription of the Whig nobles soon followed. The Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, and the Marquess of Rockingham, having presumed, as peers of Parliament, to express their disapprobation of the peace, were dismissed from the lord-lieutenancies of their counties. ... Nor was the vengeance of the court confined to the heads of the Whig party. {929} All placemen, who had voted against the preliminaries of peace, were dismissed. ... The preliminaries of peace were approved by Parliament; and the Princess of Wales, exulting in the success of the court, exclaimed, 'Now my son is king of England.' But her exultation was premature. ... These stretches of prerogative served to unite the Whigs into an organised opposition. ... The fall of the king's favoured minister was even more sudden than his rise. ... Afraid, as he confessed, 'not only of falling himself, but of involving his royal master in his ruin,' he resigned suddenly [April 7, 1763],--to the surprise of all parties, and even of the king himself,--before he had held office for eleven months. ... He retreated to the interior cabinet, whence he could direct more securely the measures of the court; having previously negotiated the appointment of Mr. George Grenville as his successor, and arranged with him the nomination of the cabinet. The ministry of Mr. Grenville was constituted in a manner favourable to the king's personal views, and was expected to be under the control of himself and his favorite."

T. E. May, Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: J. H. Jesse, Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III., chapter 1-10 (volume 1).

The Grenville Papers, volumes 1-2.

W. Massey, History of England: Reign of George III., chapters 2-3 (volume 1).

G. O. Trevelyan, Early History of Charles James Fox, chapter 4.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1775. Crown, Parliament and Colonies. The conflicting theories of their relations.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762. The third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings. War with Spain.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762. The Seven Years War: Last Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1 762. Capture of Havana.

See CUBA: A. D. 1514-1851.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1762-1764. "The North Briton," No. 45, and the prosecution of Wilkes.

"The popular dislike to the new system of Government by courtiers had found vent in a scurrilous press, the annoyance of which continued unabated by the sham retirement of the minister whose ascendancy had provoked this grievous kind of opposition. The leader of the host of libellers was John Wilkes, a man of that audacity and self-possession which are indispensable to success in the most disreputable line of political adventure. But Wilkes had qualities which placed him far above the level of a vulgar demagogue. Great sense and shrewdness, brilliant wit, extensive knowledge of the world, with the manners of a gentleman, were among the accomplishments which he brought to a vocation, but rarely illustrated by the talents of a Catiline. Long before he engaged in public life, Wilkes had become infamous for his debaucheries, and, with a few other men of fashion, had tested the toleration of public opinion by a series of outrages upon religion and decency. Profligacy of morals, however, has not in any age or country proved a bar to the character of a patriot. ... Wilkes' journal, which originated with the administration of Lord Bute [first issued June 5, 1762], was happily entitled 'The North Briton,' and from its boldness and personality soon obtained a large circulation. It is surpassed in ability though not often equalled in virulence by the political press of the present day; but at a time when the characters of public men deservedly stood lowest in public estimation, they were protected, not unadvisedly perhaps, from the assaults of the press by a stringent law of libel. ... It had been the practice since the Revolution, and it is now acknowledged as an important constitutional right, to treat the Speech from the Throne, on the opening of Parliament, as the manifesto of the minister; and in that point of view, it had from time to time been censured by Pitt, and other leaders of party, with the ordinary license of debate. But when Wilkes presumed to use this freedom in his paper, though in a degree which would have seemed temperate and even tame had he spoken to the same purport in his place in Parliament, it was thought necessary to repress such insolence with the whole weight of the law. A warrant was issued from the office of the Secretary of State to seize--not any person named--but 'the authors, printers, and publishers of the seditious libel, entitled the North Briton, No. 45.' Under this warrant, forty-nine persons were arrested and detained in custody for several days; but as it was found that none of them could be brought within the description in the warrant, they were discharged. Several of the individuals who had been so seized, brought actions for false imprisonment against the messengers; and in one of these actions, in which a verdict was entered for the plaintiff under the direction of the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the two important questions as to the claim of a Secretary of State to the protection given by statute to justices of the peace acting in that capacity, and as to the legality of a warrant which did not specify any individual by name, were raised by a Bill of Exceptions to the ruling of the presiding judge, and thus came upon appeal before the Court of King's Bench. ... The Court of King's Bench ... intimated a strong opinion against the Crown upon the important constitutional questions which had been raised, and directed the case to stand over for further argument; but when the case came on again, the Attorney-General Yorke prudently declined any further agitation of the questions. ... These proceedings were not brought to a close until the end of the year 1765, long after the administration under which they were instituted had ceased to exist. ... The prosecution of Wilkes himself was pressed with the like indiscreet vigour. The privilege of Parliament, which extends to every case except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, presented an obstacle to the vengeance of the Court. But the Crown lawyers, with a servility which belonged to the worst times of prerogative, advised that a libel came within the purview of the exception, as having a tendency to a breach of the peace; and upon this perversion of plain law, Wilkes was arrested, and brought before Lord Halifax for examination. The cool and wary demagogue, however, was more than a match for the Secretary of State; but his authorship of the alleged libel having been proved by the printer, he was committed close prisoner to the Tower. In a few days, having sued out writs of habeas, he was brought up before the Court of Common Pleas. ... The argument which would confound the commission of a crime with conduct which had no more than a tendency to provoke it, was at once rejected by an independent court of justice; and the result was the liberation of Wilkes from custody. {930} But the vengeance of the Court was not turned aside by this disappointment. An ex-officio prosecution for libel was immediately instituted against the member for Aylesbury; he was deprived of his commission as colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia; his patron, Earl Temple, who provided the funds for his defence, was at the same time dismissed from the lord-lieutenancy of the same county, and from the Privy Council. When Parliament assembled in the autumn, the first business brought forward by the Government was this contemptible affair--a proceeding not merely foolish and undignified, but a flagrant violation of common justice and decency. Having elected to prosecute Wilkes for this alleged libel before the ordinary tribunals of the country, it is manifest that the Government should have left the law to take its course unprejudiced. But the House of Commons was now required to pronounce upon the very subject-matter of inquiry which had been referred to the decision of a court of law; and this degenerate assembly, at the bidding of the minister, readily condemned the indicted paper in terms of extravagant and fulsome censure, and ordered that it should be burned by the hands of the common hangman. Lord North, on the part of the Government, then pressed for an immediate decision on the question of privilege; but Pitt, in his most solemn manner, insisting on an adjournment, the House yielded this point. On the following day, Wilkes, being dangerously wounded in a duel with Martin, one of the joint Secretaries to the Treasury, who had grossly insulted him in the House, for the purpose of provoking a quarrel, was disabled from attending in his place; but the House, nevertheless, refused to postpone the question of privilege beyond the 24th of the month. On that day, they resolved 'that the privilege of Parliament does not extend to the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor ought to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of the laws in the speedy and effectual prosecution of so heinous and dangerous an offence.' Whatever may be thought of the public spirit or prudence of a House of Commons which could thus officiously define its privilege, the vote was practically futile, since a court of justice had already decided in this very case, as a matter of strict law, that the person of a member of Parliament was protected from arrest on a charge of this description. The conduct of Pitt on this occasion was consistent with the loftiness of his character. ... The conduct of the Lords was in harmony with that of the Lower House. ... The session was principally occupied by the proceedings against this worthless demagogue, whom the unworthy hostility of the Crown and both Houses of Parliament had elevated into a person of the first importance. His name was coupled with that of Liberty; and when the executioner appeared to carry into effect the sentence of Parliament upon 'The North Briton,' he was driven away by the populace, who rescued the obnoxious paper from the flames, and evinced their hatred and contempt for the Court faction by 'burning in its stead the jack-boot and the petticoat, the vulgar emblems which they employed to designate John Earl of Bute and his supposed royal patroness. ... Wilkes himself, however, was forced to yield to the storm. Beset by the spies of Government, and harassed by its prosecutions, which he had not the means of resisting, he withdrew to Paris. Failing to attend in his place in the House of Commons on the first day after the Christmas recess, according to order, his excuse was eagerly declared invalid; a vote of expulsion immediately followed [January 19, 1764], and a new writ was ordered for Aylesbury."

W. Massey, History of England: Reign of George III., chapter 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. E. T. Rogers, Historical Gleanings, volume 2, chapter 3.

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 41-42 (volume 5).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1763. The end and results of the Seven Years War: The Peace of Paris and Peace of Hubertsburg. America to be English, not French.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1763-1764. Determination to tax the American colonies. The Sugar (or Molasses) Act.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1764. The climax of the mercantile colonial policy and its consequences.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1765. Passage of the Stamp Act for the colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1765-1768. Grenville dismissed. The Rockingham and the Grafton-Chatham Ministries. Repeal of the Stamp Act. Fresh trouble in the American colonies.

"Hitherto the Ministry had only excited the indignation of the people and the colonies. Not satisfied with the number of their enemies, they now proceeded to quarrel openly with the king. In 1765 the first signs of the illness, to which George afterwards fell a victim, appeared; and as soon as he recovered he proposed, with wonderful firmness, that a Regency Bill should be brought in, limiting the king's choice of a Regent to the members of the Royal Family. The Ministers, however, in alarm at the prospect of a new Bute Ministry, persuaded the king that there was no hope of the Princess's name being accepted, and that it had better be left out of the Bill. The king unwisely consented to this unparalleled insult on his parent, apparently through lack of consideration. Parliament, however, insisted on inserting the Princess's name by a large majority, and thus exposed the trick of his Ministers. This the king never forgave. They had been for some time obnoxious to him, and now he determined to get rid of them. With this view he induced the Duke of Cumberland to make overtures to Chatham [Pitt, not yet titled], offering almost any terms." But no arrangement was practicable, and the king was left quite at the mercy of the Ministers be detested. "He was obliged to consent to dismiss Bute and all Bute's following. He was obliged to promise that he would use no underhand influence for the future. Life, in fact, became a burden to him under George Grenville's domination, and he determined to dismiss him, even at the cost of accepting the Whig Houses, whom he had pledged himself never to employ again. Pitt and Temple still proving obdurate, Cumberland opened negotiations with the Rockingham Whigs, and the Grenville Ministry was at an end [July, 1765]. ... The new Ministry was composed as follows: Rockingham became First Lord of the Treasury; Dowdeswell, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Newcastle, Privy Seal; Northington, Lord Chancellor. ... {931} Their leader Rockingham was a man of sound sense, but no power of language or government. ... He was totally free from any suspicion of corruption. In fact there was more honesty than talent in the Ministry altogether. ... The back-bone of the party was removed by the refusal of Pitt to co-operate. Burke was undoubtedly the ablest man among them, but his time was not yet come. Such a Ministry, it was recognized even by its own members, could not last long. However, it had come in to effect certain necessary legislation, and it certainly so far accomplished the end of its being. It repealed the Stamp Act [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766], which had caused so much indignation among the Americans; and at the same time passed a law securing the dependence of the colonies. ... The king, however, made no secret of his hostility to his Ministers. ... The conduct of Pitt in refusing to join them was a decided mistake, and more. He was really at one with them on most points. Most of their acts were in accordance with his views. But he was determined not to join a purely party Ministry, though he could have done so practically on whatever terms he pleased. In 1766, however, he consented to form a coalition, in which were included men of the most opposite views--'King's Friends,' Rockingham Whigs, and the few personal followers of Pitt. Rockingham refused to take any office, and retired to the more congenial occupation of following the hounds. The nominal Prime Minister of this Cabinet was the Duke of Grafton, for Pitt refused the leadership, and retired to the House of Lords as Lord Chatham. Charles Townshend became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord North, the leader of the 'King's Friends,' was Pay-master. The Ministry included Shelburne, Barré, Conway, Northington, Barrington, Camden, Granby--all men of the most opposite views. ... This second Ministry of Pitt was a mistake from the very first. He lost all his popularity by taking a peerage. ... As a peer and Lord Privy Seal he found himself in an uncongenial atmosphere. ... His name, too, had lost a great deal of its power abroad. 'Pitt' had, indeed, been a word to conjure with; but there were no associations of defeat and humiliation connected with the name of 'Chatham.' ... There were other difficulties, however, as well. His arrogance had increased, and it was so much intensified by irritating gout, that it became almost impossible to serve with him. His disease later almost approached madness. ... The Ministry drifted helplessly about at the mercy of each wind and wave of opinion like a water-logged ship; and it was only the utter want of union among the Opposition which prevented its sinking entirely. As it was, they contrived to renew the breach with America, which had been almost entirely healed by Rockingham's repeal of the Stamp Act. Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was by far the ablest man left in the Cabinet, and he rapidly assumed the most prominent position. He had always been in favour of taxing America. He now brought forward a plan for raising a revenue from tea, glass, and paper [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767, and 1767-1768], by way of import duty at the American ports. ... This wild measure was followed shortly by the death of its author, in September; and then the weakness of the Ministry became so obvious that, as Chatham still continued incapable, some fresh reinforcement was absolutely necessary. A coalition was effected with the Bloomsbury Gang; and, in consequence, Lords Gower, Weymouth, and Sandwich joined the Ministry. Lord Northington and General Conway retired. North succeeded Townshend at the Exchequer. Lord Hillsborough became the first Secretary of State for the Colonies, thus raising the number of Secretaries to three. This Ministry was probably the worst that had governed England since the days of the Cabal; and the short period of its existence was marked by a succession of arbitrary and foolish acts. On every important question that it had to deal with, it pursued a course diametrically opposed to Chatham's views; and yet with singular irony his nominal connection with it was not severed for some time"--that is, not until the following year, 1768.

B. C. Skottowe, Our Hanoverian Kings, pages 234-239.

ALSO IN: The Grenville Papers, volumes 3-4.

C. W. Dilke, Papers of a Critic, volume 2.

E. Lodge, Portraits, volume 8, chapter 2.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1767-1769. The first war with Hyder Ali, of Mysore.

See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1768-1770. The quartering of troops in Boston and Its ill consequences.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1768-1774. John Wilkes and the King and Parliament again. The Middlesex elections.

In March, 1768, Wilkes, though outlawed by the court, returned to London from Paris and solicited a pardon from the king; but his petition was unnoticed. Parliament being then dissolved and writs issued for a new election, he offered himself as a candidate to represent the City of London. "He polled 1,247 votes, but was unsuccessful. On the day following this decision he issued an address to the freeholders of Middlesex. The election took place at Brentford, on the 28th of March. At the close of the poll the numbers were--Mr. Wilkes, 1,292; Mr. Cooke, 827; Sir W. B. Proctor, 807. This was a victory which astonished the public and terrified the ministry. The mob was in ecstasies. The citizens of London were compelled to illuminate their houses and to shout for 'Wilkes and liberty.' It was the earnest desire of the ministry to pardon the man whom they had persecuted, but the king remained inexorable. ... A month after the election he wrote to Lord North: 'Though relying entirely on your attachment to my person as well as in your hatred of any lawless proceeding, yet I think it highly expedient to apprise you that the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes appears to be very essential, and must be effected.' What the sovereign counselled was duly accomplished. Before his expulsion, Wilkes was a prisoner in the King's Bench. Having surrendered, it was determined that his outlawry was informal; consequently it was reversed, and sentence was passed for the offences whereof he had been convicted. He was fined £1,000, and imprisoned for twenty-two months. On his way to prison he was rescued by the mob; but as soon as he could escape out of the hands of his boisterous friends he went and gave himself into the custody of the Marshal of the King's Bench. Parliament met on the 10th of April, and it was thought that he would be released in order to take his seat. A dense multitude assembled before the prison, but, balked in its purpose of escorting the popular favourite to the House, became furious, and commenced a riot. {932} Soldiers were at hand prepared for this outbreak. They fired, wounding and slaughtering several persons; among others, they butchered a young man whom they found in a neighbouring house, and who was mistaken for a rioter they had pursued. At the inquest the jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder against the magistrate who ordered the firing, and the soldier who did the deed. The magistrate was tried and acquitted. The soldier was dismissed the service, but received in compensation, as a reward for his services, a pension of one shilling a day. A general order sent from the War Office by Lord Barrington conveyed his Majesty's express thanks to the troops employed, assuring them 'that every possible regard shall be shown to them; their zeal and good behaviour on this occasion deserve it; and in case any disagreeable circumstance should happen in the execution of their duty, they shall have every defence and protection that the law can authorise and this office can give.' This approbation of what the troops had done was the necessary supplement to a despatch from Lord Weymouth sent before the riot, and intimating that force was to be used without scruple. Wilkes commented on both documents. His observations on the latter drew a complaint from Lord Weymouth of breach of privilege. This was made an additional pretext for his expulsion from the House of Commons. Ten days afterwards he was re-elected, his opponent receiving five votes only. On the following day the House resolved 'that John Wilkes, Esquire, having been in this session of Parliament expelled this House, was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present Parliament'; and his election was declared void. Again the freeholders of Middlesex returned him, and the House re-affirmed the above resolution. At another election he was opposed by Colonel Luttrell, a Court tool, when he polled 1,143 votes against 296 cast for Luttrell. It was declared, however, that the latter had been elected. Now began a struggle between the country, which had been outraged in the persons of the Middlesex electors, and a subservient majority in the House of Commons that did not hesitate to become instrumental in gratifying the personal resentment of a revengeful and obstinate king. The cry of 'Wilkes and liberty' was raised in quarters where the very name of the popular idol had been proscribed. It was evident that not the law only had been violated in his person, but that the Constitution itself had sustained a deadly wound. Wilkes was overwhelmed with substantial marks of sympathy. In the course of a few weeks £20,000 were subscribed to pay his debts. He could boast, too, that the courts of law had at length done what was right between him and one of the Secretaries of State who had signed the General Warrant, the other having been removed by death beyond the reach of justice. Lord Halifax was sentenced to pay £4,000 damages. These damages, and the costs of the proceedings, were defrayed out of the public purse. Lord North admitted that the outlay had exceeded £100,000. Thus the nation was doubly insulted by the ministers, who first violated the law, and then paid the costs of the proceedings out of the national taxes. On the 17th of April, 1770, Wilkes left the prison, to be elected in rapid succession to the offices--then much sought after, because held in high honour--of Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor of London. In 1774 he was permitted to take his seat as Member for Middlesex. After several failures, he succeeded in getting the resolutions of his incapacity to sit in the House formally expunged from its journals. He was elected Chamberlain of the City in 1779, and filled that lucrative and responsible post till his death, in 1797, at the age of seventy. Although the latter portion of his career as Member of Parliament has generally been considered a blank, yet it was marked by several incidents worthy of attention. He was a consistent and energetic opponent of the war with America."

_W. F. Rae, John Wilkes (Fortnightly Review, September, 1868, volume 10)._

ALSO IN: W. F. Rae, Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox, part 1.

G. O. Trevelyan, Early History of Charles James Fox, chapters 5-6, and 8.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1769-1772. The Letters of Junius.

"One of the newspapers in London at this period was the 'Public Advertiser,' printed and directed by Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall. His politics were those of the Opposition of the day; and he readily received any contributions of a like tendency from unknown correspondents. Among others was a writer whose letters beginning at the latest in April, 1767, continued frequent through that and the ensuing year. It was the pleasure of this writer to assume a great variety of signatures in his communications, as Mnemon, Atticus, and Brutus. It does not appear, however, that these letters (excepting only some with the signature of Lucius which were published in the autumn of 1768) attracted the public attention to any unusual extent, though by no means wanting in ability, or still less in acrimony. ... Such was the state of these publications, not much rising in interest above the common level of many such at other times, when on the 21st of January 1769 there came forth another letter from the same hand with the novel signature of Junius. It did not differ greatly from its predecessors either in superior merit or superior moderation; it contained, on the contrary, a fierce and indiscriminate attack on most men in high places, including the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Granby. But, unlike its predecessors, it roused to controversy a well-known and respectable opponent. Sir William Draper, General in the army and Knight of the Bath, undertook to meet and parry the blows which it had aimed at his Noble friend. In an evil hour for himself he sent to the Public Advertiser a letter subscribed with his own name, and defending the character and conduct of Lord Granby. An answer from Junius soon appeared, urging anew his original charge, and adding some thrusts at Sir William himself on the sale of a regiment, and on the nonpayment of the Manilla ransom. Wincing at the blow, Sir William more than once replied; more than once did the keen pen of Junius lay him prostrate in the dust. The discomfiture of poor Sir William was indeed complete. Even his most partial friends could not deny that so far as wit and eloquence were concerned the man in the mask had far, very far, the better in the controversy. ... These victories over a man of rank and station such as Draper's gave importance to the name of Junius. Henceforth letters with that signature were eagerly expected by the public, and carefully prepared by the author. {933} He did not indeed altogether cease to write under other names; sometimes especially adopting the part of a bystander, and the signature of Philo-Junius; but it was as Junius that his main and most elaborate attacks were made. Nor was it long before he swooped at far higher game than Sir William. First came a series of most bitter pasquinades against the Duke of Grafton. Dr. Blackstone was then assailed for the unpopular vote which he gave in the case of Wilkes. In September was published a false and malignant attack upon the Duke of Bedford,--an attack, however, of which the sting is felt by his descendants to this day. In December the acme of audacity was reached by the celebrated letter to the King. All this while conjecture was busy as to the secret author. Names of well-known statesmen or well-known writers--Burke or Dunning, Boyd or Dyer, George Sackville or Gerard Hamilton--flew from mouth to mouth. Such guesses were for the most part made at mere hap-hazard, and destitute of any plausible ground. Nevertheless the stir and talk which they created added not a little to the natural effects of the writer's wit and eloquence. 'The most important secret of our times!' cries Wilkes. Junius himself took care to enhance his own importance by arrogant, nay even impious, boasts of it. In one letter of August 1771 he goes so far as to declare that 'the Bible and Junius will be read when the commentaries of the Jesuits are forgotten!' Mystery, as I have said, was one ingredient to the popularity of Junius. Another not less efficacious was supplied by persecution. In the course of 1770 Mr. Woodfall was indicted for publishing, and Mr. Almon with several others for reprinting, the letter from Junius to the King. The verdict in Woodfall's case was: Guilty of printing and publishing only. It led to repeated discussions and to ulterior proceedings. But in the temper of the public at that period such measures could end only in virtual defeat to the Government, in augmented reputation to the libeller. During the years 1770 and 1771 the letters of Junius were continued with little abatement of spirit. He renewed invectives against the Duke of Grafton; he began them against Lord Mansfield, who had presided at the trials of the printers; he plunged into the full tide of City politics; and he engaged in a keen controversy with the Rev. John Horne, afterwards Horne Tooke. The whole series of letters from January 1769, when it commences, until January 1772, when it terminates, amounts to 69, including those with the signature of Philo-Junius, those of Sir William Draper, and those of Mr. Horne. ... Besides the letters which Junius designed for the press, there were many others which he wrote and sent to various persons, intending them for those persons only. Two addressed to Lord Chatham appear in Lord Chatham's correspondence. Three addressed to Mr. George Grenville have until now remained in manuscript among the papers at Wotton, or Stowe; all three were written in the same year, 1768, and the two first signed with the same initial C. Several others addressed to Wilkes were first made known through the son of Mr. Woodfall. But the most important of all, perhaps, are the private notes addressed to Mr. Woodfall himself. Of these there are upwards of sixty, signed in general with the letter C.; some only a few lines in length; but many of great value towards deciding the question of authorship. It seems that the packets containing the letters of Junius for Mr. Woodfall or the Public Advertiser were sometimes brought to the office-door, and thrown in, by an unknown gentleman, probably Junius himself; more commonly they were conveyed by a porter or other messenger hired in the streets. When some communication from Mr. Woodfall in reply was deemed desirable, Junius directed it to be addressed to him under some feigned name, and to be left till called for at the bar of some coffee-house. ... It may be doubted whether Junius had any confidant or trusted friend. ... When dedicating his collected letters to the English people, he declares: 'I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with me.'"

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 47 (v. 5).

The following list of fifty-one names of persons to whom the letters of Junius have been attributed at different times by different writers is given in Cushing's "Initials and Pseudonyms":

James Adair, M. P.; Captain Allen; Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Barre, M. P.; William Henry Cavendish Bentinck; Mr. Bickerton; Hugh M'Aulay Boyd; Edmund Burke; William Burke; John Butler, Bishop of Hereford; Lord Camden; John Lewis De Lolme; John Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton; Samuel Dyer; Henry Flood; Sir Philip Francis; George III.; Edward Gibbon; Richard Glover; Henry Grattan; William Greatrakes; George Grenville; James Grenville; William Gerard Hamilton; James Hollis; Thomas Hollis; Sir George Jackson; Sir William Jones; John Kent; Major-General Charles Lee; Charles Lloyd; Thomas Lyttleton; Laughlin Maclean; Rev. Edmund Marshall; Thomas Paine; William Pitt, Earl of Chatham; the Duke of Portland; Thomas Pownall; Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Rich; John Roberts; Rev. Philip Rosenhagen; George, Viscount Sackville; the Earl of Shelburne; Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; Richard Suett; Earl Temple; John Horne Tooke; Horace Walpole; Alexander Wedderburn, Lord Loughborough; John Wilkes; James Wilmot, D. D.; Daniel Wray.

ALSO IN: G. W. Cooke, History of Party, volume 3, chapter 6.

C. W. Dilke, Papers of a Critic, volume 2.

_Lord Macaulay, Warren Hastings (Essays, volume 5)._

A. Bisset, Short History of the English Parliament, chapter 7.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1770. Fall of the Grafton Ministry. Beginning of the administration of Lord North.

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