Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 23

It is however only once mentioned. Perhaps it may be questionable whether, even amidst the fervid loyalty of 1661, the House of Commons would have concurred in re-establis.h.i.+ng the star-chamber. They had taken marked precautions in pa.s.sing an act for the restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that it should not be construed to restore the high-commission court, or to give validity to the canons of 1640, or to enlarge in any manner the ancient authority of the church.[584] A tribunal still more formidable and obnoxious would hardly have found favour with a body of men, who, as their behaviour shortly demonstrated, might rather be taxed with pa.s.sion and vindictiveness towards a hostile faction, than a deliberate willingness to abandon their English rights and privileges.

The striking characteristic of this parliament was a zealous and intolerant attachment to the established church, not losing an atom of their aversion to popery in their abhorrence of protestant dissent. In every former parliament since the reformation, the country party (if I may use such a word, by antic.i.p.ation, for those gentlemen of landed estates who owed their seats to their provincial importance, as distinguished from courtiers, lawyers, and dependents on the n.o.bility), had incurred with rigid churchmen the reproach of puritanical affections. They were implacable against popery, but disposed to far more indulgence with respect to nonconformity than the very different maxims of Elizabeth and her successors would permit.

Yet it is obvious that the puritan Commons of James I. and the high church Commons of Charles II. were composed, in a great measure, of the same families, and entirely of the same cla.s.ses. But, as the arrogance of the prelates had excited indignation, and the sufferings of the scrupulous clergy begotten sympathy in one age, so the reversed scenes of the last twenty years had given to the former, or their adherents, the advantage of enduring oppression with humility and fort.i.tude, and displayed in the latter, or at least many of their number, those odious and malevolent qualities which adversity had either concealed or rendered less dangerous. The gentry, connected for the most part by birth or education with the episcopal clergy, could not for an instant hesitate between the ancient establishment, and one composed of men whose eloquence in preaching was chiefly directed towards the common people, and presupposed a degree of enthusiasm in the hearer which the higher cla.s.ses rarely possessed. They dreaded the wilder sectaries, foes to property, or at least to its political influence, as much as to the regal const.i.tution; and not unnaturally, though without perfect fairness, confounded the presbyterian or moderate nonconformist in the motley crowd of fanatics, to many of whose tenets he at least more approximated than the church of England minister.

_Presbyterians deceived by the king._--There is every reason to presume, as I have already remarked, that the king had no intention but to deceive the presbyterians and their friends in the convention parliament by his declaration of October 1660.[585] He proceeded, after the dissolution of that a.s.sembly, to fill up the number of bishops, who had been reduced to nine, but with no further mention of suffragans, or of the council of presbyters, which had been announced in that declaration.[586] It does indeed appear highly probable that this scheme of Usher would have been found inconvenient and even impracticable; and reflecting men would perhaps be apt to say that the usage of primitive antiquity, upon which all parties laid so much stress, was rather a presumptive argument against the adoption of any system of church-government, in circ.u.mstances so widely different, than in favour of it. But inconvenient and impracticable provisions carry with them their own remedy; and the king might have respected his own word, and the wishes of a large part of the church, without any formidable danger to episcopal authority. It would have been, however, too flagrant a breach of promise (and yet hardly greater than that just mentioned) if some show had not been made of desiring a reconciliation on the subordinate details of religious ceremonies and the liturgy. This produced a conference held at the Savoy, in May 1661, between twenty-one Anglican and as many presbyterian divines: the latter were called upon to propose their objections; it being the part of the others to defend. They brought forward so long a list as seemed to raise little hope of agreement. Some of these objections to the service, as may be imagined, were rather captious and hypercritical; yet in many cases they pointed out real defects. As to ceremonies, they dwelt on the same scruples as had from the beginning of Elizabeth's reign produced so unhappy a discordance, and had become inveterate by so much persecution. The conference was managed with great mutual bitterness and recrimination; the one party stimulated by vindictive hatred and the natural arrogance of power; the other irritated by the manifest design of breaking the king's faith, and probably by a sense of their own improvidence in ruining themselves by his restoration. The chief blame, it cannot be dissembled, ought to fall on the churchmen. An opportunity was afforded of healing, in a very great measure, that schism and separation which, if they are to be believed, is one of the worst evils that can befall a christian community. They had it in their power to retain, or to expel, a vast number of worthy and laborious ministers of the gospel, with whom they had, in their own estimation, no essential ground of difference. They knew the king, and consequently themselves, to have been restored with (I might almost say by) the strenuous co-operation of those very men who were now at their mercy. To judge by the rules of moral wisdom, or of the spirit of Christianity (to which, notwithstanding what might be satirically said of experience, it is difficult not to think we have a right to expect that a body of ecclesiastics should pay some attention), there can be no justification for the Anglican party on this occasion. They have certainly one apology, the best very frequently that can be offered for human infirmity; they had sustained a long and unjust exclusion from the emoluments of their profession, which begot a natural dislike towards the members of the sect that had profited at their expense, though not, in general, personally responsible for their misfortunes.[587]

The Savoy conference broke up in anger, each party more exasperated and more irreconcilable than before. This indeed has been the usual consequence of attempts to bring men to an understanding on religious differences by explanation or compromise. The public is apt to expect too much from these discussions; unwilling to believe either that those who have a reputation for piety can be wanting in desire to find the truth, or that those who are esteemed for ability can miss it. And this expectation is heightened by the language rather too strongly held by moderate and peaceable divines, that little more is required than an understanding of each other's meaning, to unite conflicting sects in a common faith. But as it generally happens that the disputes of theologians, though far from being so important as they appear to the narrow prejudices and heated pa.s.sions of the combatants, are not wholly nominal, or capable of being reduced to a common form of words, the hopes of union and settlement vanish upon that closer enquiry which conferences and schemes of agreement produce. And though this may seem rather applicable to speculative controversies than to such matters as were debated between the church and the presbyterians at the Savoy conference, and which are in their nature more capable of compromise than articles of doctrine; yet the consequence of exhibiting the incompatibility and reciprocal alienation of the two parties in a clearer light was nearly the same.

A determination having been taken to admit of no extensive comprehension, it was debated by the government whether to make a few alterations in the liturgy, or to restore the ancient service in every particular. The former advice prevailed, though with no desire or expectation of conciliating any scrupulous persons by the amendments introduced.[588] These were by no means numerous, and in some instances rather chosen in order to irritate and mock the opposite party than from any compliance with their prejudices. It is indeed very probable, from the temper of the new parliament, that they would not have come into more tolerant and healing measures.

_Act of uniformity._--When the act of uniformity was brought into the House of Lords, it was found not only to restore all the ceremonies and other matters to which objection had been taken, but to contain fresh clauses more intolerable than the rest to the presbyterian clergy. One of these enacted that not only every beneficed minister, but fellow of a college, or even schoolmaster, should declare his unfeigned a.s.sent and consent to all and everything contained in the book of common prayer.[589] These words, however capable of being eluded and explained away, as such subscriptions always are, seemed to amount, in common use of language, to a complete approbation of an entire volume, such as a man of sense hardly gives to any book, and which, at a time when scrupulous persons were with great difficulty endeavouring to reconcile themselves to submission, placed a new stumbling-block in their way, which, without abandoning their integrity, they found it impossible to surmount.

The malignity of those who chiefly managed church affairs at this period displayed itself in another innovation tending to the same end.

It had been not unusual, from the very beginnings of our reformation, to admit ministers ordained in foreign protestant churches to benefices in England. No re-ordination had ever been practised with respect to those who had received the imposition of hands in a regular church; and hence it appears that the church of England, whatever tenets might latterly have been broached in controversy, did not consider the ordination of presbyters invalid. Though such ordinations as had taken place during the late troubles, and by virtue of which a great part of the actual clergy were in possession, were evidently irregular, on the supposition that the English episcopal church was then in existence; yet, if the argument from such great convenience as men call necessity was to prevail, it was surely worth while to suffer them to pa.s.s without question for the present, enacting provisions, if such were required, for the future. But this did not fall in with the pa.s.sion and policy of the bishops, who found a pretext for their worldly motives of action in the supposed divine right and necessity of episcopal succession; a theory naturally more agreeable to arrogant and dogmatical ecclesiastics than that of Cranmer, who saw no intrinsic difference between bishops and priests; or of Hooker, who thought ecclesiastical superiorities, like civil, subject to variation; or of Stillingfleet, who had lately pointed out the impossibility of ascertaining beyond doubtful conjecture the real const.i.tution of the apostolical church, from the scanty, inconclusive testimonies that either Scripture or antiquity furnish. It was therefore enacted in the statute for uniformity, that no person should hold any preferment in England, without having received episcopal ordination. There seems to be little or no objection to this provision, if ordination be considered as a ceremony of admission into a particular society; but, according to the theories which both parties had embraced in that age, it conferred a sort of mysterious indelible character, which rendered its repet.i.tion improper.[590]

_Ejection of nonconformist clergy._--The new act of uniformity succeeded to the utmost wishes of its promoters. It provided that every minister should, before the feast of St. Bartholomew, 1662, publicly declare his a.s.sent and consent to everything contained in the book of common prayer, on pain of being _ipso facto_ deprived of his benefice.[591] Though even the long parliament had reserved a fifth of the profits to those who were ejected for refusing the covenant, no mercy could be obtained from the still greater bigotry of the present; and a motion to make that allowance to nonconforming ministers was lost by 94 to 87.[592] The Lords had shown a more temperate spirit, and made several alterations of a conciliating nature. They objected to extending the subscription required by the act to schoolmasters.

But the Commons urged in a conference the force of education, which made it necessary to take care for the youth. The upper house even inserted a proviso, allowing the king to dispense with the surplice and the sign of the cross; but the Commons resolutely withstanding this and every other alteration, they were all given up.[593] Yet next year, when it was found necessary to pa.s.s an act for the relief of those who had been prevented involuntarily from subscribing the declaration in due time, a clause was introduced, declaring that the a.s.sent and consent to the book of common prayer required by the said act should be understood only as to practice and obedience, and not otherwise. The Duke of York and twelve lay peers protested against this clause, as destructive to the church of England as now established; and the Commons vehemently objecting to it, the partisans of moderate councils gave way as before.[594] When the day of St.

Bartholomew came, about 2000 persons resigned their preferments rather than stain their consciences by compliance--an act to which the more liberal Anglicans, after the bitterness of immediate pa.s.sions had pa.s.sed away, have accorded that praise which is due to heroic virtue in an enemy. It may justly be said that the episcopal clergy had set an example of similar magnanimity in refusing to take the covenant.

Yet, as that was partly of a political nature, and those who were ejected for not taking it might hope to be restored through the success of the king's arms, I do not know that it was altogether so eminent an act of self-devotion as the presbyterian clergy displayed on St. Bartholomew's day. Both of them afford striking contrasts to the pliancy of the English church in the greater question of the preceding century, and bear witness to a remarkable integrity and consistency of principle.[595]

No one who has any sense of honesty and plain dealing can pretend that Charles did not violate the spirit of his declarations, both that from Breda, and that which he published in October 1660. It is idle to say that those declarations were subject to the decision of parliament, as if the Crown had no sort of influence in that a.s.sembly, nor even any means of making its inclinations known. He had urged them to confirm the act of indemnity, wherein he thought his honour and security concerned: was it less easy to obtain, or at least to ask for, their concurrence in a comprehension or toleration of the presbyterian clergy? Yet, after mocking those persons with pretended favour, and even offering bishoprics to some of their number, by way of purchasing their defection, the king made no effort to mitigate the provisions of the act of uniformity; and Clarendon strenuously supported them through both houses of parliament.[596] This behaviour in the minister sprung from real bigotry and dislike of the presbyterians; but Charles was influenced by a very different motive, which had become the secret spring of all his policy. This requires to be fully explained.

_Hopes of the catholics._--Charles, during his misfortunes, had made repeated promises to the pope and the great catholic princes of relaxing the penal laws against his subjects of that religion--promises which he well knew to be the necessary condition of their a.s.sistance.

And, though he never received any succour which could demand the performance of these a.s.surances, his desire to stand well with France and Spain, as well as a sense of what was really due to the English catholics, would have disposed him to grant every indulgence which the temper of his people should permit. The laws were highly severe, in some cases sanguinary; they were enacted in very different times, from plausible motives of distrust, which it would be now both absurd and ungrateful to retain. The catholics had been the most strenuous of the late king's adherents, the greatest sufferers for their loyalty.

Out of about 500 gentlemen who lost their lives in the royal cause, one-third, it has been said, were of that religion.[597] Their estates had been selected for confiscation, when others had been admitted to compound. It is however certain that after the conclusion of the war, and especially during the usurpation of Cromwell, they declined in general to provoke a government which showed a good deal of connivance towards their religion by keeping up any connection with the exiled family.[598] They had, as was surely very natural, one paramount object in their political conduct, the enjoyment of religious liberty; whatever debt of grat.i.tude they might have owed to Charles I. had been amply paid; and perhaps they might reflect that he had never scrupled, in his various negotiations with the parliament, to acquiesce in any prescriptive measures suggested against popery. This apparent abandonment however of the royal interests excited the displeasure of Clarendon, which was increased by a tendency some of the catholics showed to unite with Lambert, who was understood to be privately of their religion, and by an intrigue carried on in 1659, by the machinations of Buckingham with some priests, to set up the Duke of York for the Crown. But the king retained no resentment of the general conduct of this party; and was desirous to give them a testimony of his confidence, by mitigating the penal laws against their religion.

Some steps were taken towards this by the House of Lords in the session of 1661; and there seems little doubt that the statutes at least inflicting capital punishment would have been repealed without difficulty, if the catholics had not lost the favourable moment by some disunion among themselves, which the never-ceasing intrigues of the Jesuits contrived to produce.[599]

There can be no sort of doubt that the king's natural facility, and exemption from all prejudice in favour of established laws, would have led him to afford every indulgence that could be demanded to his catholic subjects, many of whom were his companions or his counsellors, without any propensity towards their religion. But it is morally certain that, during the period of his banishment, he had imbibed, as deeply and seriously as the character of his mind would permit, a persuasion that, if any scheme of Christianity were true, it could only be found in the bosom of an infallible church; though he was never reconciled, according to the formal profession which she exacts, till the last hours of his life. The secret however of his inclinations, though disguised to the world by the appearance, and probably sometimes more than the appearance, of carelessness and infidelity, could not be wholly concealed from his court. It appears the most natural mode of accounting for the sudden conversion of the Earl of Bristol to popery, which is generally agreed to have been insincere. An ambitious intriguer, holding the post of secretary of state, would not have ventured such a step without some grounds of confidence in his master's wishes; though his characteristic precipitancy hurried him forward to destroy his own hopes. Nor are there wanting proofs that the protestantism of both the brothers was greatly suspected in England before the restoration.[600] These suspicions acquired strength after the king's return, through his manifest intention not to marry a protestant; and still more through the presumptuous demeanour of the opposite party, which seemed to indicate some surer grounds of confidence than were yet manifest. The new parliament in its first session had made it penal to say that the king was a papist or popishly affected; whence the prevalence of that scandal may be inferred.[601]

_Resisted by Clarendon and the parliament._--Charles had no a.s.sistance to expect, in his scheme of granting a full toleration to the Roman faith, from his chief adviser Clarendon. A repeal of the sanguinary laws, a reasonable connivance, perhaps in some cases a dispensation--to these favours he would have acceded. But, in his creed of policy, the legal allowance of any but the established religion was inconsistent with public order, and with the king's ecclesiastical prerogative.

This was also a fixed principle with the parliament, whose implacable resentment towards the sectaries had not inclined them to abate in the least of their abhorrence and apprehension of popery. The church of England, distinctly and exclusively, was their rallying-point; the Crown itself stood only second in their affections. The king therefore had recourse to a more subtle and indirect policy. If the terms of conformity had been so far relaxed as to suffer the continuance of the presbyterian clergy in their benefices, there was every reason to expect from their known disposition a determined hostility to all approaches towards popery, and even to its toleration. It was therefore the policy of those who had the interests of that cause at heart, to permit no deviation from the act of uniformity, to resist all endeavours at a comprehension of dissenters within the pale of the church, and to make them look up to the king for indulgence in their separate way of wors.h.i.+p. They were to be taught that, amenable to the same laws as the Romanists, exposed to the oppression of the same enemies, they must act in concert for a common benefit.[602] The presbyterian ministers, disheartened at the violence of the parliament, had recourse to Charles, whose affability and fair promises they were loth to distrust; and implored his dispensation for their nonconformity. The king, naturally irresolute, and doubtless sensible that he had made a bad return to those who had contributed so much towards his restoration, was induced, at the strong solicitation of Lord Manchester, to promise that he would issue a declaration suspending the execution of the statute for three months. Clarendon, though he had been averse to some of the rigorous clauses inserted in the act of uniformity, was of opinion that, once pa.s.sed, it ought to be enforced without any connivance; and told the king likewise that it was not in his power to preserve those who did not comply with it from deprivation. Yet, as the king's word had been given, he advised him rather to issue such a declaration than to break his promise. But, the bishops vehemently remonstrating against it, and intimating that they would not be parties to a violation of the law, by refusing to inst.i.tute a clerk presented by the patron on an avoidance for want of conformity in the inc.u.mbent, the king gave way, and resolved to make no kind of concession. It is remarkable that the n.o.ble historian does not seem struck at the enormous and unconst.i.tutional prerogative which a proclamation suspending the statute would have a.s.sumed.[603]

_Declaration for indulgence._--Instead of this very objectionable measure, the king adopted one less arbitrary, and more consonant to his own secret policy. He published a declaration in favour of liberty of conscience, for which no provision had been made, so as to redeem the promises he had held forth at his accession. Adverting to these, he declared that, "as in the first place he had been zealous to settle the uniformity of the church of England in discipline, ceremony, and government, and should ever constantly maintain it; so as for what concerns the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, do not conform themselves thereto, he should make it his special care, so far as in him lay, without invading the freedom of parliament, to incline their wisdom next approaching sessions to concur with him in making some such act for that purpose as may enable him to exercise with a more universal satisfaction that power of dispensing, which he conceived to be inherent in him."[604]

The aim of this declaration was to obtain from parliament a mitigation at least of all penal statutes in matters of religion, but more to serve the interests of catholic than of protestant nonconformity.[605]

Except however the allusion to the dispensing power, which yet is very moderately alleged, there was nothing in it, according to our present opinions, that should have created offence. But the Commons, on their meeting in February 1663, presented an address, denying that any obligation lay on the king by virtue of his declaration from Breda, which must be understood to depend on the advice of parliament, and slightly intimating that he possessed no such dispensing prerogative as was suggested. They strongly objected to the whole scheme of indulgence, as the means of increasing sectaries, and rather likely to occasion disturbance than to promote peace.[606] They remonstrated, in another address, against the release of Calamy, an eminent dissenter, who, having been imprisoned for transgressing the act of uniformity, was irregularly set at liberty by the king's personal order.[607] The king, undeceived as to the disposition of this loyal a.s.sembly to concur in his projects of religious liberty, was driven to more tedious and indirect courses in order to compa.s.s his end. He had the mortification of finding that the House of Commons had imbibed, partly perhaps in consequence of this declaration, that jealous apprehension of popery, which had caused so much of his father's ill fortune. On this topic the watchfulness of an English parliament could never be long at rest. The notorious insolence of the Romish priests, who, proud of the court's favour, disdained to respect the laws enough to disguise themselves, provoked an address to the king, that they might be sent out of the kingdom; and bills were brought in to prevent the further growth of popery.[608]

Meanwhile, the same remedy, so infallible in the eyes of legislators, was not forgotten to be applied to the opposite disease of protestant dissent. Some had believed, of whom Clarendon seems to have been, that all scruples of tender conscience in the presbyterian clergy being faction and hypocrisy, they would submit very quietly to the law, when they found all their clamour unavailing to obtain a dispensation from it. The resignation of 2000 beneficed ministers at once, instead of extorting praise, rather inflamed the resentment of their bigoted enemies; especially when they perceived that a public and perpetual toleration of separate wors.h.i.+p was favoured by part of the court.

_Act against conventicles._--Rumours of conspiracy and insurrection, sometimes false, but gaining credit from the notorious discontent both of the old commonwealth's party, and of many who had never been on that side, were sedulously propagated, in order to keep up the animosity of parliament against the ejected clergy;[609] and these are recited as the pretext of an act pa.s.sed in 1664 for suppressing seditious conventicles (the epithet being in this place wantonly and unjustly insulting), which inflicted on all persons above the age of sixteen, present at any religious meeting in other manner than is allowed by the practice of the church of England, where five or more persons besides the household should be present, a penalty of three months' imprisonment for the first offence, of six for the second, and of seven years' transportation for the third, on conviction before a single justice of peace.[610] This act, says Clarendon, if it had been vigorously executed, would no doubt have produced a thorough reformation.[611] Such is ever the language of the supporters of tyranny; when oppression does not succeed, it is because there has been too little of it. But those who suffered under this statute report very differently as to its vigorous execution. The gaols were filled, not only with ministers who had borne the brunt of former persecutions, but with the laity who attended them; and the hards.h.i.+p was the more grievous, that the act being ambiguously worded, its construction was left to a single magistrate, generally very adverse to the accused.

It is the natural consequence of restrictive laws to aggravate the disaffection which has served as their pretext; and thus to create a necessity for a legislature that will not retrace its steps, to pa.s.s still onward in the course of severity. In the next session accordingly held at Oxford in 1665, on account of the plague that ravaged the capital, we find a new and more inevitable blow aimed at the fallen church of Calvin. It was enacted that all persons in holy orders who had not subscribed the act of uniformity, should swear that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king; and that they did abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him, and would not at any time endeavour any alteration of government in church or state. Those who refused this oath were not only made incapable of teaching in schools, but prohibited from coming within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sending members to parliament.[612]

This infamous statute did not pa.s.s without the opposition of the Earl of Southampton, lord treasurer, and other peers. But Archbishop Sheldon, and several bishops, strongly supported the bill, which had undoubtedly the sanction also of Clarendon's authority.[613] In the Commons, I do not find that any division took place; but an unsuccessful attempt was made to insert the word "legally" before commissioned; the lawyers, however, declared that this word must be understood.[614] Some of the nonconforming clergy took the oath upon this construction. But the far greater number refused. Even if they could have borne the solemn a.s.sertion of the principles of pa.s.sive obedience in all possible cases, their scrupulous consciences revolted from a pledge to endeavour no kind of alteration in church and state; an engagement, in its extended sense, irreconcilable with their own principles in religion, and with the civil duties of Englishmen. Yet to quit the towns where they had long been connected, and where alone they had friends and disciples, for a residence in country villages, was an exclusion from the ordinary means of subsistence. The church of England had doubtless her provocations; but she made the retaliation much more than commensurate to the injury. No severity, comparable to this cold-blooded persecution, had been inflicted by the late powers, even in the ferment and fury of a civil war. Encouraged by this easy triumph, the violent party in the House of Commons thought it a good opportunity to give the same test a more sweeping application. A bill was brought in imposing this oath upon the whole nation; that is, I presume (for I do not know that its precise nature is anywhere explained), on all persons in any public or munic.i.p.al trust. This however was lost on a division by a small majority.[615]

It has been remarked that there is no other instance in history, where men have suffered persecution on account of differences, which were admitted by those who inflicted it to be of such small moment. But, supposing this to be true, it only proves, what may perhaps be alleged as a sort of extenuation of these severe laws against nonconformists, that they were merely political, and did not spring from any theological bigotry. Sheldon indeed, their great promoter, was so free from an intolerant zeal that he is represented as a man who considered religion chiefly as an engine of policy. The principles of religious toleration had already gained considerable ground over mere bigotry; but were still obnoxious to the arbitrary temper of some politicians, and wanted perhaps experimental proof of their safety to recommend them to the caution of others. There can be no doubt that all laws against dissent and separation from an established church, those even of the inquisition, have proceeded in a greater or less degree from political motives; and these appear to me far less odious than the disinterested rancour of superst.i.tion. The latter is very common among the populace, and sometimes among the clergy. Thus the presbyterians exclaimed against the toleration of popery, not as dangerous to the protestant establishment, but as a sinful compromise with idolatry; language which, after the first heat of the reformation had abated, was never so current in the Anglican church.[616] In the case of these statutes against nonconformists under Charles II., revenge and fear seem to have been the unmixed pa.s.sions that excited the church party against those, whose former superiority they remembered, and whose disaffection and hostility it was impossible to doubt.[617]

_Dissatisfaction increases._--A joy so excessive and indiscriminating had accompanied the king's restoration, that no prudence or virtue in his government could have averted that reaction of popular sentiment, which inevitably follows the disappointment of unreasonable hope.

Those who lay their account upon blessings, which no course of political administration can bestow, live, according to the poet's comparison, like the sick man, perpetually changing posture in search of the rest which nature denies; the dupes of successive revolutions, sanguine as children with the novelties of politics, a new const.i.tution, a new sovereign, a new minister, and as angry with the playthings when they fall short of their desires. What then was the discontent that must have ensued upon the restoration of Charles II.?

The neglected cavalier, the persecuted presbyterian, the disbanded officer, had each his grievance; and felt that he was either in a worse situation than he had formerly been, or at least than he had expected to be. Though there were not the violent acts of military power which had struck every man's eyes under Cromwell, it cannot be said that personal liberty was secure, or that the magistrates had not considerable power of oppression, and that pretty unsparingly exercised towards those suspected of disaffection. The religious persecution was not only far more severe than it was ever during the commonwealth, but perhaps more extensively felt than under Charles I.

Though the monthly a.s.sessments for the support of the army ceased soon after the restoration, several large grants were made by parliament, especially during the Dutch war; and it appears, that in the first seven years of Charles II. the nation paid a greater sum in taxes than in any preceding period of the same duration. If then the people compared the national fruits of their expenditure, what a contrast they found, how deplorable a falling off in public honour and dignity since the days of the magnanimous usurper![618] They saw with indignation, that Dunkirk, acquired by Cromwell, had been chaffered away by Charles (a transaction justifiable perhaps on the mere balance of profit and loss, but certainly derogatory to the pride of a great nation); that a war, needlessly commenced, had been carried on with much display of bravery in our seamen and their commanders, but no sort of good conduct in the government; and that a petty northern potentate, who would have trembled at the name of the commonwealth, had broken his faith towards us out of mere contempt of our inefficiency.

_Private life of the king._--These discontents were heightened by the private conduct of Charles, if the life of a king can in any sense be private, by a dissoluteness and contempt of moral opinion, which a nation, still in the main grave and religious, could not endure. The austere character of the last king had repressed to a considerable degree the common vices of a court which had gone to a scandalous excess under James. But the cavaliers in general affected a profligacy of manners, as their distinction from the fanatical party, which gained ground among those who followed the king's fortunes in exile, and became more flagrant after the restoration. Anecdotes of court excesses, which required not the aid of exaggeration, were in daily circulation through the coffee-houses; those who cared least about the vice, not failing to inveigh against the scandal. It is in the nature of a limited monarchy that men should censure very freely the private likes of their princes, as being more exempt from that immoral servility which blinds itself to the distinctions of right and wrong in elevated rank. And as a voluptuous court will always appear prodigal, because all expense in vice is needless, they had the mortification of believing that the public revenues were wasted on the vilest a.s.sociates of the king's debauchery. We are however much indebted to the memory of Barbara, d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland, Louisa, d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, and Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn. We owe a tribute of grat.i.tude to the Mays, the Killigrews, the Chiffinches, and the Grammonts. They played a serviceable part in ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our forefathers from the star-chamber, and the high-commission court; they laboured in their vocation against standing armies and corruption; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of English freedom, the expulsion of the house of Stuart.[619]

_Opposition in parliament._--Among the ardent loyalists who formed the bulk of the present parliament, a certain number of a different cla.s.s had been returned, not sufficient of themselves to const.i.tute a very effective minority, but of considerable importance as a nucleus, round which the lesser factions that circ.u.mstances should produce, might be gathered. Long sessions, and a long continuance of the same parliament, have an inevitable tendency to generate a systematic opposition to the measures of the Crown, which it requires all vigilance and management to hinder from becoming too powerful. The sense of personal importance, the desire of occupation in business (a very characteristic propensity of the English gentry), the various inducements of private pa.s.sion and interest, bring forward so many active spirits, that it was, even in that age, as reasonable to expect that the ocean should always be tranquil, as that a House of Commons should continue long to do the king's bidding, with any kind of unanimity or submission. Nothing can more demonstrate the incompatibility of the tory scheme, which would place the virtual and effective, as well as nominal, administration of the executive government in the sole hands of the Crown, with the existence of a representative a.s.sembly, than the history of this long parliament of Charles II. None has ever been elected in circ.u.mstances so favourable for the Crown, none ever brought with it such high notions of prerogative; yet in this a.s.sembly a party soon grew up, and gained strength in every successive year, which the king could neither direct nor subdue. The methods of bribery, to which the court had largely recourse, though they certainly diverted some of the measures, and destroyed the character, of this opposition, proved in the end like those dangerous medicines which palliate the instant symptoms of a disease that they aggravate. The leaders of this parliament were, in general, very corrupt men; but they knew better than to quit the power which made them worth purchase. Thus the House of Commons matured and extended those rights of enquiring into and controlling the management of public affairs, which had caused so much dispute in former times; and, as the exercise of these functions became more habitual, and pa.s.sed with little or no open resistance from the Crown, the people learned to reckon them unquestionable or even fundamental; and were prepared for that more perfect settlement of the const.i.tution on a more republican basis, which took place after the revolution. The reign of Charles II., though displaying some stretches of arbitrary power, and threatening a great deal more, was, in fact, the transitional state between the ancient and modern schemes of the English const.i.tution; between that course of government where the executive power, so far as executive, was very little bounded except by the laws, and that where it can only be carried on, even within its own province, by the consent and co-operation, in a great measure, of the parliament.

_Appropriation of supplies._--The Commons took advantage of the pressure which the war with Holland brought on the administration, to establish two very important principles on the basis of their sole right of taxation. The first of these was the appropriation of supplies to limited purposes. This indeed was so far from an absolute novelty, that it found precedents in the reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV.; a period when the authority of the House of Commons was at a very high pitch. No subsequent instance, I believe, was on record till the year 1624, when the last parliament of James I., at the king's own suggestion, directed their supply for the relief of the Palatinate to be paid into the hands of commissioners named by themselves. There were cases of a similar nature in the year 1641, which, though of course they could no longer be upheld as precedents, had accustomed the house to the idea that they had something more to do than simply to grant money, without any security or provision for its application. In the session of 1665, accordingly, an enormous supply, as it then appeared, of 1,250,000, after one of double that amount in the preceding year, having been voted for the Dutch war, Sir George Downing, one of the tellers of the exchequer, introduced into the subsidy bill a proviso, that the money raised by virtue of that act should be applicable only to the purposes of the war.[620]

Clarendon inveighed with fury against this, as an innovation derogatory to the honour of the Crown; but the king himself, having listened to some who persuaded him that the money would be advanced more easily upon this better security for speedy repayment, insisted that it should not be thrown out.[621] That supplies, granted by parliament, are only to be expended for particular objects specified by itself, became, from this time, an undisputed principle, recognised by frequent and at length constant practice. It drew with it the necessity of estimates regularly laid before the House of Commons; and, by exposing the management of the public revenues, has given to parliament, not only a real and effective control over an essential branch of the executive administration, but, in some measure, rendered them partakers in it.[622]

_Commission of public accounts._--It was a consequence of this right of appropriation, that the House of Commons should be able to satisfy itself as to the expenditure of their monies in the services for which they were voted. But they might claim a more extensive function, as naturally derived from their power of opening and closing the public purse, that of investigating the wisdom, faithfulness, and economy with which their grants had been expended. For this too there was some show of precedents in the ancient days of Henry IV.; but what undoubtedly had most influence was the recollection, that during the late civil war, and in the times of the commonwealth, the house had superintended, through its committees, the whole receipts and issues of the national treasury. This had not been much practised since the restoration. But in the year 1666, the large cost and indifferent success of the Dutch war begetting vehement suspicions, not only of profuseness but of diversion of the public money from its proper purposes, the house appointed a committee to inspect the accounts of the officers of the navy, ordnance, and stores, which were laid before them, as it appears, by the king's direction. This committee after some time, having been probably found deficient in powers, and particularly being incompetent to administer an oath, the house determined to proceed in a more novel and vigorous manner; and sent up a bill, nominating commissioners to inspect the public accounts, who were to possess full powers of enquiry, and to report with respect to such persons as they should find to have broken their trust. The immediate object of this enquiry, so far as appears from Lord Clarendon's mention of it, was rather to discover whether the treasurers had not issued money without legal warrant than to enter upon the details of its expenditure. But that minister, bigoted to his Tory creed of prerogative, thought it the highest presumption for a parliament to intermeddle with the course of government. He spoke of this bill as an encroachment and usurpation that had no limits, and pressed the king to be firm in his resolution never to consent to it.[623] Nor was the king less averse to a parliamentary commission of this nature, as well from a jealousy of its interference with his prerogative, as from a consciousness which Clarendon himself suggests, that great sums had been issued by his orders, which could not be put in any public account; that is (for we can give no other interpretation), that the monies granted for the war, and appropriated by statute to that service, had been diverted to supply his wasteful and debauched course of pleasures.[624] It was the suspicion, or rather private knowledge of this criminal breach of trust, which had led to the bill in question. But such a slave was Clarendon to his narrow prepossessions, that he would rather see the dissolute excesses which he abhorred suck nourishment from that revenue which had been allotted to maintain the national honour and interests, and which, by its deficiencies thus aggravated, had caused even in this very year the navy to be laid up, and the coasts to be left defenceless, than suffer them to be restrained by the only power to which thoughtless luxury would submit. He opposed the bill therefore in the House of Lords, as he confesses, with much of that intemperate warmth which distinguished him, and with a contempt of the lower house and its authority, as imprudent in respect to his own interests as it was unbecoming and unconst.i.tutional. The king prorogued parliament while the measure was depending; but in hopes to pacify the House of Commons, promised to issue a commission under the great seal for the examination of public accountants;[625] an expedient which was not likely to bring more to light than suited his purpose. But it does not appear that this royal commission, though actually prepared and sealed, was ever carried into effect; for in the ensuing session, the great minister's downfall having occurred in the meantime, the House of Commons brought forward again their bill, which pa.s.sed into a law.

It invested the commissioners therein nominated with very extensive and extraordinary powers, both as to auditing public accounts, and investigating the frauds that had taken place in the expenditure of money, and employment of stores. They were to examine upon oath, to summon inquests if they thought fit, to commit persons disobeying their orders to prison without bail, to determine finally on the charge and discharge of all accountants; the barons of the exchequer, upon a certificate of their judgment, were to issue process for recovering money to the king's use, as if there had been an immediate judgment of their own court. Reports were to be made of the commissioners' proceedings from time to time to the king and to both houses of parliament. None of the commissioners were members of either house. The king, as may be supposed, gave way very reluctantly to this interference with his expenses. It brought to light a great deal of abuse and misapplication of the public revenues, and contributed doubtless in no small degree to destroy the house's confidence in the integrity of government, and to promote a more jealous watchfulness of the king's designs.[626] At the next meeting of parliament, in October 1669, Sir George Carteret, treasurer of the navy, was expelled the house for issuing money without legal warrant.

_Decline of Clarendon's power._--Sir Edward Hyde, whose influence had been almost annihilated in the last years of Charles I. through the inveterate hatred of the queen and those who surrounded her, acquired by degrees the entire confidence of the young king, and baffled all the intrigues of his enemies. Guided by him, in all serious matters, during the latter years of his exile, Charles followed his counsels almost implicitly in the difficult crisis of the restoration. The office of chancellor and the t.i.tle of Earl of Clarendon were the proofs of the king's favour; but in effect, through the indolence and ill-health of Southampton, as well as their mutual friends.h.i.+p, he was the real minister of the Crown.[627] By the clandestine marriage of his daughter with the Duke of York, he changed one brother from an enemy to a sincere and zealous friend, without forfeiting the esteem and favour of the other. And, though he was wise enough to dread the invidiousness of such an elevation, yet for several years it by no means seemed to render his influence less secure.[628]

Both in their characters, however, and turn of thinking, there was so little conformity between Clarendon and his master, that the continuance of his ascendancy can only be attributed to the power of early habit over the most thoughtless tempers. But it rarely happens that kings do not ultimately shake off these fetters, and release themselves from the sort of subjection which they feel in acting always by the same advisers. Charles, acute himself and cool-headed, could not fail to discover the pa.s.sions and prejudices of his minister, even if he had wanted the suggestion of others who, without reasoning on such broad principles as Clarendon, were perhaps his superiors in judging of temporary business. He wished too, as is common, to depreciate a wisdom, and to suspect a virtue, which seemed to reproach his own vice and folly. Nor had Clarendon spared those remonstrances against the king's course of life, which are seldom borne without impatience or resentment. He was strongly suspected by the king as well as his courtiers (though, according to his own account, without any reason) of having promoted the marriage of Miss Stewart with the Duke of Richmond.[629] But above all he stood in the way of projects, which, though still probably unsettled, were floating in the king's mind. No one was more zealous to uphold the prerogative at a height where it must overtop and chill with its shadow the privileges of the people. No one was more vigilant to limit the functions of parliament, or more desirous to see them confiding and submissive. But there were landmarks which he could never be brought to transgress. He would prepare the road for absolute monarchy, but not introduce it; he would a.s.sist to batter down the walls, but not to march into the town. His notions of what the English const.i.tution ought to be, appear evidently to have been derived from the times of Elizabeth and James I., to which he frequently refers with approbation. In the history of that age, he found much that could not be reconciled to any liberal principles of government. But there were two things which he certainly did not find; a revenue capable of meeting an extraordinary demand without parliamentary supply, and a standing army. Hence he took no pains, if he did not even, as is a.s.serted by Burnet, discourage the proposal of others, to obtain such a fixed annual revenue for the king on the restoration, as would have rendered it very rarely necessary to have recourse to parliament,[630]

and did not advise the keeping up any part of the army. That a few troops were retained, was owing to the Duke of York. Nor did he go the length that was expected in procuring the repeal of all the laws that had been enacted in the long parliament.[631]

These omissions sank deep in Charles's heart, especially when he found that he had to deal with an unmanageable House of Commons, and must fight the battle for arbitrary power; which might have been achieved, he thought, without a struggle by his minister. There was still less hope of obtaining any concurrence from Clarendon in the king's designs as to religion. Though he does not once hint at it in his writings, there can be little doubt that he must have suspected his master's inclinations towards the church of Rome. The Duke of York considered this as the most likely cause of his remissness in not sufficiently advancing the prerogative.[632] He was always opposed to the various schemes of a general indulgence towards popery, not only from his strongly protestant principles and his dislike of all toleration, but from a prejudice against the body of the English catholics, whom he thought to arrogate more on the ground of merit than they could claim.

That interest, so powerful at court, was decidedly hostile to the chancellor; for the Duke of York, who strictly adhered to him, if he had not kept his change of religion wholly secret, does not at least seem to have hitherto formed any avowed connection with the popish party.[633]

_Loss of the king's favour_--_Coalition against Clarendon_.--This estrangement of the king's favour is sufficient to account for Clarendon's loss of power; but his entire ruin was rather accomplished by a strange coalition of enemies, which his virtues, or his errors and infirmities, had brought into union. The cavaliers hated him on account of the act of indemnity, and the presbyterians for that of uniformity. Yet the latter were not in general so eager in his prosecution as the others.[634] But he owed great part of the severity with which he was treated to his own pride and ungovernable pa.s.sionateness, by which he had rendered very eminent men in the House of Commons implacable, and to the language he had used as to the dignity and privileges of the house itself.[635] A sense of this eminent person's great talents as well as general integrity and conscientiousness on the one hand, an indignation at the king's ingrat.i.tude, and the profligate counsels of those who supplanted him, on the other, have led most writers to overlook his faults in administration, and to treat all the articles of accusation against him as frivolous or unsupported. It is doubtless impossible to justify the charge of high treason, on which he was impeached; but there are matters that never were or could be disproved; and our own knowledge enables us to add such grave accusations as must show Clarendon's unfitness for the government of a free country.[636]

1. _Illegal imprisonments._--It is the fourth article of his impeachment, that he "had advised and procured divers of his majesty's subjects to be imprisoned against law, in remote islands, garrisons, and other places, thereby to prevent them from the benefit of the law, and to produce precedents for the imprisoning any other of his majesty's subjects in like manner." This was undoubtedly true. There was some ground for apprehension on the part of the government from those bold spirits who had been accustomed to revolutions, and drew encouragement from the vices of the court and the embarra.s.sments of the nation. Ludlow and Algernon Sidney, about the year 1665, had projected an insurrection, the latter soliciting Louis XIV. and the pensionary of Holland for aid.[637] Many officers of the old army, Wildman, Creed, and others, suspected, perhaps justly, of such conspiracies, had been illegally detained in prison for several years, and only recovered their liberty on Clarendon's dismissal.[638] He had too much encouraged the hateful race of informers, though he admits that it had grown a trade by which men got money, and that many were committed on slight grounds.[639] Thus Colonel Hutchinson died in the close confinement of a remote prison, far more probably on account of his share in the death of Charles I., from which the act of indemnity had discharged him, than any just pretext of treason.[640] It was difficult to obtain a habeas corpus from some of the judges in this reign. But to elude that provision by removing men out of the kingdom, was such an offence against the const.i.tution as may be thought enough to justify the impeachment of any minister.

2. The first article, and certainly the most momentous, a.s.serts, "That the Earl of Clarendon hath designed a standing army to be raised, and to govern the kingdom thereby, and advised the king to dissolve this present parliament, to lay aside all thoughts of parliaments for the future, to govern by a military power, and to maintain the same by free quarter and contribution." This was prodigiously exaggerated; yet there was some foundation for a part of it. In the disastrous summer of 1667, when the Dutch fleet had insulted our coasts, and burned our s.h.i.+ps in the Medway, the exchequer being empty, it was proposed in council to call together immediately the parliament, which then stood prorogued to a day at the distance of some months. Clarendon, who feared the hostility of the House of Commons towards himself, and had pressed the king to dissolve it, maintained that they could not legally be summoned before the day fixed; and, with a strange inconsistency, attaching more importance to the formalities of law than to its essence, advised that the counties where the troops were quartered should be called upon to send in provisions, and those where there were no troops to contribute money, which should be abated out of the next taxes. And he admits that he might have used the expression of raising contributions, as in the late civil war. This unguarded and unwarrantable language, thrown out at the council-table where some of his enemies were sitting, soon reached the ears of the Commons, and, mingled up with the usual misrepresentations of faction, was magnified into a charge of high treason.[641]

3. _Sale of Dunkirk._--The eleventh article charged Lord Clarendon with having advised and effected the sale of Dunkirk to the French king, being part of his majesty's dominions, for no greater value than the ammunition, artillery, and stores were worth. The latter part is generally a.s.serted to be false. The sum received is deemed the utmost that Louis would have given, who thought he had made a hard bargain.

But it is very difficult to reconcile what Clarendon a.s.serts in his defence, and much more at length in his Life (that the business of Dunkirk was entirely decided before he had anything to do in it, by the advice of Albemarle and Sandwich), with the letters of d'Estrades, the negotiator in this transaction on the part of France. In these letters, written at the time to Louis XIV., Clarendon certainly appears not only as the person chiefly concerned, but as representing himself almost the only one of the council favourable to the measure, and having to overcome the decided repugnance of Southampton, Sandwich, and Albemarle.[642] I cannot indeed see any other explanation than that he magnified the obstacles in the way of this treaty, in order to obtain better terms; a management, not very unusual in diplomatical dealing, but, in the degree at least to which he carried it, scarcely reconcilable with the good faith we should expect from this minister. For the transaction itself, we can hardly deem it honourable or politic. The expense of keeping up Dunkirk, though not trifling, would have been willingly defrayed by parliament; and could not well be pleaded by a government which had just enc.u.mbered itself with the useless burthen of Tangier. That its possession was of no great direct value to England must be confessed; but it was another question whether it ought to have been surrendered into the hands of France.

4. This close connection with France is indeed a great reproach to Clarendon's policy, and was the spring of mischiefs to which he contributed, and which he ought to have foreseen. What were the motives of these strong professions of attachment to the interests of Louis XIV. which he makes in some of his letters, it is difficult to say, since he had undoubtedly an ancient prejudice against that nation and its government. I should incline to conjecture that his knowledge of the king's unsoundness in religion led him to keep at a distance from the court of Spain, as being far more zealous in its popery, and more connected with the Jesuit faction, than that of France; and this possibly influenced him also with respect to the Portuguese match, wherein, though not the first adviser, he certainly took much interest; an alliance as little judicious in the outset, as it proved eventually fortunate.[643] But the capital misdemeanour that he committed in this relation with France was the clandestine solicitation of pecuniary aid for the king. He first taught a lavish prince to seek the wages of dependence in a foreign power, to elude the control of parliament by the help of French money.[644] The purpose for which this aid was asked, the succour of Portugal, might be fair and laudable; but the precedent was most base, dangerous, and abominable. A king who had once tasted the sweets of dishonest and clandestine lucre would, in the words of the poet, be no more capable afterwards of abstaining from it, than a dog from his greasy offal.

_Clarendon's faults as a minister._--These are the errors of Clarendon's political life; which, besides his notorious concurrence in all measures of severity and restraint towards the nonconformists, tend to diminish our respect from his memory, and to exclude his name from that list of great and wise ministers, where some are willing to place him near the head. If I may seem to my readers less favourable to so eminent a person than common history might warrant, it is at least to be said that I have formed my decision from his own recorded sentiments, or from equally undisputable sources of authority. The publication of his life, that is, of the history of his administration, has not contributed to his honour. We find in it little or nothing of that attachment to the const.i.tution for which he had acquired credit, and some things which we must struggle hard to reconcile with his veracity, even if the suppression of truth is not to be reckoned an impeachment of it in an historian.[645] But the manifest profligacy of those who contributed most to his ruin, and the measures which the court took soon afterwards, have rendered his administration comparatively honourable, and attached veneration to his memory. We are unwilling to believe that there was anything to censure in a minister, whom Buckingham persecuted, and against whom Arlington intrigued.[646]

A distinguished characteristic of Clarendon had been his firmness, called indeed by most pride and obstinacy, which no circ.u.mstances, no perils, seemed likely to bend. But his spirit sunk all at once with his fortune. Clinging too long to office, and cheating himself against all probability with a hope of his master's kindness when he had lost his confidence, he abandoned that dignified philosophy which enn.o.bles a voluntary retirement, that stern courage which innocence ought to inspire; and hearkening to the king's treacherous counsels, fled before his enemies into a foreign country. Though the impeachment, at least in the point of high treason, cannot be defended, it is impossible to deny that the act of banishment, under the circ.u.mstances of his flight, was capable, in the main, of full justification. In an ordinary criminal suit, a process of outlawry goes against the accused who flies from justice; and his neglect to appear within a given time is equivalent, in cases of treason or felony, to a conviction of the offence; can it be complained of, that a minister of state, who dares not confront a parliamentary impeachment, should be visited with an a.n.a.logous penalty? But, whatever injustice and violence may be found in this prosecution, it established for ever the right of impeachment, which the discredit into which the long parliament had fallen exposed to some hazard; the strong abettors of prerogative, such as Clarendon himself, being inclined to dispute this responsibility of the king's advisers to parliament. The Commons had, in the preceding session, sent up an impeachment against Lord Mordaunt, upon charges of so little public moment, that they may be suspected of having chiefly had in view the a.s.sertion of this important privilege.[647] It was never called in question from this time; and indeed they took care during the remainder of this reign, that it should not again be endangered by a paucity of precedents.[64