Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 19

Many of them, however, seem to bear marks of his hand. Whitelock, 475, 517, 519, 820, _et alibi_. There had been previously a committee for the same purpose in 1650. See a list of the acts prepared by them in _Somers Tracts_, vi. 177; several of them are worthy of attention.

Ludlow indeed blames the commission for slowness; but their delay seems to have been very justifiable, and their suggestions highly valuable. It even appears that they drew up a book containing a regular digest or code, which was ordered to be printed. Journals, 20th Jan. 1653.

[406] A committee was named, 15th May 1649, to take into consideration the settling of the succession of future parliaments and regulating their elections. Nothing more appears to have been done till Oct.

11th, when the committee was ordered to meet next day, and so _de die in diem_, and to give an account thereof to the house on Tuesday come fortnight; all that came to have voices, but the special care thereof commended to Sir Henry Vane, Colonel Ludlow, and Mr. Robinson. We find nothing farther till Jan. 3rd, 1650, when the committee is ordered to make its report the next Wednesday. This is done accordingly, Jan. 9, when Sir H. Vane reports the resolutions of the committee, one of which was, that the number in future parliaments should be 400. This was carried, after negativing the previous question in a committee of the whole house. They proceeded several days afterwards on the same business. See also Ludlow, pp. 313, 435.

[407] Two divisions had taken place, Nov. 14 (the first on the previous question), on a motion, that it is convenient to declare a certain time for the continuance of this parliament, 50 to 46, and 49 to 47. On the last division, Cromwell and St. John were tellers for the ayes.

[408] Whitelock was one of these; and being at that time out of Cromwell's favour, inveighs much against this destruction of the power from which he had taken his commission. Pp. 552, 554. St. John appears to have concurred in the measure. In fact, there had so long been an end of law that one usurpation might seem as rightful as another. But, while any House of Commons remained, there was a stock left from which the ancient const.i.tution might possibly germinate. Mrs. Macauley, whose lamentations over the Rump did not certainly proceed from this cause, thus vents her wrath on the English nation: "An acquiescence thus universal in the insult committed on the guardians of the infant republic, and the first step towards the usurpation of Cromwell, fixes an indelible stain on the character of the English, as a people basely and incorrigibly attached to the sovereignty of individuals, and of natures too ign.o.ble to endure an empire of equal laws."--Vol. v. p.

112.

[409] Harrison, when Ludlow asked him why he had joined Cromwell to turn out the parliament, said, he thought Cromwell would own and favour a set of men who acted on higher principles than those of civil liberty; and quoted from Daniel "that the saints shall take the kingdom and possess it." Ludlow argued against him; but what was argument to such a head? _Mem. of Ludlow_, p. 565. Not many months after, Cromwell sent his coadjutor to Carisbrook Castle.

[410] Hume speaks of this a.s.sembly as chiefly composed of the lowest mechanics. But this was not the case. Some persons of inferior rank there were, but a large proportion of the members were men of good family, or, at least, military distinction, as the list of the names in the _Parliamentary History_ is sufficient to prove; and Whitelock remarks, "it was much wondered at by some that these gentlemen, many of them being persons of fortune and knowledge, would at this summons, and from those hands, take upon them the supreme authority of this nation."--P. 559. With respect to this, it may be observed, that those who have lived in revolutions find it almost necessary, whether their own interest or those of their country are their aim, to comply with all changes, and take a greater part in supporting them, than men of inflexible consciences can approve. No one felt this more than Whitelock; and his remark in this place is a satire upon all his conduct. He was at the moment dissatisfied, and out of Cromwell's favour, but lost no time in regaining it.

[411] Journals, August 19. This was carried by 46 to 38 against Cromwell's party. Yet Cromwell, two years afterwards, published an ordinance for regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of chancery; which offended Whitelock so much that he resigned the great seal, not having been consulted in framing the regulations. This is a rare instance in his life; and he vaunts much of his conscience accordingly, but thankfully accepted the office of commissioner of the treasury instead. Pp. 621, 625. He does not seem, by his own account, to have given much satisfaction to suitors in equity (p. 548); yet the fault may have been theirs, or the system's.

[412] 4th October.

[413] This had been proposed by the commission for amendment of the law appointed in the long parliament. The great number of dissenters from the established religion rendered it a very reasonable measure.

[414] Thurloe, i. 369; iii. 132.

[415] Journals, 2nd and 10th Dec. 1653; Whitelock. See the sixth volume of the _Somers Tracts_, p. 266, for a long and rather able vindication of this parliament by one of its members. Ludlow also speaks pretty well of it (p. 471); and says, truly enough, that Cromwell frightened the lawyers and clergy, by showing what the parliament meant to do with them, which made them in a hurry to have it destroyed. See also _Parl. Hist._ 1412, 1414.

[416] See the instrument of government in Whitelock, p. 571; or _Somers Tracts_, vi. 257. Ludlow says, that some of the officers opposed this; but Lambert forced it down their throats. P. 276.

Cromwell made good use of this temporary power. The union of Scotland with England was by one of these ordinances, April 12 (Whitelock, 586); and he imposed an a.s.sessment of 120,000 monthly, for three months, and 90,000 for the next three, instead of 70,000, which had been paid before (_Id._ 591), besides many other ordinances of a legislative nature. "I am very glad," says Fleetwood (Feb. 1655, Thurloe, iii. 183), "to hear his highness has declined the legislative power, which by the instrument of government, in my opinion, he could not exercise after this last parliament's meeting." And the parliament of 1656, at the Protector's desire, confirmed all ordinances made since the dissolution of the long parliament. Thurloe, vi. 243.

[417] I infer this from the report of a committee of privileges on the election for Lynn, Oct. 20, 1656. See also Journals, Nov. 26, 1654.

[418] It is remarkable that Clarendon seems to approve this model of a parliament, saying, "it was then generally looked upon as an alteration fit to be more warrantably made, and in a better time."

[419] Bordeaux, the French amba.s.sador, says, "some were for Bradshaw as speaker, but the Protector's party carried it for Lenthall. By this beginning one may judge what the authority of the lord protector will be in this parliament. However it was observed that as often as he spoke in his speech of liberty or religion, the members did seem to rejoice with acclamations of joy." Thurloe, v. 588. But the election of Lenthall appears by Guibbon G.o.ddard's Journal, lately published in the Introduction to Burton's _Diary_, to have been unanimous.

[420] Journals, 14th and 18th Sept.; _Parl. Hist._ 1445, 1459; Whitelock, 605, etc.; Ludlow, 499; G.o.ddard's Journal, 32.

[421] This division is not recorded in the Journals, in consequence, I suppose, of its having been resolved in a committee of the whole house. But it is impossible to doubt the fact, which is referred to Oct. 19 by a letter of Bourdeaux, the French amba.s.sador (Thurloe, ii.

681), who observes, "Hereby it is easily discerned that the nation is nowise affected to his family, nor much to himself. Without doubt he will strengthen his army, and keep that in a good posture." It is also alluded to by Whitelock, 609. They resolved to keep the militia in the power of the parliament, and that the Protector's negative should extend only to such bills as might alter the instrument; and in other cases, if he did not pa.s.s bills within twenty days, they were to become laws without his consent. Journals, Nov. 10, 1654; Whitelock, 608. This was carried against the court by 109 to 85.

Ludlow insinuates that this parliament did not sit out its legal term of five months; Cromwell having interpreted the months to be lunar instead of calendar. Hume has adopted this notion; but it is groundless, the month in law being always of twenty-eight days, unless the contrary be expressed. This seems, however, not to have been generally understood at the time; for Whitelock says that Cromwell's dissolution of the parliament, because he found them not so pliable to his purposes as he expected, caused much discontent in them and others; but that he valued it not, esteeming himself above those things. P. 618. He gave out that the parliament were concerned in the conspiracy to bring in the king.

[422] Exiles are seldom scrupulous: we find that Charles was willing to propose to the States, in return for their acknowledging his t.i.tle, "such present and lasting advantages to them by this alliance as may appear most considerable to that nation and to their posterity, and a valuable compensation for whatever present advantages the king can receive by it." _Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 90. These intrigues would have justly made him odious in England.

[423] Ormond wrote strongly to this effect, after the battle of Worcester, convinced that nothing but foreign a.s.sistance could restore the king. "Amongst protestants there is none that hath the power, and amongst the catholics it is visible." Carte's _Letters_, i. 461.

[424] _Clarendon State Papers_, ii. 481 _et saepe alibi_. The protestant zeal of Hyde had surely deserted him; and his veracity in one letter gave way also. See vol. iii. p. 158. But the great criminality of all these negotiations lay in this, that Charles was by them soliciting such a measure of foreign aid as would make him at once the tyrant of England and the va.s.sal of Spain; since no free parliament, however royalist, was likely to repeal all the laws against popery. "That which the king will be ready and willing to do, is to give his consent for the repeal of all the penal laws and statutes which have been made in the prejudice of catholics, and to put them into the same condition as his other subjects." Cottington to Father Bapthorpe. _Id._ 541. These negotiations with Rome were soon known; and a tract was published by the parliament's authority, containing the doc.u.ments. Notwithstanding the delirium of the restoration, this had made an impression which was not afterwards effaced.

[425] _Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 181.

[426] "The pope very well knows," says Hyde to Clement, an agent at the court of Rome, 2nd April 1656, "how far the king is from thoughts of severity against his catholic subjects; nay, that he doth desire to put them into the same condition with his other subjects, and that no man shall suffer in any consideration for being a Roman catholic."

_Id._ 291.

[427] Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, b. 14; _State Papers_, iii. 265, 300, etc. Whitelock observes at this time, "Many sober and faithful patriots did begin to incline to the king's restoration;" and hints, that this was his opinion, which excited Cromwell's jealousy of him. P. 620.

[428] Clarendon's _History_, vii. 129; _State Papers_, iii. 265, etc.

These levellers were very hostile to the interference of Hyde and Ormond, judging them too inflexibly attached to the ancient const.i.tution; but this hostility recommended them to others of the banished king's court who showed the same sentiments.

[429] Pp. 315, 324, 343; Thurloe, i. 360, 510. In the same volume (p.

248) we find even a declaration from the king, dated at Paris, 3rd May 1654, offering 500 per annum to any one who should kill Cromwell, and pardon to any one who should leave that party, except Bradshaw, Lenthall, and Haslerig. But this seems unlikely to be authentic: Charles would not have avowed a design of a.s.sa.s.sination so openly; and it is strange that Lenthall and Haslerig, especially the former, should be thus exempted from pardon, rather than so many regicides.

[430] See what Clarendon says of Ascham's death. _State Papers_, ii.

542. In another place he observes: "It is a worse and a baser thing that any man should appear in any part beyond sea under the character of an agent from the rebels, and not have his throat cut." _Id._ iii.

144.

[431] _State Trials_, 518; Thurloe, ii. 416. Some of the malecontent commonwealth men were also eager to get rid of Cromwell by a.s.sa.s.sination; Wildman, Saxby, t.i.tus. Syndercome's story is well known; he was connected in the conspiracy with those already mentioned. The famous pamphlet by t.i.tus, "Killing no Murder," was printed in 1657. _Clarendon State Papers_, 315, 324, 343.

[432] A very reprehensible pa.s.sage occurs in Clarendon's account of this transaction (vol. vii. p. 140), where he blames and derides the insurgents for not putting Chief Justice Rolle and others to death, which would have been a detestable and useless murder.

[433] Whitelock, 618, 620; Ludlow, 513; Thurloe, iii. 264, and through more than half the volume, _pa.s.sim_. In the preceding volume we have abundant proofs how completely master Cromwell was of the royalist schemes. The "sealed knot" of the king's friends in London is mentioned as frequently as we find it in the _Clarendon Papers_ at the same time.

[434] Thurloe, iii. 371, etc. "Penruddock and Grove," Ludlow says, "could not have been justly condemned, if they had as sure a foundation in what they declared for, as what they declared against.

But certainly it can never be esteemed by a wise man to be worth the scratch of a finger to remove a single person acting by an arbitrary power, in order to set up another with the same unlimited authority."--P. 518. This is a just and manly sentiment. Woe to those who do not recognise it! But is it fair to say that the royalists were contending to set up an unlimited authority?

[435] They were originally ten, Lambert, Desborough, Whalley, Goffe, Fleetwood, Skippon, Kelsey, Butler, Worseley, and Berry. Thurloe, iii.

701. Barkstead was afterwards added. "The major-generals," says Ludlow, "carried things with unheard-of insolence in their several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and interrupting the proceedings at law upon pet.i.tions of those who pretended themselves aggrieved; threatening such as would not yield a ready submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica, or some other plantations in the West Indies," etc.--P. 559.

[436] Thurloe, vol. iv. _pa.s.sim_. The unpopularity of Cromwell's government appears strongly in the letters of this collection.

Duckinfield, a Ches.h.i.+re gentleman, writes: "Charles Stuart hath 500 friends in these adjacent counties for every one friend to you amongst them." Vol. iii. 294.

[437] It may be fair towards Cromwell to give his own apology for the decimation of the royalists, in a declaration, published 1655. "It is a trouble to us to be still rubbing upon the old sore, disobliging those whom we hoped time and patience might make friends; but we can with comfort appeal to G.o.d, and dare also to their own consciences, whether this way of proceeding with them hath been the matter of our choice, or that which we have sought an occasion for; or whether, contrary to our own inclinations and the constant course of our carriage towards them, which hath been to oblige them by kindness to forsake their former principles, which G.o.d hath so often and so eminently bore witness against, we have not been constrained and necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof we should have been wanting to our duty to G.o.d and these nations.

"That character of difference between them and the rest of the people which is now put upon them is occasioned by themselves, not by us.

There is nothing they have more industriously laboured in than this; to keep themselves distinguished from the well-affected of this nation: To which end they have kept their conversation apart; as if they would avoid the very beginnings of union, have bred and educated their children by the sequestered and ejected clergy, and very much confined their marriages and alliances within their own party, as if they meant to entail their quarrel, and prevent the means to reconcile posterity; which with the great pains they take upon all occasions to lessen and suppress the esteem and honour of the English nation in all their actions and undertakings abroad, striving withal to make other nations distinguish their interest from it, gives us ground to judge that they have separated themselves from the body of the nation; and therefore we leave it to all mankind to judge whether we ought not to be timely jealous of that separation, and to proceed so against them as they may be at the charge of those remedies which are required against the dangers they have bred."

[438] Ludlow, 528; Clarendon, etc. Clarendon relates the same story, with additional circ.u.mstances of Cromwell's audacious contempt for the courts of justice, and for the very name of magna charta.

[439] _State Trials_, vi.; Whitelock advised the protector to proceed according to law against Hewit and Slingsby; "but his highness was too much in love with the new way."--P. 673.

[440] The late editor of the _State Trials_, v. 935, has introduced a sort of episodical dissertation on the administration of justice during the commonwealth, with the view, as far as appears, of setting Cromwell in a favourable light. For this purpose he quotes several pa.s.sages of vague commendation from different authors, and among others one from Burke, written in haste, to serve an immediate purpose, and evidently from a very superficial recollection of our history. It has been said that Cromwell sought out men of character from the party most opposite to his designs. The proof given is the appointment of Hale to be a puisne judge. But Hale had not been a royalist, that is, an adherent of Charles, and had taken the engagement as well as the covenant. It was no great effort of virtue to place an eminent lawyer and worthy man on the bench. And it is to be remembered that Hale fell under the usurper's displeasure for administering justice with an impartiality that did not suit his government; and ceased to go the circuit, because the criminal law was not allowed to have its course.

[441] Thurloe writes to Montague (Carte's _Letters_, ii. 110) that he cannot give him the reasons for calling this parliament, except in cipher. He says in the same place of the committal of Ludlow, Vane, and others, "There was a necessity not only for peace sake to do this, but to let the nation see those that govern are in good earnest, and intend not to quit the government wholly into the hands of the parliament, as some would needs make the world believe."--P. 112. His first direct allusion to the projected change is in writing to Henry Cromwell, 9th Dec. 1656. _Thurl. Papers_, v. 194. The influence exerted by his legates, the major-generals, appears in Thurloe, v. 299 _et post_. But they complained of the elections. _Id._ 302, 341, 371.

[442] Whitelock, 650; _Parl. Hist._ 1486. On a letter to the speaker from the members who had been refused admittance at the door of the lobby, Sept. 18, the house ordered the clerk of the commonwealth to attend next day with all the indentures. The deputy clerk came accordingly, with an excuse for his princ.i.p.al, and brought the indentures; but on being asked why the names of certain members were not returned to the house, answered that he had no certificate of approbation for them. The house on this sent to inquire of the council why these members had not been approved. They returned for answer, that whereas it is ordained by a clause in the instrument of government 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 G.o.d, and of good conversation; that the council, in pursuance of their duty, and according to the trust reposed in them, have examined the said returns, and have not refused to approve any who have appeared to them to be persons of integrity, fearing G.o.d, and of good conversation; and those who are not approved, his highness hath given order to some persons to take care that they do not come into the house. Upon this answer, an adjournment was proposed, but lost by 115 to 80: and it being moved that the persons, who have been returned from the several counties, cities, and boroughs to serve in this parliament, and have not been approved, be referred to the council for approbation, and that the house do proceed with the great affairs of the nation; the question was carried by 125 to 29.

Journals, Sept. 22.

[443] _Clar. State Papers_, iii. 201, etc.

[444] The whole conference that took place at Whitehall, between Cromwell and the committee of parliament on this subject, was published by authority, and may be read in the _Somers Tracts_, vi.

349. It is very interesting. The lawyers did not hesitate to support the proposition, on the ground of the more definite and legal character of a king's authority. "The king's prerogative," says Glyn, "is known by law; he (King Charles) did expatiate beyond the duty; that's the evil of the man: but in Westminster Hall the king's prerogative was under the courts of justice, and is bounded as well as any acre of land, or anything a man hath, as much as any controversy between party and party: and therefore the office being lawful in its nature, known to the nation, certain in itself, and confined and regulated by the law, and the other office not being so, that was a great ground of the reason why the parliament did so much insist upon this office and t.i.tle, not as circ.u.mstantial, but as essential."--P.

359. See also what Lenthall says (p. 356) against the indefiniteness of the protector's authority.