No More Learning

For the senseless freak which had produced these effects Wentworth
is not responsible. [15] It had, in fact, thrown all his plans into
confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in his nature. An
attempt was made to put down the insurrection by the sword: but the
King's military means and military talents were unequal to the task.
To impose fresh taxes on England in defiance of law, would, at this
conjuncture, have been madness. No resource was left but a Parliament;
and in the spring of 1640 a Parliament was convoked.

The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of seeing
constitutional government restored, and grievances redressed. The new
House of Commons was more temperate and more respectful to the throne
than any which had sate since the death of Elizabeth. The moderation
of this assembly has been highly extolled by the most distinguished
Royalists and seems to have caused no small vexation and disappointment
to the chiefs of the opposition: but it was the uniform practice of
Charles, a practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all
compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires
were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed a
disposition to take into consideration the grievances under which
the country had suffered during eleven years, the King dissolved the
Parliament with every mark of displeasure.

Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly and the meeting
of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long Parliament,
intervened a few months, during which the yoke was pressed down more
severely than ever on the nation, while the spirit of the nation rose up
more angrily than ever against the yoke. Members of the House of Commons
were questioned by the Privy Council touching their parliamentary
conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was
levied with increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London
were threatened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the
payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money for their support was
exacted from their counties. Torture, which had always been illegal, and
which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of
that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of
May, 1610.

Everything now depended on the event of the King's military operations
against the Scots. Among his troops there was little of that feeling
which separates professional soldiers from the mass of a nation, and
attaches them to their leaders. His army, composed for the most part of
recruits, who regretted the plough from which they had been violently
taken, and who were imbued with the religious and political sentiments
then prevalent throughout the country, was more formidable to himself
than to the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English
opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, marched across
the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of Yorkshire.
And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an uproar by which all
spirits save one were overawed.

But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even, in this
extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that his own pikemen
were ready to tear him in pieces.

There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered himself,
might save him from the misery of facing another House of Commons. To
the House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops were devoted to
him; and though the temporal peers were generally dissatisfied with
his administration, they were, as a class, so deeply interested in the
maintenance of order, and in the stability of ancient institutions, that
they were not likely to call for extensive reforms. Departing from
the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he called a Great Council
consisting of Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the
unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them. Without
money, without credit, without authority even in his own camp, he
yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were convoked; and the
elections proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred with
which the government was regarded had made fearful progress.

In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite of many
errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence and
gratitude of all who, in any part of the world enjoy the blessings of
constitutional government.

During the year which followed, no very important division of opinion
appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiastical administration
had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been so oppressive and so
unconstitutional that even those classes of which the inclinations
are generally on the side of order and authority were eager to promote
popular reforms and to bring the instruments of tyranny to justice. It
was enacted that no interval of more than three years should ever elapse
between Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great
Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers should,
without such writs, call the constituent bodies together for the choice
of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council
of York were swept away. Men who, after suffering cruel mutilations, had
been confined in remote dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief
ministers of the crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly
wreaked. The Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were
impeached. Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower.
Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on which this
act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which he bound himself
not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the existing Parliament without
its own consent.

After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September 1641,
adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited Scotland. He with
difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting, not only to relinquish
his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a very bad
grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God.

The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on
which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our
history. From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great
parties which have ever since alternately governed the country. In one
sense, indeed, the distinction which then became obvious had always
existed, and always must exist. For it has its origin in diversities
of temper, of understanding, and of interest, which are found in all
societies, and which will be found till the human mind ceases to be
drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit and by the charm of
novelty. Not only in politics but in literature, in art, in science,
in surgery and mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even in
mathematics, we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a class of
men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when
convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation would be beneficial,
consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also
everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation,
always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever
exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which
attend improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being
an improvement. In the sentiments of both classes there is something to
approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the
common frontier. The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted
dotards: the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and
reckless empirics.

There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might have been
discerned a body of members anxious to preserve, and a body eager to
reform. But, while the sessions of the legislature were short, these
bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array themselves under
recognised leaders, or assume distinguishing names, badges, and war
cries. During the first months of the Long Parliament, the indignation
excited by many years of lawless oppression was so strong and
general that the House of Commons acted as one man. Abuse after
abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small minority of the
representative body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High
Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the
numerical superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly
regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be
openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to
antedate the separation between themselves and their opponents, and
to attribute the Act which restrained the King from dissolving or
proroguing the Parliament, the Triennial Act, the impeachment of
the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the faction which
afterwards made war on the King. But no artifice could be more
disingenuous. Every one of those strong measures was actively promoted
by the men who were afterward foremost among the Cavaliers. No
republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more severely than
Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill
was made by Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by
Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept close
prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law
attainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion
become visible. Even against that law, a law which nothing but extreme
necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the House of
Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and that
Falkland not only voted with the majority, but spoke strongly for the
bill. Even the few who entertained a scruple about inflicting death by
a retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost
abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration.

But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and when,
in October, 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short recess, two
hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under different
names, have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the
direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. During
some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They
were subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these
appellations are likely soon to become obsolete.

It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on either
of these renowned factions. For no man not utterly destitute of judgment
and candor will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the
party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may
justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of
many great services rendered to the state. The truth is that, though
both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared
neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages
arising from innovation and the advantages arising from prescription,
have been combined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this
happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and alternate victories
of two rival confederacies of statesmen, a confederacy zealous for
authority and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for liberty and
progress.

It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great
sections of English politicians has always been a difference rather of
degree than of principle. There were certain limits on the right and on
the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one
side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of
our Kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing,
through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic.
But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse
to despotism; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights
were averse to anarchy. Twice, in the course of the seventeenth century,
the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength
in a common cause. Their first coalition restored hereditary monarchy.
Their second coalition rescued constitutional freedom.

It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the whole
nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up a majority
of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has
not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly
neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has
more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and
back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired
of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its
own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had
been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in
either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible.

When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed
to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a
large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended
gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. These,
with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small
power in the state. On the same side were the great body of the clergy,
both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached
to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable
classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less
decorous than themselves. The Puritan austerity drove to the king's
faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry,
splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went all who
live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic
poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists
well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism,
but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same
interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. The Queen, a daughter of
France, was of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly
attached to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a
Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion
with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger
toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the
opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the sanguinary
laws enacted against Papists in the reign of Elizabeth, would be
severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the
strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in general
acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice
and lukewarmness; but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve,
they consulted the King's interest as well as their own. It was not for
his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends.

The main strength of the opposition lay among the small freeholders in
the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns.
But these were headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a
minority which included the rich and powerful Earls of Northumberland,
Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and several other Lords of great
wealth and influence. In the same ranks was found the whole body of
Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established
Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty
years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy. The
municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the same side. In the
House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly.

Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which it was
disposed to take. The reasonings of the most enlightened Royalists may
be summed up thus:--"It is true that great abuses have existed; but they
have been redressed. It is true that precious rights have been invaded;
but they have been vindicated and surrounded with new securities. The
sittings of the Estates of the realm have been, in defiance of all
precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, intermitted during
eleven years; but it has now been provided that henceforth three years
shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber the High
Commission, the Council of York, oppressed end plundered us; but those
hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at
establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason
with his head. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites and
punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the
Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by
which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of
the Crown; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take
refuge in a foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated
their crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their
sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in
that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after
a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses.
It is time to take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over
despotism as to run into anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn
the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks
which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those
institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it
was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look
with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment
all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed
the sovereign. "

Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be
regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side with not less
force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the
liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather apparent than real,
and that the arbitrary projects of the court would be resumed as soon
as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. True it was,--such was the
reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden--that many good laws had
been passed: but, if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the
King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his
administration. The recent statutes were surely not of more authority
than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great
Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition
of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable
consideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the
protection of the people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn,
if once the spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the
securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one,
the royal word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience
that the royal word could not be trusted.

The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious hostility,
and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which
inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. The great
chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James, had,
after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority, had not long
brooked the humiliation of dependence. They had conspired against the
English government, and had been attainted of treason. Their immense
domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by
thousands of English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers were, in
civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population,
and sometimes abused their superiority. The animosity produced by
difference of race was increased by difference of religion. Under the
iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard: but, when that
strong pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the example of
successful resistance, when England was distracted by internal quarrels,
the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful
violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists.
A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of
peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring
provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post
brought to London exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any
exaggeration were sufficient to move pity end horror. These evil tidings
roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which were
marshalled against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained
that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant,
at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the
opposition it seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for
thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger
was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trustworthy
magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a
magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great army had
always been the King's first object. A great army must now be raised.
It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the
forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against
the liberties of England. Nor was this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust
indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The
Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic: the King was not regarded by the
Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestant;
and so notorious was his duplicity, that there was no treachery of which
his subjects might not, with some show of reason, believe him capable.
It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of
Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at
Whitehall.

After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict
between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still
contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the
twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the opposition,
that the House of Commons should present to the King a remonstrance,
enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of his
accession, and expressing the distrust with which his policy was still
regarded by his people. That assembly, which a few months before had
been unanimous in calling for the reform of abuses, was now divided
into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal strength. After a hot
debate of many hours, the remonstrance was carried by only eleven votes.

The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the conservative
party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscretion could
prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in the Lower House.
The Upper House was already their own. Nothing was wanting to ensure
their success, but that the King should, in all his conduct, show
respect for the laws and scrupulous good faith towards his subjects.

His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last discovered
that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made
up his mind to what could no longer be avoided. He declared his
determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end,
to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons
might place confidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde,
and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had taken
in reforming abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to
become the confidential advisers of the Crown, and were solemnly assured
by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the Lower
House of Parliament without their privity.

Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which
was already in progress would very soon have become quite as strong as
the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Already the violent
members of the opposition had begun to despair of the fortunes of their
party, to tremble for their own safety, and to talk of selling their
estates and emigrating to America. That the fair prospects which had
begun to open before the King were suddenly overcast, that his life was
darkened by adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be
attributed to his own faithlessness and contempt of law.

The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into which the
House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for in both those
parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though
in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him
to call round him were by no means after his own heart. They had joined
in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his
instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal
way his strictly legal prerogative; but they would have recoiled with
horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth's projects of Thorough.
They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors, who differed only
in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden.

He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the
constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken
without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his
whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and executed
it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dismay. He sent the
Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of
the House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords.
Not content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the
uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person, accompanied by
armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of
Parliament.

The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a short time
before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion of feeling,
both in the Parliament and in the country, followed. The most favourable
view that has ever been taken of the King's conduct on this occasion by
his most partial advocates is that he had weakly suffered himself to be
hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and
of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly charged him with far
deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a long
estrangement produced by his maladministration, were returning to him
with feelings of confidence and affection, he had aimed a deadly blow at
all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the very
principle of trial by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition
to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had
broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people,
but with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen
accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the
Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now
felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and
their necks, were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were
engaged. The flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived in
an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the whole city
of London was in arms. In a few hours the roads leading to the capital
were covered with multitudes of yeomen spurring hard to Westminster with
the badges of the parliamentary cause in their hats. In the House of
Commons the opposition became at once irresistible, and carried, by more
than two votes to one, resolutions of unprecedented violence. Strong
bodies of the trainbands, regularly relieved, mounted guard round
Westminster Hall. The gates of the King's palace were daily besieged by
a furious multitude whose taunts and execrations were heard even in
the presence chamber, and who could scarcely be kept out of the royal
apartments by the gentlemen of the household. Had Charles remained much
longer in his stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have
found a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a state
prisoner.

He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and
memorable reckoning had arrived. A negotiation began which occupied
many months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward
between the contending parties. All accommodation had become impossible.
The sure punishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length
overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now pawned his royal
word, and invoked heaven to witness the sincerity of his professions.
The distrust with which his adversaries regarded him was not to be
removed by oaths or treaties. They were convinced that they could be
safe only when he was utterly helpless. Their demand, therefore, was,
that he should surrender, not only those prerogatives which he had
usurped in violation of ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but
also other prerogatives which the English Kings had always possessed,
and continue to possess at the present day. No minister must be
appointed, no peer created, without the consent of the Houses. Above
all, the sovereign must resign that supreme military authority which,
from time beyond all memory, had appertained to the regal office.

That Charles would comply with such demands while he had any means of
resistance, was not to be expected. Yet it will be difficult to show
that the Houses could safely have exacted less. They were truly in a
most embarrassing position. The great majority of the nation was firmly
attached to hereditary monarchy. Those who held republican opinions
were as yet few, and did not venture to speak out. It was therefore
impossible to abolish kingly government. Yet it was plain that no
confidence could be placed in the King. It would have been absurd in
those who knew, by recent proof, that he was bent on destroying them, to
content themselves with presenting to him another Petition of Right,
and receiving from him fresh promises similar to those which he
had repeatedly made and broken. Nothing but the want of an army had
prevented him from entirely subverting the old constitution of the
realm. It was now necessary to levy a great regular army for the
conquest of Ireland; and it would therefore have been mere insanity to
leave him in possession of that plenitude of military authority which
his ancestors had enjoyed.

When a country is in the situation in which England then was, when the
kingly office is regarded with love and veneration, but the person
who fills that office is hated and distrusted, it should seem that the
course which ought to be taken is obvious. The dignity of the office
should be preserved: the person should be discarded. Thus our ancestors
acted in 1399 and in 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any man occupying a
position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster occupied at the time
of the deposition of Richard the Second, and which William of Orange
occupied at the time of the deposition of James the Second, it is
probable that the Houses would have changed the dynasty, and would have
made no formal change in the constitution. The new King, called to the
throne by their choice, and dependent on their support, would have been
under the necessity of governing in conformity with their wishes
and opinions. But there was no prince of the blood royal in the
parliamentary party; and, though that party contained many men of high
rank and many men of eminent ability, there was none who towered so
conspicuously above the rest that he could be proposed as a candidate
for the crown. As there was to be a King, and as no new King could be
found, it was necessary to leave the regal title to Charles. Only one
course, therefore, was left: and that was to disjoin the regal title
from the regal prerogatives.

The change which the Houses proposed to make in our institutions,
though it seems exorbitant, when distinctly set forth and digested into
articles of capitulation, really amounts to little more than the change
which, in the next generation, was effected by the Revolution. It is
true that, at the Revolution, the sovereign was not deprived by law of
the power of naming his ministers: but it is equally true that, since
the Revolution, no minister has been able to retain office six months
in opposition to the sense of the House of Commons. It is true that
the sovereign still possesses the power of creating peers, and the
more important power of the sword: but it is equally true that in the
exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever since the
Revolution, been guided by advisers who possess the confidence of the
representatives of the nation. In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead
party in 1642, and the statesmen who, about half a century later,
effected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in view.
That object was to terminate the contest between the Crown and the
Parliament, by giving to the Parliament a supreme control over the
executive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected this
indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1642, being unable
to change the dynasty, were compelled to take a direct course towards
their end.

We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of the opposition, importing
as they did a complete and formal transfer to the Parliament of powers
which had always belonged to the Crown, should have shocked that great
party of which the characteristics are respect for constitutional
authority and dread of violent innovation. That party had recently been
in hopes of obtaining by peaceable means the ascendency in the House of
Commons; but every such hope had been blighted. The duplicity of Charles
had made his old enemies irreconcileable, had driven back into the ranks
of the disaffected a crowd of moderate men who were in the very act of
coming over to his side, and had so cruelly mortified his best friends
that they had for a time stood aloof in silent shame and resentment.
Now, however, the constitutional Royalists were forced to make their
choice between two dangers; and they thought it their duty rather to
rally round a prince whose past conduct they condemned, and whose word
inspired them with little confidence, than to suffer the regal office to
be degraded, and the polity of the realm to be entirely remodelled.
With such feelings, many men whose virtues and abilities would have done
honour to any cause, ranged themselves on the side of the King.

In August 1642 the sword was at length drawn; and soon, in almost every
shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions appeared in arms against
each other. It is not easy to say which of the contending parties was at
first the more formidable. The Houses commanded London and the counties
round London, the fleet, the navigation of the Thames, and most of the
large towns and seaports. They had at their disposal almost all the
military stores of the kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on
goods imported from foreign countries, and on some important products
of domestic industry. The King was ill provided with artillery and
ammunition. The taxes which he laid on the rural districts occupied by
his troops produced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which
the Parliament drew from the city of London alone. He relied, indeed,
chiefly, for pecuniary aid, on the munificence of his opulent adherents.
Many of these mortgaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up
their silver chargers and christening bowls, in order to assist him.
But experience has fully proved that the voluntary liberality of
individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor
financial resource when compared with severe and methodical taxation,
which presses on the willing and unwilling alike.

Charles, however, had one advantage, which, if he had used it well,
would have more than compensated for the want of stores and money, and
which, notwithstanding his mismanagement, gave him, during some months,
a superiority in the war. His troops at first fought much better than
those of the Parliament. Both armies, it is true, were almost entirely
composed of men who had never seen a field of battle. Nevertheless, the
difference was great. The Parliamentary ranks were filled with hirelings
whom want and idleness had induced to enlist. Hampden's regiment was
regarded as one of the best; and even Hampden's regiment was described
by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters and serving men out of place.
The royal army, on the other hand, consisted in great part of gentlemen,
high spirited, ardent, accustomed to consider dishonour as more terrible
than death, accustomed to fencing, to the use of fire arms, to bold
riding, and to manly and perilous sport, which has been well called the
image of war. Such gentlemen, mounted on their favourite horses, and
commanding little bands composed of their younger brothers, grooms,
gamekeepers, and huntsmen, were, from the very first day on which they
took the field, qualified to play their part with credit in a skirmish.
The steadiness, the prompt obedience, the mechanical precision of
movement, which are characteristic of the regular soldier, these gallant
volunteers never attained. But they were at first opposed to enemies as
undisciplined as themselves, and far less active, athletic, and daring.
For a time, therefore, the Cavaliers were successful in almost every
encounter.

The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice of a general. The
rank and wealth of the Earl of Essex made him one of the most important
members of the parliamentary party. He had borne arms on the Continent
with credit, and, when the war began, had as high a military reputation
as any man in the country. But it soon appeared that he was unfit for
the post of Commander in Chief. He had little energy and no originality.
The methodical tactics which he had learned in the war of the Palatinate
did not save him from the disgrace of being surprised and baffled by
such a Captain as Rupert, who could claim no higher fame than that of an
enterprising partisan.

Nor were the officers who held the chief commissions under Essex
qualified to supply what was wanting in him. For this, indeed, the
Houses are scarcely to be blamed. In a country which had not, within the
memory of the oldest person living, made war on a great scale by
land, generals of tried skill and valour were not to be found. It was
necessary, therefore, in the first instance, to trust untried men; and
the preference was naturally given to men distinguished either by their
station, or by the abilities which they had displayed in Parliament.
In scarcely a single instance, however, was the selection fortunate.
Neither the grandees nor the orators proved good soldiers. The Earl
of Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of England, was routed by
the Royalists at Stratton. Nathaniel Fiennes, inferior to none of his
contemporaries in talents for civil business, disgraced himself by the
pusillanimous surrender of Bristol. Indeed, of all the statesmen who at
this juncture accepted high military commands, Hampden alone appears to
have carried into the camp the capacity and strength of mind which had
made him eminent in politics.

When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the
Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern
counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from
the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a
single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads adversity had
begun to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept
in alarm, sometimes by plots, and sometimes by riots. It was thought
necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang
some disaffected citizens at their own doors. Several of the most
distinguished peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the
court at Oxford; nor can it be doubted that, if the operations of the
Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful
mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall.

But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never
returned. In August 1643 he sate down before the city of Gloucester.
That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a
determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been
shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was
excited. The trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their
services might be required. A great force was speedily collected,
and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised: the
Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened: the spirit of
the parliamentary party revived: and the apostate Lords, who had
lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to
Westminster.

And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the
distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the
parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which
the majority of that party would have shrunk with horror. These men
were, in religion, Independents. They conceived that every Christian
congregation had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things
spiritual; that appeals to provincial and national synods were scarcely
less unscriptural than appeals to the Court of Arches, or to the
Vatican; and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three
forms of one great apostasy. In politics, the Independents were, to use
the phrase of their time, root and branch men, or, to use the kindred
phrase of our own time, radicals. Not content with limiting the power of
the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of
the old English polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both
in numbers and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they
became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction in the
country. Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by
death; and others had forfeited the public confidence. Pym had been
borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets. Hampden
had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavouring, by his heroic
example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry
of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northumberland was
known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigour
and ability in the conduct of military operations. At such a conjuncture
it was that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncompromising,
began to raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons.

The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful
occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a
commission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier
than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, and men
like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive. He saw
precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means
alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary
to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were
abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy,
indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the
King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not
mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character,
fearing God and zealous for public liberty. With such men he filled his
own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid
than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their
intellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency.

The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his
abilities. In the south, where Essex held the command, the parliamentary
forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters; but in the north
the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost
elsewhere. That victory was not a more serious blow to the Royalists
than to the party which had hitherto been dominant at Westminster, for
it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presbyterians,
had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour
of the warriors whom he had trained.

These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance and the new model of the
army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and
most of those who had held high posts under him were removed; and the
conduct of the war was intrusted to very different hands. Fairfax, a
brave soldier, but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the
nominal Lord General of the forces; but Cromwell was their real head.

Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same principles
on which he had organised his own regiment. As soon as this process was
complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cavaliers had now to
encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthusiasm stronger than
their own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them. It soon
became a proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were men of
a different breed from the soldiers of Essex. At Naseby took place the
first great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of
the Houses. The victory of the Roundheads was complete and decisive. It
was followed by other triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months
the authority of the Parliament was fully established over the whole
kingdom. Charles fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which
did not much exalt their national character, delivered up to his English
subjects.

While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the
Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their authority,
the use of the Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe that
renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League and Covenant.
Covenanting work, as it was called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands
affixed their names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up towards
heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation
of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, and to bring to public
trial and condign punishment all who should hinder the reformation of
religion. When the struggle was over, the work of innovation and revenge
was pushed on with increased ardour. The ecclesiastical polity of the
kingdom was remodelled. Most of the old clergy were ejected from their
benefices. Fines, often of ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists,
already impoverished by large aids furnished to the King. Many estates
were confiscated. Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to
purchase, at an enormous cost, the projection of eminent members of the
victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops,
and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to
auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil
of England was at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the
market was glutted, as the title was insecure and as the awe inspired
by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices were often
merely nominal. Thus many old and honourable families disappeared and
were heard of no more; and many new men rose rapidly to affluence.

But, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly
passed out of their hands. It had been obtained by calling into
existence a power which could not be controlled. In the summer of
1647, about twelve months after the last fortress of the Cavaliers had
submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled to submit to
its own soldiers.

Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various names
and forms, really governed by the sword. Never before that time,
or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to
military dictation.

The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very
different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the
pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the
humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier
almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The great
majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So
numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England, that
every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in
exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour
of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised for
home service. The pay of the private soldier was much above the wages
earned by the great body of the people; and, if he distinguished himself
by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high commands.
The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and
education to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral, diligent, and
accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the
pressure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the
arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal,
mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the
soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that
they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly
for the sake of lucre. That they were no janissaries, but freeborn
Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy
for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it
was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved.

A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be
indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would
have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who
should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass
resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all
control, would cease to form an army, and would become the worst and
most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our time, to tolerate
in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal versed in
Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and
admonish a backsliding major. But such was the intelligence, the
gravity, and the selfcommand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained,
that in their camp a political organisation and a religious organisation
could exist without destroying military organisation. The same men,
who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and field preachers, were
distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt
obedience on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle.

In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage
characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell, at
once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained orders as
strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent.
But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company
with the fiercest enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the
precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of
Crusaders. From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when
it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on
the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England,
Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded
by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only
never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces
whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard the
day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most
renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was
startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies
advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier,
when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to
rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy; and the banished Cavaliers
felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their
countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before
it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage
into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the
ablest of the Marshals of France.

But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other
armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all
ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that
singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen,
and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the
peaceable citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred. If outrages
were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from
those of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl
complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate
was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a Pelagian sermon, or
a window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the
Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions
of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to
restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the
pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time,
were not savoury; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks
of the hatred with which those stern spirits regarded every vestige of
Popery.

To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No
sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt, than the nation,
unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections
broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been
the most submissive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself
abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous
to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the
troops. In Scotland at the same time, a coalition was formed between the
Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines
of the Independents with detestation. At length the storm burst. There
were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the
Thames suddenly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced
the southern coast. A great Scottish force crossed the frontier
and advanced into Lancashire. It might well be suspected that these
movements were contemplated with secret complacency by a majority both
of the Lords and of the Commons.

But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While Fairfax
suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, Oliver
routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins,
marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the
invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies. The
Scottish army was utterly destroyed. A change in the Scottish government
followed. An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at
Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers,
returned in triumph to London.

And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man
would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the
Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to
take a distinct form. The austere warriors who ruled the nation had,
during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King.
When and how the scheme originated; whether it spread from the general
to the ranks, or from the ranks to the general; whether it is to be
ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism bearing
down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this
day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence. It seems, however,
on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was really forced to
follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great occasion a few
years later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own inclinations to
the wishes of the army. For the power which he had called into existence
was a power which even he could not always control; and, that he might
ordinarily command, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey. He
publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first
steps had been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the
Parliament to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to
the force of circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes
of Providence. It has been the fashion to consider these professions as
instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even
those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a
fool. They are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve
by secretly stimulating the army to take that course which he did not
venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd to suppose that he who
was never by his respectable enemies represented as wantonly cruel or
implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his
life under the influence of mere malevolence.