The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of King George the Fifth Part 50

[Footnote 1: Clarendon Papers, iii. 322, 338, 357. Merc. Pol. 39. Thurloe, vi. 33, 182, 315, 425, 560, 829. Clarendon a.s.sures us that s.e.xby was an illiterate person, which is a sufficient proof that he was not the real author of the tract, though he acknowledged it for his own in the Tower, probably to deceive the protector. The writer, whoever he was, kept his secret, at least at first; for Clarendon writes to Secretary Nicholas, that he cannot imagine who could write it.--Clar. Papers, iii. 343. By most historians it has been attributed to Captain t.i.tus; nor shall we think this improbable, if we recollect that t.i.tus was, in Holland, constantly in the company of s.e.xby, till the departure of the latter for England.--Ibid. 331, 335. Evelyn a.s.serts it in his Diary, ii. 210, 8vo.]

captain to inform the English admiral that he was welcome to come whenever he durst. Blake came, examined the defences, and, according to custom, proclaimed a solemn fast. At eight the next morning[a] Stayner took the lead in a frigate; the admiral followed in the larger s.h.i.+ps; and the whole fleet availing itself of a favourable wind, entered the harbour under a tremendous shower of b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls. Each vessel immediately fell into its allotted station; and, while some engaged the s.h.i.+pping, the rest directed their fire against the batteries. The Spaniards, though fewer in number of s.h.i.+ps, were superior in that of men; their hopes were supported by the aid which they received from the land; and during four hours they fought with the most determined bravery. Driven from the galleons, the crews retreated to the second line of merchantmen, and renewed the contest till they were finally compelled to save themselves on the sh.o.r.e. At two in the afternoon every Spanish s.h.i.+p was in possession of the English, and in flames. Still there remained the difficulty of working the fleet out of the harbour in the teeth of the gale. About sunset they were out of reach of the guns from the forts; the wind, by miracle, as Blake persuaded himself, veered to the south-west, and the conquerors proceeded triumphantly out to sea. This gallant action, though it failed of securing the treasure which the protector chiefly sought, raised the reputation of Blake in every part of Europe. Unfortunately the hero himself lived not to receive the congratulations of his country. He had been during a great part of three years at sea; the scurvy and dropsy wasted his const.i.tution; and he expired[b] in his fifty-ninth year,

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. April 20.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1657. August 7.]

as his s.h.i.+p, the St. George, entered the harbour of Plymouth.[1]

Blake had served with distinction in the army during the civil war; and the knowledge of his talents and integrity induced the parliamentary leaders to entrust him with the command of the fleet. For maritime tactics he relied on the experience of others; his plans and his daring were exclusively his own. He may claim the peculiar praise of having dispelled an illusion which had hitherto cramped the operations of the British navy--a persuasion that it was little short of madness to expose a s.h.i.+p at sea to the fire from a battery on sh.o.r.e. The victories of Blake at Tunis and Santa Cruz served to establish the contrary doctrine; and the seamen learned from his example to despise the danger which had hitherto been deemed so formidable. Though Cromwell prized his services, he doubted his attachment; and a suspicion existed that the protector did not regret the death of one who professed to fight for his country, not for the government. But he rendered that justice to the dead, which he might perhaps have refused to the living, hero. He publicly acknowledged his merit, honouring his bones with a funeral at the national expense, and ordering them to be interred at Westminster, in Henry the Seventh's chapel. In the next reign the coffin was taken from the vault, and deposited in the church yard.

4. The reader is aware of Cromwell's anxiety to form a more intimate alliance with Louis XIV. For this purpose Lockhart, one of the Scottish judges, who

[Footnote 1: Vaughan, ii. 176. Heath, 391, 402. Echard, 725. Journals, May 28, 29.]

had married his niece, and received knighthood at his hand, proceeded to France. After some discussion, a treaty, to last twelve months, was concluded;[1][a] and Sir John Reynolds landed at Calais[b] with an auxiliary force of six thousand men, one half in the pay of the king, the other half in that of the protector. But as an a.s.sociate in the war, Cromwell demanded a share in the spoil, and that share was nothing less than the possession of Mard.y.k.e and Dunkirk, as soon as they could be reduced by the allies. To this proposal the strongest opposition had been made in the French cabinet. Louis was reminded of the injuries which the English, the natural enemies of France, had inflicted on the country in the reigns of his predecessors. Dunkirk would prove a second Calais; it would open to a foreign foe the way into the heart of his dominions. But he yielded to the superior wisdom or ascendancy of Mazarin, who replied that, if France refused the offers it would be accepted with a similar sacrifice by Spain; that, supposing the English to be established on that coast at all, it was better that they should be there as friends than as enemies; and that their present co-operation would enable him either to drive the Spaniards out of the Netherlands, or to dictate to them the terms of peace.[2] The combined force

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, vi. 63, 86, 115, 124. To avoid disputes, the treaty was written in the Latin language, and the precedency was given to Louis in one copy, to Cromwell in the other. In the diplomatic collection of Dumont, vi. part ii. 178, is published a second treaty, said to have been signed on May 9th, N.S. If it were genuine, it would disclose gigantic projects of aggrandizement on the part of the two powers. But it is clearly a forgery.

We have despatches from Lockhart dated on the day of the pretended signature, and other despatches for a year afterward; yet none of them make the remotest allusion to this treaty; several contain particulars inconsistent with it.]

[Footnote 2: Oeuvres de Louis XIV. i. 171.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. March 13, May 15.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1657. May 15.]

was placed under the command of the celebrated Turenne, who was opposed by the Spaniards under Don Juan, with the British exiles, commanded by the duke of York, and the French exiles, by the prince of Conde. The English auxiliaries, composed of veteran regiments, supported the reputation of their country by their martial appearance and exemplary discipline; but they had few opportunities of displaying their valour; and the summer was spent in a tedious succession of marches and countermarches, accompanied with no brilliant action nor important result. Cromwell viewed the operations of the army with distrust and impatience. The French ministry seemed in no haste to redeem their pledge with respect to the reduction of Dunkirk, and to his multiplied remonstrances uniformly opposed this unanswerable objection, that, in the opinion of Turenne, the best judge, the attempt in the existing circ.u.mstances must prove ruinous to the allies. At last he would brook no longer delay; the army marched into the neighbourhood of the town, and the fort of Mard.y.k.e capitulated[a] after a siege of three days. But the Spaniards lay strongly intrenched behind the ca.n.a.l of Bergues, between Mard.y.k.e and Dunkirk; and by common consent the design was abandoned, and the siege of Gravelines subst.i.tuted in its place.

Scarcely, however, had the combined army taken[b] a position before it, when the sluices were opened, the country was inundated, and Turenne dismissed his forces into winter quarters. Mard.y.k.e received a garrison, partly of English, and partly of French, under the command of Sir John Reynolds; but that officer in a short time incurred the suspicion of the protector. The duke of York, from his former service in the French army, was well known

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. Sept. 23.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1657. Sept. 27.]

to some of the French officers. They occasionally met and exchanged compliments in their rides, he from Dunkirk, they from Mard.y.k.e. By one of them Reynolds solicited permission to pay his respects to the young prince.

He was accompanied by Crew, another officer; and, though he pretended that it was an accidental civility, found the opportunity of whispering an implied offer of his services in the ear of the duke. Within a few days he received an order to wait on the protector in London in company with Colonel White, who had secretly accused him; but both were lost[a] on the Goodwin Sands, through the ignorance or the stupidity of the captain.[1]

At home the public attention was absorbed by a new and most interesting spectacle. The parliament met on the day to which it had been adjourned, but it was now divided according to the ancient form into two houses.

Sixty-two individuals had been summoned[b] to the upper house, and the writs, as they were copies of those formerly issued by the sovereign, were held to confer in like manner the privileges of an hereditary peerage, subject to certain exceptions specified in the "pet.i.tion and advice."[2]

The Commons, at the call of the usher of the black rod, proceeded to the House of Lords, where they found his highness seated under a canopy of state. His speech began with the ancient address: "My lords and gentlemen of the House of Commons." It was short, but its brevity was compensated by its piety, and after an exposition of the eighty-fifth psalm, he referred his two houses for other particulars to Fiennes, the lord-keeper, who, in a long and tedious

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, vi. 231, 287, 426, 512, 538, 542, 580, 637, 665, 676, 731. Memoirs of James, i. 317-328.]

[Footnote 2: Thurloe, vi. 752.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. Dec. 5.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1658. Jan. 20.]

harangue, praised and defended the new inst.i.tutions. After the departure of the Commons, the Lords spent their time in inquiries into the privileges of their house. Cromwell had summoned his two sons, Richard and Henry, seven peers of royal creation, several members of his council, some gentlemen of fortune and family, with a due proportion of lawyers and officers, and a scanty sprinkling of persons known to be disaffected to his government. Of the ancient peers two only attended, the lords Eure and Falconberg, of whom the latter had recently[a] married Mary, the protector's daughter; and of the other members, nine were absent through business or disinclination. As their journals have not been preserved, we have little knowledge of their proceedings.[1]

In the lower house, the interest of the government had declined by the impolitic removal of the leading members to the House of Lords, and by the introduction of those who, having formerly been excluded by order of Cromwell, now took their seats in virtue of the article which reserved to the house the right of inquiry into the qualifications of its members.

The opposition was led by two men of considerable influence and undaunted resolution, Hazlerig and Scot. Both had been excluded at the first meeting of this parliament, and both remembered the affront. To remove Hazlerig

[Footnote 1: Journals, Jan. 7, 20. Whitelock, 666, 668. The speech of Fiennes is reported in the Journals, Jan. 25. See the names and characters of those who attended, in "A Second Narrative of the late Parliament (so called), &c., printed in the fifth year of England's Slavery under its new Monarchy, 1658." "They spent their time in little matters, such as choosing of committees; and among other things, to consider of the privileges and jurisdiction of their house, (good wise souls!) before they knew what their house was, or should be called."--Ibid. 7. The peers who refused to attend, were the earls of Mulgrave, Warwick, and Manchester, the Viscount Say and Sele, and the Lord Wharton.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. Nov. 19.]

from a place where his experience and eloquence rendered him a formidable adversary, Cromwell had called him to the upper house; but he refused to obey the writ, and took his seat among the Commons.[1] That a new house was to be called according to the articles of the "pet.i.tion and advice," no one denied; but who, it was asked, made its members lords? who gave them the privileges of the ancient peerage? who empowered them to negative the acts of that house to which they owed their existence? Was it to be borne that the children should a.s.sume the superiority over their parents; that the nominees of the protector should control the representatives of the people, the depositaries of the supreme power of the nation? It was answered that the protector had called them lords; that it was the object of "the pet.i.tion and advice" to re-establish the "second estate;" and that, if any doubt remained, it were best to amend the "instrument" by giving to the members of the other house the t.i.tle of lords, and to the protector that of king.[a] Cromwell sought to soothe these angry spirits. He read to them lectures on the benefit, the necessity, of unanimity. Let them look abroad.

The papists threatened to swallow up all the Protestants of Europe. England was the only stay, the last hope of religion. Let them look at home: the Cavaliers and the Levellers were combined to overthrow the const.i.tution; Charles Stuart was preparing an invasion; and the Dutch had ungratefully sold him certain vessels for that purpose. Dissension would inevitably draw down ruin on themselves,

[Footnote 1: Hazlerig made no objection to the oath which bound him to be faithful to the protector. But the sense which he attached to it is singular: "I will be faithful," said he, "to the lord-protector's person. I will murder no man."--Burton's Diary, ii. 347.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658. Jan. 25.]

their liberties, and their religion. For himself. he called G.o.d, angels, and men, to witness that he sought not the office which he held. It was forced upon him; but he had sworn to execute its duties, and he would perform what he had sworn, by preserving to every cla.s.s of men their just rights, whether civil or religious.[1] But his advice, and entreaties, and menaces were useless.[a] The judges repeatedly brought messages from "the Lords to the Commons," and as often were told that "that house would return an answer by messengers of their own."[b] Instead, however, of returning answers, they spent their whole time in debating what t.i.tle and what rights ought to belong to the other house.[2]

Never, perhaps, during his extraordinary career, was Cromwell involved in difficulties equal to those which surrounded him at this moment. He could raise no money without the consent of parliament, and the pay of the army in England was five, and of that in Ireland seven, months in arrear; the exiled king threatened a descent from the coast of Flanders, and the royalists throughout the

[Footnote 1: Mr. Rutt has added this speech to Burton's Diary, ii. 351-371.

I may remark that, 1. The protector now addressed the members by the ambiguous style of "my lords and gentlemen of the two houses of parliament." 2. That he failed in proving the danger which, as he pretended, menaced Protestantism. If, in the north, the two Protestant states of Sweden and Denmark were at war with each other, more to the south the Catholic states of France and Spain were in the same situation. 3. That the vessels sold by the Dutch were six flutes which the English cruisers afterwards destroyed. 4. That from this moment he was constantly a.s.serting with oaths that he sought not his present office. How could he justify such oaths in his own mind? Was it on the fallacious ground that what he in reality sought was the office of king, not of protector?]

[Footnote 2: Journals, Jan. 25, 29, Feb. 1, 3. Burton's Diary, ii. 371-464.

Thurloe, i. 766; vi. 767.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658. Jan. 22.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1658. Feb. 3.]

kingdom were preparing to join his standard; the leaders of opposition in parliament had combined with several officers in the army to re-establish the commonwealth, "without a single person or house of lords;" and a preparatory pet.i.tion for the purpose of collecting signatures was circulated through the city. Cromwell consulted his most trusty advisers, of whom some suggested a dissolution, others objected the want of money, and the danger of irritating the people. Perhaps he had already taken his resolution, though he kept it a secret within his own breast; perhaps it might be the result of some sudden and momentary impulse;[1] but one morning[a] he unexpectedly threw himself into a carriage with two horses standing at the gates of Whitehall; and, beckoning to six of his guards to follow, ordered the coachman to drive to the parliament house. There he revealed his purpose to Fleetwood, and, when that officer ventured to remonstrate, declared, by the living G.o.d that he would dissolve the parliament. Sending for the Commons, he addressed them in an angry and expostulating tone. "They," he said, "had placed him in the high situation in which he stood; he sought it not; there was neither man nor woman treading on English ground who could say he did. G.o.d knew that he would rather have lived under a wood side, and have tended a flock of sheep, than have undertaken the government. But, having undertaken it at their request, he had a right to look to them for aid and support. Yet some among them, G.o.d was his witness, in violation of their oaths, were attempting to establish a commonwealth

[Footnote 1: "Something happening that morning that put the protector into a rage and pa.s.sion near unto madness, as those at Whitehall can witness."--Second Narrative, p. 8.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658. Feb. 4.]

interest in the army; some had received commissions to enlist men for Charles Stuart; and both had their emissaries at that moment seeking to raise a tumult, or rather a rebellion, in the city. But he was bound before G.o.d to prevent such disasters; and, therefore," he concluded, "I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting; and I do dissolve this parliament; and let G.o.d judge between me and you." "Amen, amen," responded several voices from the ranks of the opposition.[1]

This was the fourth parliament that Cromwell had broken. The republicans indulged their resentment in murmurs, and complaints, and menaces; but the protector, secure of the fidelity of the army, despised the feeble efforts of their vengeance, and encouraged by his vigour the timidity of his counsellors. Strong patrols of infantry and cavalry paraded the streets, dispersing every a.s.semblage of people in the open air, in private houses, and even in conventicles and churches, for the purpose, or under the pretext, of devotion. The colonel-major and several captains of his own regiment were cas.h.i.+ered;[2] many of the Levellers and royalists were arrested and imprisoned, or discharged upon bail; and the lord-mayor, aldermen, and common-council received from Cromwell

[Footnote 1: Journ. Feb. 4. Thurloe, vi. 778, 779, 781, 788. Parl. Hist.

iii. 1525. By the oath, which Cromwell reproaches them with violating, they had sworn "to be true and faithful to the lord-protector as chief magistrate, and not to contrive, design, or attempt any thing against his person or lawful authority."]

[Footnote 2: "I," says Hacker, "that had served him fourteen years, and had commanded a regiment seven years, without any trial or appeal, with the breath of his nostrils I was outed, and lost not only my place but a dear friend to boot. Five captains under my command were outed with me, because they could not say that was a house of lords."--Burton's Diary, iii. 166.]

himself an account of the danger which threatened them from the invasion meditated by Charles Stuart, and a charge to watch the haunts of the discontented, and to preserve the tranquillity of the city. At the same time his agents were busy in procuring loyal and affectionate addresses from the army, the counties, and the princ.i.p.al towns; and these, published in the newspapers, served to overawe his enemies, and to display the stability of his power.[1]

The apprehension of invasion, to which Cromwell so frequently alluded, was not entirely groundless. On the return of the winter, the royalists had reminded Charles of his promise in the preceding spring; the king of Spain furnished an aid of one hundred and fifty thousand crowns; the harbour of Ostend was selected for the place of embarkation; and arms, ammunition, and transports were purchased in Holland. The prince himself, mastering for a while his habits of indolence and dissipation, appeared eager to redeem his pledge;[2] but the more prudent of his advisers conjured him not to risk his life on general a.s.surances of support; and the marquess of Ormond, with the most chivalrous loyalty, offered to ascertain on the spot the real objects and resources of his adherents. Pretending to proceed on a mission to the court of the duke of Neuburg, that n.o.bleman, accompanied by O'Neil, crossed the sea,[a] landed in disguise at Westmarch on the coast of Ess.e.x, and

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, vi. 778, 781, 788; vii. 4, 21, 32, 49, 71. Parl.

Hist. iii. 1528.]

[Footnote 2: Still Ormond says to Hyde, "I fear his immoderate delight in empty, effeminate, and vulgar conversations is become an irresistible part of his nature, and will never suffer him to animate his own designs, and others' actions, with that spirit which is requisite for his quality, and much more to his fortune."--27, Jan. 7, 1658. Clar. iii. 387.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658. End of January.]