The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of King George the Fifth Part 41

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654.]

the nation. But this language made few proselytes. They had too often already been the dupes of his hypocrisy, the victims of their own credulity; they scrupled not, both in public companies, and from the pulpit, to p.r.o.nounce him "a dissembling perjured villain;" and they openly threatened him with "a worse fate than had befallen the last tyrant." If it was necessary to silence these declaimers, it was also dangerous to treat them with severity. He proceeded with caution, and modified his displeasure by circ.u.mstances. Some he removed from their commissions in the army and their ministry in the church; others he did not permit to go at large, till they had given security for their subsequent behaviour; and those who proved less tractable, or appeared more dangerous, he incarcerated in the Tower. Among the last were Harrison, formerly his fellow-labourer in the dissolution of the long parliament, now his most implacable enemy; and Feakes and Powell, the Anabaptist preachers, who had braved his resentment during the last parliament.[a] Symson, their colleague, shared their imprisonment, but procured his liberty[b] by submission.[1]

To the royalists, as he feared them less, he showed less forbearance.

Charles, who still resided in Paris, maintained a constant correspondence with the friends of his family in England, for the twofold purpose of preserving a party ready to take advantage of any revolution in his favour, and of deriving from their loyalty advances of money for his own support and that of his followers. Among the agents whom he employed, were men who betrayed his secrets, or pretended

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 641, 642; ii. 67, 68. Whitelock, 580, 582, 596.

Ludlow, ii. 47.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. Feb. 30.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. July 26.]

secrets, to his enemies,[1] or who seduced his adherents into imaginary plots, that by the discovery they might earn the grat.i.tude of the protector. Of the latter cla.s.s was an individual named Henshaw, who had repaired to Paris, and been refused what he solicited, admission to the royal presence. On his return, he detailed to certain royalists a plan by which the protector might be a.s.sa.s.sinated on his way to Hampton Court, the guards at Whitehall overpowered, the town surprised, and the royal exile proclaimed. Men were found to listen to his suggestions; and when a sufficient number were entangled in the toil, forty were apprehended[a] and examined. Of these, many consented to give evidence; three were selected[b]

for trial before the high court of justice. Fox, one of the three, pleaded guilty, and thus, by giving countenance to the evidence of Henshaw, deserved and obtained[c] his pardon. Vowell, a schoolmaster, and Gerard, a young gentleman two-and-twenty years of age, received[d] judgment of death.

The first suffered on the gallows, glorying that he died a martyr in the cause of royalty. Gerard, before he was beheaded, protested in the strongest terms that, though he had heard, he had never approved of the design.[2] In the depositions, it was pretended that Charles had given his consent to the a.s.sa.s.sination of the protector.

[Footnote 1: Clarendon informs Nicholas (June 12), that in reality no one secret had been betrayed or discovered.--Clar. Papers, iii. 247. But this is doubtful; for Willis, one of the committee called "the sealed knot," who was imprisoned, but discharged in September (Perfect Account, No. 194), proved afterwards a traitor.]

[Footnote 2: State Trials, v. 517-540. Thurloe, ii. 416, 446, 447.

Whitelock, 591, 593, 593. Henshaw was not produced on the trial. It was pretended that he had escaped. But we learn from Thurloe that he was safe in the Tower, and so Gerard suspected in his speech on the scaffold.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. May 24.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. June 30.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1654. July 6.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1654. July 10.]

Though Cromwell professed to disbelieve the charge, yet as a measure of self-defence he threatened the exiled prince that, if any such attempt were encouraged, he should have recourse to retaliation, and, at the same time, intimated that it would be no difficult matter for him to execute his threat.[1]

On the same scaffold, but an hour later, perished a foreign n.o.bleman, only nineteen years old, Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to Guimaraes, the Portuguese amba.s.sador. Six months before, he and Gerard, whose execution we have just noticed, had quarrelled[a] in the New Exchange. Pantaleon, the next evening,[b] repaired to the same place with a body of armed followers; a fray ensued; Greenway, a person unconcerned in the dispute, was killed by accident or mistake; and the Portuguese fled to the house of the amba.s.sador, whence they were conducted to prison by the military. The people, taking up the affair as a national quarrel, loudly demanded the blood of the reputed murderers. On behalf of Pantaleon it was argued: 1.

That he was an amba.s.sador, and therefore answerable to no one but his master; 2. That he was a person attached to the emba.s.sy, and therefore covered by the privilege of his princ.i.p.al. But the

[Footnote 1: Cromwell did not give credit to the plots for murdering him.--Thurloe, ii. 512, 533. Clarendon writes thus on the subject to his friend Nicholas: "I do a.s.sure you upon my credit, I do not know, and upon my confidence, the king does not, of any such design. Many wild, foolish persons propose wild things to the king, which he civilly discountenances, and then they and their friends brag what they hear, or could do; and, no doubt, in some such n.o.ble rage that hath now fallen out which they talk so much of at London, and by which many honest men are in prison, of which whole matter the king knows no more than secretary Nicholas doth."--Clar.

Papers, iii. 247. See, however, the account of s.e.xby's plot in the next chapter.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Nov. 21.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. Nov. 22.]

instrument which he produced in proof of the first allegation was no more than a written promise that he should succeed his brother in-office; and in reply to the second, it was maintained[a] that the privilege of an amba.s.sador, whatever it might be, was personal, and did not extend to the individuals in his suite. At the bar, after several refusals, he was induced by the threat of the _peine forte et dure_ to plead not guilty; and his demand of counsel, on account of his ignorance of English law, was rejected, on the ground that the court was "of counsel equal to the prisoner and the commonwealth." He was found guilty, and condemned, with four of his a.s.sociates. To three of these the protector granted a pardon; but no entreaties of the several amba.s.sadors could prevail in favour of Pantaleon. He was sacrificed, if we believe one of them, to the clamour of the people, whose feelings were so excited, that when his head fell on the scaffold,[b] the spectators proclaimed their joy by the most savage yells of exultation.[1] It was the very day on which his brother, perhaps to propitiate the protector, had signed the treaty between the two nations.

These executions had been preceded by one of a very different description.

Colonel Worsley had apprehended a Catholic clergyman, of the name of Southworth, who, thirty-seven years before, had been convicted at Lancaster, and sent into banishment. The old man (he had pa.s.sed his seventy-second year),

[Footnote 1: See in State Trials, v. 461-518, a numerous collection of authorities and opinions respecting this case. Also ibid. 536. That Pantaleon and his friends were armed, cannot be denied: was it for revenge? So it would appear from the relation in Somers's Tracts, iii. 65; Whitelock, 569; and State Trials, v. 482. Was it solely for defence?

Such is the evidence of Metham (Thurloe, ii. 222), and the a.s.sertion of Pantaleon at his death.--Whitelock, ii. 595.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. July 5.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. July 10.]

at his arraignment, pleaded that he had taken orders in the church of Rome, but was innocent of any treason. The recorder advised him to withdraw his plea, and gave him four hours for consideration. But Southworth still owned that he was a Catholic and in orders; judgment of death was p.r.o.nounced; and the protector, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of the French and Spanish amba.s.sadors, resolved that he should suffer. It was not that Cromwell approved of sanguinary punishments in matters of religion, but that he had no objection to purchase the good-will of the G.o.dly by shedding the blood of a priest. The[a] fate of this venerable man[a] excited the sympathy of the higher cla.s.ses. Two hundred carriages and a crowd of hors.e.m.e.n followed the hurdle on which he was drawn to the place of execution. On the scaffold, he spoke with satisfaction of the manner of his death, but at the same time pointed out the inconsistency of the men who pretended to have taken up arms for liberty of conscience, and yet shed the blood of those who differed from them in religious opinions. He suffered the usual punishment of traitors.[1]

The intelligence of the late revolution had been received by the military in Ireland and Scotland with open murmurs on the part of some, and a suspicious acquiescence on that of others. In Ireland, Fleetwood knew not how to reconcile the conduct of his father-in-law with his own principles, and expressed a wish to resign the government of the island; Ludlow and Jones, both stanch republicans, looked on the protector as a hypocrite and an apostate, and though the latter was more cautious in his language, the

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, ii. 406. Whitelock, 592. Challoner, ii. 354.

Knaresborough's Collections, MS.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654 June 23.]

former openly refused to act as civil commissioner under the new const.i.tution; and in most of the garrisons several of the princ.i.p.al officers made no secret of their dissatisfaction: in one case they even drew up a remonstrance against "the government by a single person." But Cromwell averted the storm which threatened him, by his prudence and firmness. He sent his son Henry on a visit to Fleetwood, that he might learn the true disposition of the military; the more formidable of his opponents were silently withdrawn to England; and several of the others found themselves suddenly but successively deprived of their commands.

In most cases interest proved more powerful than principle; and it was observed that out of the numbers, who at first crowded to the Anabaptist conventicle at Dublin as a profession of their political creed, almost all who had any thing to lose, gradually abandoned it for the more courtly places of wors.h.i.+p. Even the Anabaptists themselves learned to believe that the ambition of a private individual could not defeat the designs of the Lord, and that it was better for men to retain their situations under the protector, than, by abandoning them, to deprive themselves of the means of promoting the service of G.o.d, and of hastening the reign of Christ upon earth.[1]

In Scotland the spirit of disaffection equally prevailed among the superior officers; but their attention was averted from political feuds by military operations. In the preceding years, under the appearance of general tranquillity, the embers of war had continued to smoulder in the Highlands: they burst into a flame on the departure of Monk to take the command of the

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, ii. 149, 150, 162, 214.]

English fleet. To Charles in France, and his partisans in Scotland, it seemed a favourable moment; the earls of Glencairn and Balcarras, were successively joined by Angus, Montrose, Athol, Seaforth, Kenmure, and Lorne, the son of Argyle; and Wogan, an enterprising officer, landing at Dover,[a] raised a troop of royalists in London, and traversing England under the colours of the commonwealth, reached in safety the quarters of his Scottish friends. The number of the royalists amounted to some thousands: the nature of the country and the affections of the natives were in their favour; and their spirits were supported by the repeated, but fallacious, intelligence of the speedy arrival of Charles himself at the head of a considerable force. A petty, but most destructive, warfare ensued. Robert Lilburne, the English commander, ravaged the lands of all who favoured the royalists; the royalists, those of all who remained neuter, or aided their enemies. But in a short time, personal feuds distracted the councils of the insurgents; and, as the right of Glencairn to the chief command was disputed, Middleton arrived[b] with a royal commission, which all were required to obey. To Middleton the protector opposed Monk.[c] It was the policy of the former to avoid a battle, and exhaust the strength of his adversary by marches and counter-marches in a mountainous country, without the convenience of roads or quarters; but in an attempt to elude his pursuer, Middleton was surprised[d] at Loch Garry by the force under Morgan; his men, embarra.s.sed in the defile, were slain or made prisoners; and his loss taught the royalist leaders to deserve mercy by the prompt.i.tude of their submission. The Earl of Tullibardine set the example;[e] Glencairn followed; they were imitated by their a.s.sociates;

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Nov. 22.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1654. Feb. 1.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1654. April 8.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1654. July 19.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1654. August 24.]

and the lenity of Monk contributed as much as the fortune of war to the total suppression of the insurgents.[1] Cromwell, however, did not wait for the issue of the contest. Before Monk had joined the army, he published[a]

three ordinances, by which, of his supreme authority, he incorporated Scotland with England, absolved the natives from their allegiance to Charles Stuart, abolished the kingly office and the Scottish parliament, with all tenures and superiorities importing servitude and va.s.salage, erected courts-baron to supply the place of the jurisdictions which he had taken away, and granted a free pardon to the nation, with the exception of numerous individuals whom he subjected to different degrees of punishment.

Thus the whole frame of the Scottish const.i.tution was subverted: yet no one ventured to remonstrate or oppose. The spirit of the nation had been broken. The experience of the past, and the presence of the military, convinced the people that resistance was fruitless: of the n.o.bility, many languished within the walls of their prisons in England; and the others were ground to the dust by the demands of their creditors, or the exactions of the sequestrators; and even the kirk, which had so often bearded kings on their thrones, was taught to feel that its authority, however it might boast of its celestial origin, was no match for the earthly power of the English commonwealth.[2] Soon after Cromwell had called his little parliament, the general a.s.sembly of the kirk met[b]

[Footnote 1: See the ratification of the surrenders of Tullibardine, Glencairn, Heriot, Forrester, Kenmure, Montrose, and Seaforth, dated at different times between Aug. 24 and Jan. 10, in the Council Book, 1655, Feb. 7.]

[Footnote 2: Scobell, 289, 293-295. Whitelock, 583,597, 599. Burnet, i.

58-61. Baillie, ii. 377, 381. Milton, State Papers, 130, 131.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. April 1.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. July 20.]

at the usual place in Edinburgh; and d.i.c.kson, the moderator, had begun his prayer, when Colonel Cotterel, leaving two troops of horse and two companies of foot at the door, entered[a] the house, and inquired by what authority they sat there; Was it by authority of the parliament, or of the commander of the forces, or of the English judges in Scotland? The moderator meekly but firmly replied, that they formed a spiritual court, established by G.o.d, recognized by law, and supported by the solemn league and covenant. But this was a language which the soldier did not, or would not, understand. Mounting a bench, he declared that there existed no authority in Scotland which was not derived from the parliament of England; that it was his duty to put down every illegal a.s.sumption of power; and that they must immediately depart or suffer themselves to be dragged out by the military under his command. No one offered to resist: a protestation was hastily entered on the minutes; and the whole body was marched between two files of soldiers through the streets, to the surprise, and grief, and horror of the inhabitants. At the distance of a mile from the city, Cotterel discharged them with an admonition, that, if any of them were found in the capital after eight o'clock on the following morning, or should subsequently presume to meet in greater numbers than three persons at one time, they would be punished with imprisonment, as disturbers of the public peace. "Thus," exclaims Baillie, "our general a.s.sembly, the glory and strength of our church upon earth, is by your soldiery crushed and trode under foot. For this our hearts are sad, and our eyes run down with water."[1]

[Footnote 1: Baillie, ii. 370.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654. July 20.]

Yet after this they were permitted to meet in synods and presbyteries, an indulgence which they owed not to the moderation of their adversaries, but to the policy of Vane, who argued that it was better to furnish them with the opportunity of quarrelling among themselves, than, by establis.h.i.+ng a compulsory tranquillity, allow them to combine against the commonwealth.

For the ministers were still divided into resolutioners and protestors, and the virulence of this religious feud appeared to augment in proportion as the parties were deprived of real power. The resolutioners were the more numerous, and enjoyed a greater share of popular favour; but the protestors were enemies of Charles Stuart, and therefore sure of the protection of the government. Hence it happened that in every struggle for the possession of churches--and such struggles continually happened between the two parties--the protestors were invariably supported against the voice of the people by the swords of the military.[1]

By foreign powers the recent elevation of Cromwell was viewed without surprise. They were aware of his ambition, and had antic.i.p.ated his success.

All who had reason to hope from his friends.h.i.+p, or to fear from his enmity, offered their congratulations, and amba.s.sadors and envoys from most of the princes of Europe crowded to the court of the protector. He

[Footnote 1: Baillie, 371-376, 360. Burnet, i. 62. Whilst Baillie weeps over the state of the kirk, Kirkton exults at the progress of the gospel.