The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of King George the Fifth Part 32

[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 18, Oct. 4; 1650, March 30; 1651, Sept.

2, Dec. 17; 1652, April 7.]

[Footnote 2: Journals, 1649, April 7, Aug. 1, Dec. 7; 1650, May 21, Nov.

26; 1651, April 15, Sept. 1, Dec. 19; 1652, Dec. 10; 1653, Nov. 24.]

good cause in which they had originally embarked. By the latter Lilburne was revered as an apostle and a martyr; they read with avidity the publications which repeatedly issued from his cell; and they condemned as persecutors and tyrants the men who had immured him and his companions in the Tower. Preparations had been made[a] to bring them to trial as the authors of the late mutiny; but, on more mature deliberation, the project was abandoned,[b] and an act was pa.s.sed making it treason to a.s.sert that the government was tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful. No enactments, however, could check the hostility of Lilburne; and a new pamphlet from his pen,[c] in vindication of "The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People,"

put to the test the resolution of his opponents. They shrunk from the struggle; it was judged more prudent to forgive, or more dignified to despise, his efforts; and, on his pet.i.tion for leave to visit his sick family, he obtained his discharge.[1]

But this lenity made no impression on his mind. In the course of six weeks he published[d] two more offensive tracts, and distributed them among the soldiery. A new mutiny broke out at Oxford; its speedy suppression emboldened the council; the demagogue was reconducted[e] to his cell in the Tower; and Keble, with forty other commissioners, was appointed[f] to try him for his last offence on the recent statute of treasons. It may, perhaps, be deemed a weakness in Lilburne that he now offered[g] on certain conditions to transport himself to America; but he redeemed his character, as soon as he was placed at the bar. He repelled with scorn the charges of the

[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 11, May 12, July 18. Council Book May 2.

Whitelock, 414.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. April 11.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. May 12.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. June 8.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. July 18.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. Sept. 6.]

[Sidenote f: A.D. 1649. Sept. 14.]

[Sidenote g: A.D. 1649. Oct. 24.]

prosecutors and the taunts of the court, electrified the audience by frequent appeals to Magna Charta and the liberties of Englishmen, and stoutly maintained the doctrine that the jury had a right to judge of the law as well as of the fact. It was in vain that the court p.r.o.nounced this opinion "the most d.a.m.nable heresy ever broached in the land," and that the government employed all its influence to win or intimidate the jurors; after a trial of three days, Lilburne, obtained a verdict of acquittal.[1]

Whether after his liberation[a] any secret compromise took place is uncertain. He subscribed the engagement, and, though he openly explained it in a sense conformable to his own principles, yet the parliament made to him out of the forfeited lands of the deans and chapters the grant[b] of a valuable estate, as a compensation for the cruel treatment which he had formerly suffered from the court of the Star-Chamber.[2] Their bounty, however, wrought no change in his character. He was still the indomitable denouncer of oppression wherever he found it, and before the end of the next year he drew upon himself the vengeance of the men in power, by the distribution[c] of a pamphlet which charged Sir Arthur Hazlerig and the commissioners at Haberdashers'-hall with injustice and tyranny. This by the house was voted a breach of privilege, and the offender was condemned[d]

in a fine of seven thousand pounds with banishment for life. Probably the court of Star-chamber never p.r.o.nounced a judgment in which the punishment was more disproportionate to the offence. But his former enemies sought

[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, Sept 11, Oct. 30. Whitelock, 424, 425. State Trials, ii. 151.]

[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 436. Journ. 1650, July 16, 30.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Dec. 29.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. July 30.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Dec. 22.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. Jan. 15.]

not justice on the culprit, but security to themselves. They seized the opportunity of freeing the government from the presence of a man whom they had so long feared; and, as he refused to kneel at the bar while judgment was p.r.o.nounced, they embodied the vote in an act of parliament. To save his life, Lilburne submitted; but his residence on the continent was short: the reader will soon meet with him again in England.[1]

The Levellers had boldly avowed their object; the royalists worked in the dark and by stealth; yet the council by its vigilance and prompt.i.tude proved a match for the open hostility of the one and the secret machinations of the other. A doubt may, indeed, be raised of the policy of the "engagement," a promise of fidelity to the commonwealth without king or house of lords. As long as it was confined to those who held office under the government, it remained a mere question of choice; but when it was exacted from all Englishmen above seventeen years of age, under the penalty of incapacity to maintain an action in any court of law, it became to numbers a matter of necessity, and served rather to irritate than to produce security.[2] A more efficient measure was the permanent establishment of a high court of justice to inquire into offences against the state, to which was added the organization of a system of espionage by Captain Bishop, under the direction of Scot, a member of the council. The friends of monarchy, encouraged by the clamour of the Levellers and the professions of the Scots, had begun to hold meetings,

[Footnote 1: Journals, 1651, Dec. 23; 1652, Jan. 15, 20, 30. Whitelock, 520. State Trials, v. 407-415.]

[Footnote 2: Leicester's Journal, 97-101.]

sometimes under the pretence of religious wors.h.i.+p, sometimes under that of country amus.e.m.e.nts: in a short time they divided the kingdom into districts called a.s.sociations, in each of which it was supposed that a certain number of armed men might be raised; and blank commissions with the royal signature were obtained, to be used in appointing colonels, captains, and lieutenants, for the command of these forces. Then followed an active correspondence both with Charles soon after his arrival in Scotland, and with the earl of Newcastle, the Lord Hopton, and a council of exiles; first at Utrecht, and afterwards at the Hague. By the plan ultimately adopted, it was proposed that Charles himself or Ma.s.sey, leaving a sufficient force to occupy the English army in Scotland, should, with a strong corps of Cavalry, cross[a] the borders between the kingdoms; that at the same time the royalists in the several a.s.sociations should rise in arms, and that the exiles in Holland, with five thousand English and German adventurers, should land in Kent, surprise Dover, and hasten to join their Presbyterian a.s.sociates, in the capital.[1] But, to arrange and insure the co-operation of all the parties concerned required the employment of numerous agents, of whom, if several were actuated by principle, many were of doubtful faith and desperate fortunes. Some of these betrayed their trust; some undertook to serve both parties, and deceived each; and it is a curious fact that, while the letters of the agents for the royalists often pa.s.sed through the hands of Bishop himself, his secret papers belonging to the council of state were copied and forwarded to the king.[2] This consequence however followed,

[Footnote 1: Milton's State Papers, 35, 37, 39, 47, 49, 50. Baillie, ii. 5, 8. Carte's Letters, i. 414.]

[Footnote 2: State Trials, v. 4. Milton's State Papers, 39, 47, 50, 57. One of these agents employed by both parties was a Mrs. Walters, alias Hamlin, on whose services Bishop placed great reliance. She was to introduce herself to Cromwell by p.r.o.nouncing the word "prosperity."--Ibid.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. December.]

that the plans of the royalists were always discovered, and by that means defeated by the precautions of the council. While the king was on his way to Scotland, a number of blank commissions had been seized in the possession of Dr. Lewen, a civilian, who suffered[a] the penalty of death.

Soon afterwards Sir John Gell, Colonel Eusebius Andrews, and Captain Benson, were arraigned on the charge of conspiring the destruction of the government established by law. They opposed three objections to the jurisdiction of the court: it was contrary to Magna Charta, which gave to every freeman the right of being tried by his peers; contrary to the pet.i.tion of right, by which courts-martial (and the present court was most certainly a court-martial) had been forbidden; and contrary to the many declarations of parliament, that the laws, the rights of the people, and the courts of justice, should be maintained. But the court repelled[b] the objections; Andrews and Benson suffered death, and Gell, who had not been an accomplice, but only cognizant of the plot, was condemned[c] to perpetual imprisonment, with the forfeiture of his property.[1]

These executions did not repress the eagerness of the royalists, nor relax the vigilance of the council. In the beginning of December the friends of Charles took up arms[d] in Norfolk, but the rising was premature; a body of roundheads dispersed the insurgents; and twenty of the latter atoned for their temerity with their lives. Still the failure of one plot did not prevent

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 464, 468, 473, 474. Heath, 269, 270. See mention of several discoveries in Carte's Letters, i. 443, 464, 472.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. July 13.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. August 22.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. Oct. 7.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Dec. 2.]

the formation of another; as long as Charles Stuart was in Scotland, the ancient friends of his family secretly prepared for his reception in England; and many of the Presbyterians, through enmity to the principles of the Independents, devoted themselves to the interests of the prince.[1]

This party the council resolved to attack in their chief bulwark, the city; and Love, one of the most celebrated of the ministers, was apprehended[a]

with several of his a.s.sociates. At his trial, he sought to save his life by an evasive protestation, which he uttered with the most imposing solemnity in the presence of the Almighty. But it was clearly proved against him that the meetings had been held in his house, the money collected for the royalists had been placed on his table, and the letters received, and the answers to be returned, had been read in his hearing. After judgment,[b]

both he and his friends presented[c] pet.i.tions in his favour; respite after respite was obtained and the parliament, as if it had feared to decide without instructions, referred[d] the case to Cromwell in Scotland. That general was instantly a.s.sailed with letters from both the friends and the foes of Love; he was silent; a longer time was granted by the house; but he returned no answer, and the unfortunate minister lost his head[e] on Tower-hill with the constancy and serenity of a martyr. Of his a.s.sociates, only one, Gibbons, a citizen, shared his fate.[2]

[Footnote 1: "It is plaine unto mee that they doe not judge us a lawfull magistracy, nor esteeme anything treason that is acted by them to destroy us, in order to bring the king of Scots as heed of the covenant."--Vane to Cromwell, of "Love and his brethren." Milton's State Papers, 84.]

[Footnote 2: Milton's State Papers, 50, 54, 66, 75, 76. Whitelock, 492, 493, 495, 500. State Trials, v. 43-294. Heath, 288, 290. Leicester's Journal, 107, 115, 123. A report, probably unfounded, was spread that Cromwell granted him his life, but the despatch was waylaid, and detained, or destroyed by the Cavaliers, who bore in remembrance Love's former hostility to the royal cause.--Kennet, 185.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. May 7.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. June 5.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. June 11.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. July 15.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1651. August 22.]

2. To Charles it had been whispered by his secret advisers that the war between the parliament and the Scots would, by withdrawing the attention of the council from Ireland, allow the royal party to resume the ascendancy in that kingdom. But this hope quickly vanished. The resources of the commonwealth were seen to multiply with its wants; and its army in Ireland was daily augmented by recruits in the island, and by reinforcements from England. Ireton, to whom Cromwell, with the t.i.tle of lord deputy, had left[a] the chief command, pursued with little interruption the career of his victorious predecessor. Sir Charles Coote met the men of Ulster at Letterkenny; after a long and sanguinary action they were defeated; and the next day their leader, MacMahon, the warrior bishop of Clogher, was made prisoner by a fresh corps of troops from Inniskilling.[1] Lady Fitzgerald, a name as ill.u.s.trious in the military annals of Ireland as that of Lady Derby in those of England, defended the fortress of Trecoghan, but neither the efforts of Sir Robert Talbot within, nor the gallant attempt of Lord Castlehaven without, could prevent its surrender.[2] Waterford, Carlow, and Charlemont accepted honourable conditions, and the garrison of Duncannon, reduced to a handful of men by the ravages of the plague, opened its gates[b] to the enemy.[3] Ormond, instead of facing

[Footnote 1: Though he had quarter given and life promised, Coote ordered him to be hanged. Yet it was by MacMahon's persuasion that O'Neil in the preceding year had saved Coote by raising the siege of Londonderry.--Clarendon, Short View, &c., in vol. viii. 145-149. But Coote conducted the war like a savage. See several instances at the end of Lynch's Cambresis Eversus.]

[Footnote 2: See Castlehaven's Memoirs, 120-124; and Carte's Ormond, ii.

116.]

[Footnote 3: Heath, 267, 370. Whitelock, 457, 459, 463, 464, 469.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. June 18.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. June 25.]

the conquerors in the field, had been engaged in a long and irritating controversy with those of the Catholic leaders who distrusted his integrity, and with the townsmen of Limerick and Galway, who refused to admit his troops within their walls. Misfortune had put an end to his authority; his enemies remarked that whether he were a real friend or a secret foe, the cause of the confederates had never prospered under his guidance; and the bishops conjured him,[a] now that the very existence of the nation was at stake, to adopt measures which might heal the public dissensions and unite all true Irishmen in the common defence. Since the loss of Munster by the defection of Inchiquin's forces, they had entertained an incurable distrust of their English allies; and to appease their jealousy, he dismissed the few Englishmen who yet remained in the service. Finding them rise in their demands, he called a general a.s.sembly at Loughrea, announced his intention, or pretended intention, of quitting the kingdom; and then, at the general request, and after some demur, consented to remain. Hitherto the Irish had cherished the expectation that the young monarch would, as he had repeatedly promised, come to Ireland, and take the reins of government into his hands; they now, to their disappointment, learned that he had accepted the invitation of the Scots, their sworn and inveterate enemies. In a short time, the conditions to which he had subscribed began to transpire; that he had engaged to annul the late pacification between Ormond and the Catholics, and had bound himself by oath,[b] not only not to permit the exercise of the Catholic wors.h.i.+p, but to root out the Catholic religion wherever it existed in any of his dominions. A general gloom and despondency prevailed; ten bishops and

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. March 28.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 6.]

ten clergymen a.s.sembled at James-town, and their first resolve was to depute[a] two of their number to the lord lieutenant, to request that he would put in execution his former design of quitting the kingdom, and would leave his authority in the hands of a Catholic deputy possessing the confidence of the nation. Without, however, waiting for his answer, they proceeded to frame[b] a declaration, in which they charged Ormond with negligence, incapacity, and perfidy; protested that, though they were compelled by the great duty of self-preservation to withdraw from the government of the king's lieutenant, they had no intention to derogate from the royal authority; and p.r.o.nounced that, in the existing circ.u.mstances, the Irish people were no longer bound by the articles of the pacification, but by the oath under which they had formerly a.s.sociated for their common protection. To this, the next day[c] they appended a form of excommunication equally affecting all persons who should abet either Ormond or Ireton, in opposition to the real interests of the Catholic confederacy.[1]

The lord lieutenant, however, found that he was supported by some of the prelates, and by most of the aristocracy. He replied[d] to the synod at James-town, that nothing short of necessity should induce him to quit Ireland without the order of the king; and the commissioners of trust expostulated[e] with the bishops on their imprudence and presumption. But at this moment arrived copies of the declaration which Charles had been compelled to publish at Dunfermling, in Scotland. The whole population was in a ferment. Their suspicions, they exclaimed, were now verified;