No More Learning

In this design he persisted till he was
compelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, and
by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in the camp began to
clamour for the head of the traitor, who was for treating with Agag.
Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered.
A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver
could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and
kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in
the highest degree difficult and perilous to contend against the rage of
warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe, and as the foe
of their God. At the same time it became more evident than ever that the
King could not be trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They
were, indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring
out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak.
A prince, therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of
power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments
and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most
unlucky dissembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds
and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly
recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the
same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition
null. He publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid
against his people: he privately solicited aid from France, from
Denmark, and from Lorraine. He publicly denied that he employed Papists:
at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ
every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford,
as a pledge that he never would even connive at Popery. He privately
assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England; and he
authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should be established
in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense.
Glamorgan received, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be
read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To
such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole
nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining
to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His
defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had
been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had
not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but
never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole
and to undermine Cromwell.

Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment
of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay his
own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save
a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and
misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was
made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that,
in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal
sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with
his blood. He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy
predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in
no danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not
midnight stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a
spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting
remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That
the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England were directly
opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party
bent on effecting a complete political and social revolution. In order
to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first
break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this
necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed
a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded the
majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that
the King should be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed.
No court, known to the law, would take on itself the office of judging
the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That
tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a
public enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders, before
thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own
palace.

In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious
zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not only a
crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his
people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great
theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities
which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the
high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a
penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the
very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of
England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No
demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the
captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity,
and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the
feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before
a court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the
principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons
had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords
deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers
that he was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs. His long
misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His memory
was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated with
those free institutions which he had, during many years, laboured to
destroy: for those free institutions had perished with him, and, amidst
the mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended
by his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy
and of the exiled house, reaction which never ceased till the throne had
again been set up in all its old dignity.

At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have derived new
energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves
closely together, and separated themselves for ever from the great body
of their countrymen. England was declared a commonwealth. The House of
Commons, reduced to a small number of members, was nominally the supreme
power in the state. In fact, the army and its great chief governed
everything. Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his
soldiers, and had broken with almost every other class of his fellow
citizens. Beyond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could
scarcely be said to have a party. Those elements of force which, when
the civil war broke out, had appeared arrayed against each other, were
combined against him; all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the
Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman
Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such, was his genius
and resolution that he was able to overpower and crush everything that
crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his country
than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his country more
dreaded and respected than she had been during many generations under
the rule of her legitimate Kings.

England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other kingdoms which
had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new republic. The
Independent party was equally odious to the Roman Catholics of Ireland
and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those countries, lately in
rebellion against Charles the First, now acknowledged the authority of
Charles the Second.

But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In a
few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been subjugated
during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the
landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an end to that
conflict of races and religions which had so long distracted the island,
by making the English and Protestant population decidedly predominant.
For this end he gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers,
waged war resembling that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote
the idolaters with the edge of the sword, so that great cities were left
without inhabitants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped off
many thousands to the West Indies, and supplied the void thus made by
pouring in numerous colonists, of Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith.
Strange to say, under that iron rule, the conquered country began to
wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts, which had recently been
as wild as those where the first white settlers of Connecticut were
contending with the red men, were in a few years transformed into the
likeness of Kent and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and plantations were
everywhere seen. The rent of estates rose fast; and soon the English
landowners began to complain that they were met in every market by the
products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting laws.

From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had long
been in reality, Lord General of the armies of the Commonwealth, turned
to Scotland. The Young King was there. He had consented to profess
himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the Covenant; and, in return
for these concessions, the austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh
had permitted him to assume the crown, and to hold, under their
inspection and control, a solemn and melancholy court. This mock royalty
was of short duration. In two great battles Cromwell annihilated the
military force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme
difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The ancient kingdom of the
Stuarts was reduced, for the first time, to profound submission. Of that
independence, so manfully defended against the mightiest and ablest of
the Plantagenets, no vestige was left. The English Parliament made
laws for Scotland. English judges held assizes in Scotland. Even that
stubborn Church, which has held its own against so many governments,
scarce dared to utter an audible murmur.

Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony between the
warriors who had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the politicians who
sate at Westminster: but the alliance which had been cemented by danger
was dissolved by victory. The Parliament forgot that it was but the
creature of the army. The army was less disposed than ever to submit to
the dictation of the Parliament. Indeed the few members who made up what
was contemptuously called the Rump of the House of Commons had no more
claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the representatives of
the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell
filled the House with armed men. The Speaker was pulled out of his
chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door
locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties,
but which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity
and resolution of the General, looked on with patience, if not with
complacency.

King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been vanquished and destroyed;
and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all three.
Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very army to
which he owed his immense authority. That singular body of men was, for
the most part, composed of zealous republicans. In the act of enslaving
their country, they had deceived themselves into the belief that they
were emancipating her. The book which they venerated furnished them with
a precedent which was frequently in their mouths. It was true that the
ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its deliverers. Even so
had another chosen nation murmured against the leader who brought it, by
painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage to the land flowing
with milk and honey. Yet had that leader rescued his brethren in spite
of themselves; nor had he shrunk from making terrible examples of those
who contemned the proffered freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the
taskmasters, and the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike
saints who surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and pious
commonwealth. For that end they were ready to employ, without scruple,
any means, however violent and lawless. It was not impossible,
therefore, to establish by their aid a dictatorship such as no King
had ever exercised: but it was probable that their aid would be at once
withdrawn from a ruler who, even under strict constitutional restraints,
should venture to assume the kingly name and dignity.

The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had
been; nor would it be just to consider the change which his views had
undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. He had, when he
came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him from his rural retreat
little knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a temper
galled by the long tyranny of the government and of the hierarchy. He
had, during the thirteen years which followed, gone through a political
education of no common kind. He had been a chief actor in a succession
of revolutions. He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of
a party. He had commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties,
subdued, pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange
indeed if his notions had been still the same as in the days when his
mind was principally occupied by his fields and his religion, and when
the greatest events which diversified the course of his life were a
cattle fair or a prayer meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes
of innovation for which he had once been zealous, whether good or bad
in themselves, were opposed to the general feeling of the country, and
that, if he persevered in those schemes, he had nothing before him but
constant troubles, which must be suppressed by the constant use of the
sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, that ancient
constitution which the majority of the people had always loved, and for
which they now pined. The course afterwards taken by Monk was not open
to Cromwell. The memory of one terrible day separated the great regicide
for ever from the House of Stuart. What remained was that he should
mount the ancient English throne, and reign according to the ancient
English polity. If he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds
of the lacerated State would heal fast. Great numbers of honest
and quiet men would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists whose
attachment was rather to institutions than to persons, to the kingly
office than to King Charles the First or King Charles the Second, would
soon kiss the hand of King Oliver. The peers, who now remained sullenly
at their country houses, and refused to take any part in public affairs,
would, when summoned to their House by the writ of a King in possession,
gladly resume their ancient functions. Northumberland and Bedford,
Manchester and Pembroke, would be proud to bear the crown and the
spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the restorer of aristocracy. A
sentiment of loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new dynasty;
and, on the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the royal dignity
might descend with general acquiescence to his posterity.

The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were correct, and
that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judgment, the
exiled line would never have been restored. But his plan was directly
opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared not offend.
The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. Some of them were indeed
unwilling to see the administration in the hands of any single person.
The great majority, however, were disposed to support their general, as
elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, against all factions which
might resist his authority: but they would not consent that he should
assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward
of his personal merit, should be declared hereditary in his family. All
that was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitution as
like the constitution of the old monarchy as the army would bear. That
his elevation to power might not seem to be merely his own act, he
convoked a council, composed partly of persons on whose support he could
depend, and partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy.
This assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace
nicknamed, from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebonesa's
Parliament, after exposing itself during a short time to the public
contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers which it
had received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of
government.

His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old
English constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe to proceed
further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system under
hew names and forms. The title of King was not revived; but the kingly
prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord High Protector. The sovereign
was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He was not crowned and
anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was solemnly enthroned, girt with
a sword of state, clad in a robe of purple, and presented with a rich
Bible, in Westminster Hall. His office was not declared hereditary: but
he was permitted to name his successor; and none could doubt that he
would name his Son.

A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new polity. In
constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public
spirit which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The vices
of the old representative system, though by no means so serious as they
afterwards became, had already been remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell
reformed that system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred
and thirty years later, attempted to reform it, and on which it was at
length reformed in our own times. Small boroughs were disfranchised
even more unsparingly than in 1832; and the number of county members
was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns had yet grown into
importance. Of those towns the most considerable were Manchester, Leeds,
and Halifax. Representatives were given to all three. An addition
was made to the number of the members for the capital. The elective
franchise was placed on such a footing that every man of substance,
whether possessed of freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for
the county in which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English
colonists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was to
legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the British isles.

To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does not
require the support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood without
that support. But a patrician order is the work of time. Oliver found
already existing a nobility, opulent, highly considered, and as popular
with the commonalty as any nobility has ever been. Had he, as King of
England, commanded the peers to meet him in Parliament according to the
old usage of the realm, many of them would undoubtedly have obeyed the
call. This he could not do; and it was to no purpose that he offered
to the chiefs of illustrious families seats in his new senate. They
conceived that they could not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly
without renouncing their birthright and betraying their order. The
Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of filling his Upper House
with new men who, during the late stirring times, had made themselves
conspicuous. This was the least happy of his contrivances, and
displeased all parties. The Levellers were angry with him for
instituting a privileged class. The multitude, which felt respect and
fondness for the great historical names of the land, laughed without
restraint at a House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers
were seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and from which
almost all those old nobles who were invited turned disdainfully away.

How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, however, was practically
of little moment: for he possessed the means of conducting the
administration without their support, and in defiance of their
opposition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and
to substitute the empire of the laws for that of the sword. But he soon
found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he
could be safe only by being absolute. The first House of Commons which
the people elected by his command, questioned his authority, and was
dissolved without having passed a single act. His second House of
Commons, though it recognised him as Protector, and would gladly have
made him King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new Lords. He had
no course left but to dissolve the Parliament. "God," he exclaimed, at
parting, "be judge between you and me! "

Yet was the energy of the Protector's administration in nowise relaxed
by these dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume
the kingly title stood by him when he ventured on acts of power, as
high as any English King has ever attempted. The government, therefore,
though in form a republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by
the wisdom, the sobriety, and the magnanimity of the despot. The country
was divided into military districts. Those districts were placed under
the command of Major Generals. Every insurrectionary movement was
promptly put down and punished. The fear inspired by the power of the
sword, in so strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both
of Cavaliers and Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were
still as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and
the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success: but to
rush, at the head of their serving men and tenants, on the pikes of
brigades victorious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a frantic
waste of innocent and honourable blood. Both Royalists and Republicans,
having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of
assassination: but the Protector's intelligence was good: his vigilance
was unremitting; and, whenever he moved beyond the walls of his palace,
the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty bodyguards encompassed him
thick on every side.

Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might
have found courage in despair, and might have made a convulsive effort
to free itself from military domination. But the grievances which the
country suffered, though such as excited serious discontent, were by
no means such as impel great masses of men to stake their lives, their
fortunes, and the welfare of their families against fearful odds. The
taxation, though heavier than it had been under the Stuarts, was not
heavy when compared with that of the neighbouring states and with
the resources of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who
refrained from giving disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in
peace whatever the civil troubles had left hem. The laws were violated
only in cases where the safety of the Protector's person and government
was concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an
exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government since
the Reformation, had there been so little religious persecution. The
unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held to be scarcely within the
pale of Christian charity. But the clergy of the fallen Anglican Church
were suffered to celebrate their worship on condition that they would
abstain from preaching about politics. Even the Jews, whose public
worship had, ever since the thirteenth century, been interdicted, were,
in spite of the strong opposition of jealous traders and fanatical
theologians, permitted to build a synagogue in London.

The Protector's foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious
approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely
refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of
the nation had been a legitimate King; and the Republicans were forced
to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country,
and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her
glory in exchange. After half a century during which England had been of
scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at
once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms
of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of
Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land
and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian islands, and acquired on
the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the
loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the
Protestant interest. All the reformed Churches scattered over Roman
Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots
of Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps professed a
Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression
by the mere terror of his great name The Pope himself was forced to
preach humanity and moderation to Popish princes. For a voice which
seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favour were shown
to the people of God, the English guns should be heard in the Castle of
Saint Angelo. In truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his
own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general
religious war in Europe. In such a war he must have been the captain of
the Protestant armies. The heart of England would have been with him.
His victories would have been hailed with an unanimous enthusiasm
unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have
effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of
the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him he had no
opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents, except against
the inhabitants of the British isles.

While he lived his power stood firm, an object of mingled aversion,
admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his government;
but those who hated it most hated it less than they feared it. Had it
been a worse government, it might perhaps have been overthrown in spite
of all its strength. Had it been a weaker government, it would certainly
have been overthrown in spite of all its merits. But it had moderation
enough to abstain from those oppressions which drive men mad; and it
had a force and energy which none but men driven mad by oppression would
venture to encounter.
It has often been affirmed, but with little reason, that Oliver died
at a time fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been
prolonged, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters.
It is certain that he was, to the last, honoured by his soldiers, obeyed
by the whole population of the British islands, and dreaded by all
foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sovereigns of England
with funeral pomp such as London had never before seen, and that he
was succeeded by his son Richard as quietly as any King had ever been
succeeded by any Prince of Wales.

During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell went on
so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly
established on the chair of state. In truth his situation was in some
respects much more advantageous than that of his father. The young
man had made no enemy. His hands were unstained by civil blood.
The Cavaliers themselves allowed him to be an honest, good-natured
gentleman. The Presbyterian party, powerful both in numbers and in
wealth, had been at deadly feud with the late Protector, but was
disposed to regard the present Protector with favour. That party had
always been desirous to see the old civil polity of the realm restored
with some clearer definitions and some stronger safeguards for public
liberty, but had many reasons for dreading the restoration of the old
family. Richard was the very man for politicians of this description.
His humanity, ingenuousness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his
abilities, and the docility with which he submitted to the guidance of
persons wiser than himself, admirably qualified him to be the head of a
limited monarchy.

For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, under the direction
of able advisers, effect what his father had attempted in vain. A
Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old
fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised
regained their lost privilege: Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased to
return members; and the county of York was again limited to two knights.
It may seem strange to a generation which has been excited almost to
madness by the question of parliamentary reform that great shires and
towns should have submitted with patience and even with complacency, to
this change: but though speculative men might, even in that age, discern
the vices of the old representative system, and predict that those vices
would, sooner or later, produce serious practical evil, the practical
evil had not yet been felt. Oliver's representative system, on the other
hand, though constructed on sound principles, was not popular. Both the
events in which it originated, and the effects which it had produced,
prejudiced men against it. It had sprung from military violence. It
had been fruitful of nothing but disputes. The whole nation was sick
of government by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The
restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were in
strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed by the
sword, gave general satisfaction.

Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, consisting partly of
avowed Republicans, and partly of concealed Royalists: but a large and
steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving
the old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Richard was solemnly
recognised as first magistrate. The Commons not only consented to
transact business with Oliver's Lords, but passed a vote acknowledging
the right of those nobles who had, in the late troubles, taken the side
of public liberty, to sit in the Upper House of Parliament without any
new creation.

Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been
successful. Almost all the parts of the government were now constituted
as they had been constituted at the commencement of the civil war. Had
the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed undisturbed,
there can be little doubt that an order of things similar to that which
was afterwards established under the House of Hanover would have been
established under the House of Cromwell. But there was in the state
a power more than sufficient to deal with Protector and Parliament
together. Over the soldiers Richard had no authority except that which
he derived from the great name which he had inherited. He had never led
them to victory. He had never even borne arms. All his tastes and habits
were pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects
approved by the military saints. That he was a good man he evinced by
proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility
and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by
cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes: but the cant
then common in every guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not
always the prudence to conceal. The officers who had the principal
influence among the troops stationed near London were not his friends.
They were men distinguished by valour and conduct in the field, but
destitute of the wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous
in their deceased leader. Some of them were honest, but fanatical,
Independents and Republicans. Of this class Fleetwood was the
representative. Others were impatient to be what Oliver had been. His
rapid elevation, his prosperity and glory, his inauguration in the Hall,
and his gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had inflamed their imagination.
They were as well born as he, and as well educated: they could not
understand why they were not as worthy to wear the purple robe, and to
wield the sword of state; and they pursued the objects of their wild
ambition, not, like him, with patience, vigilance, sagacity, and
determination, but with the restlessness and irresolution characteristic
of aspiring mediocrity. Among these feeble copies of a great original
the most conspicuous was Lambert.

On the very day of Richard's accession the officers began to conspire
against their new master. The good understanding which existed between
him and his Parliament hastened the crisis. Alarm and resentment spread
through the camp. Both the religious and the professional feelings of
the army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the Independents were to be
subjected to the Presbyterians, and that the men of the sword were to
be subjected to the men of the gown. A coalition was formed between
the military malecontents and the republican minority of the House of
Commons. It may well be doubted whether Richard could have triumphed
over that coalition, even if he had inherited his father's clear
judgment and iron courage. It is certain that simplicity and meekness
like his were not the qualities which the conjuncture required. He fell
ingloriously, and without a struggle. He was used by the army as an
instrument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament, and was then
contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified their republican
allies by declaring that the expulsion of the Rump had been illegal, and
by inviting that assembly to resume its functions. The old Speaker and a
quorum of the old members came together, and were proclaimed, amidst
the scarcely stifled derision and execration of the whole nation, the
supreme power in the commonwealth. It was at the same time expressly
declared that there should be no first magistrate, and no House of
Lords.

But this state of things could not last. On the day on which the long
Parliament revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. Again
the Rump forgot that it owed its existence to the pleasure of the
soldiers, and began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the
House of Commons were closed by military violence; and a provisional
government, named by the officers, assumed the direction of affairs.

Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong apprehension of still
greater evils close at hand, had at length produced an alliance between
the Cavaliers and the Presbyterians. Some Presbyterians had, indeed,
been disposed to such an alliance even before the death of Charles the
First: but it was not till after the fall of Richard Cromwell that the
whole party became eager for the restoration of the royal house. There
was no longer any reasonable hope that the old constitution could be
reestablished under a new dynasty. One choice only was left, the Stuarts
or the army. The banished family had committed great faults; but it had
dearly expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it might be
hoped, a salutary training in the school of adversity. It was probable
that Charles the Second would take warning by the fate of Charles
the First. But, be this as it might, the dangers which threatened the
country were such that, in order to avert them, some opinions might well
be compromised, and some risks might well be incurred. It seemed but too
likely that England would fall under the most odious and degrading of
all kinds of government, under a government uniting all the evils of
despotism to all the evils of anarchy. Anything was preferable to the
yoke of a succession of incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised to
power, like the Deys of Barbary, by military revolutions recurring at
short intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of these rulers;
but within a year Lambert might give place to Desborough, and Desborough
to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was transferred from one feeble
hand to another, the nation would be pillaged for the purpose of
bestowing a fresh donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians
obstinately stood aloof from the Royalists, the state was lost; and men
might well doubt whether, by the combined exertions of Presbyterians and
Royalists, it could be saved. For the dread of that invincible army was
on all the inhabitants of the island; and the Cavaliers, taught by
a hundred disastrous fields how little numbers can effect against
discipline, were even more completely cowed than the Roundheads.

While the soldiers remained united, all the plots and risings of the
malecontents were ineffectual. But a few days after the second expulsion
of the Rump, came tidings which gladdened the hearts of all who were
attached either to monarchy or to liberty: That mighty force which had,
during many years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting, had
been found irresistible, was at length divided against itself. The army
of Scotland had done good service to the Commonwealth, and was in
the highest state of efficiency. It had borne no part in the late
revolutions, and had seen them with indignation resembling the
indignation which the Roman legions posted on the Danube and the
Euphrates felt, when they learned that the empire had been put up to
sale by the Praetorian Guards. It was intolerable that certain regiments
should, merely because they happened to be quartered near Westminster,
take on themselves to make and unmake several governments in the course
of half a year. If it were fit that the state should be regulated by the
soldiers, those soldiers who upheld the English ascendency on the north
of the Tweed were as well entitled to a voice as those who garrisoned
the Tower of London. There appears to have been less fanaticism among
the troops stationed in Scotland than in any other part of the army; and
their general, George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot.
He had at the commencement of the civil war, borne arms for the King,
had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted a commission
from the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions to saintship,
had raised himself to high commands by his courage and professional
skill. He had been an useful servant to both the Protectors, and had
quietly acquiesced when the officers at Westminster had pulled down
Richard and restored the Long Parliament, and would perhaps have
acquiesced as quietly in the second expulsion of the Long Parliament,
if the provisional government had abstained from giving him cause of
offence and apprehension. For his nature was cautious and somewhat
sluggish; nor was he at all disposed to hazard sure and moderate
advantages for the chalice of obtaining even the most splendid
success. He seems to have been impelled to attack the new rulers of
the Commonwealth less by the hope that, if he overthrew them, he should
become great, than by the fear that, if he submitted to them, he should
not even be secure. Whatever were his motives, he declared himself
the champion of the oppressed civil power, refused to acknowledge the
usurped authority of the provisional government, and, at the head of
seven thousand veterans, marched into England.

This step was the signal for a general explosion. The people everywhere
refused to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled by thousands
and clamoured for a free Parliament. The fleet sailed up the Thames, and
declared against the tyranny of the soldiers. The soldiers, no longer
under the control of one commanding mind, separated into factions. Every
regiment, afraid lest it should be left alone a mark for the vengeance
of the oppressed nation, hastened to make a separate peace. Lambert, who
had hastened northward to encounter the army of Scotland, was abandoned
by his troops, and became a prisoner. During thirteen years the civil
power had, in every conflict, been compelled to yield to the military
power. The military power now humbled itself before the civil power.
The Rump, generally hated and despised, but still the only body in the
country which had any show of legal authority, returned again to the
house from which it had been twice ignominiously expelled.

In the mean time Monk was advancing towards London. Wherever he came,
the gentry flocked round him, imploring him to use his power for the
purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted nation.
The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no polity and for no
religion, maintained an impenetrable reserve. What were at this time
his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be doubted. His great
object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long as possible, free to
choose between several lines of action. Such, indeed, is commonly the
policy of men who are, like him, distinguished rather by wariness than
by farsightedness. It was probably not till he had been some days in the
capital that he had made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was
for a free Parliament; and there could be no doubt that a Parliament
really free would instantly restore the exiled family. The Rump and the
soldiers were still hostile to the House of Stuart. But the Rump was
universally detested and despised. The power of the soldiers was indeed
still formidable, but had been greatly diminished by discord. They had
no head. They had recently been, in many parts of the country, arrayed
against each other. On the very day before Monk reached London, there
was a fight in the Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An
united army had long kept down a divided nation; but the nation was now
united, and the army was divided.

During a short time the dissimulation or irresolution of Monk kept all
parties in a state of painful suspense. At length he broke silence, and
declared for a free Parliament.

As soon as his declaration was known, the whole nation was wild with
delight. Wherever he appeared thousands thronged round him, shouting and
blessing his name. The bells of all England rang joyously: the gutters
ran with ale; and, night after night, the sky five miles round London
was reddened by innumerable bonfires. Those Presbyterian members of the
House of Commons who had many years before been expelled by the army,
returned to their seats, and were hailed with acclamations by great
multitudes, which filled Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The
Independent leaders no longer dared to show their faces in the streets,
and were scarcely safe within their own dwellings. Temporary provision
was made for the government: writs were issued for a general election;
and then that memorable Parliament, which had, in the course of
twenty eventful years, experienced every variety of fortune, which had
triumphed over its sovereign, which had been enslaved and degraded by
its servants, which had been twice ejected and twice restored, solemnly
decreed its own dissolution.

The result of the elections was such as might have been expected from
the temper of the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with few
exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The Presbyterians
formed the majority.

That there would be a restoration now seemed almost certain; but whether
there would be a peaceable restoration was matter of painful doubt. The
soldiers were in a gloomy and savage mood. They hated the title of King.
They hated the name of Stuart. They hated Presbyterianism much, and
Prelacy more. They saw with bitter indignation that the close of their
long domination was approaching, and that a life of inglorious toil
and penury was before them. They attributed their ill fortune to the
weakness of some generals, and to the treason of others. One hour
of their beloved Oliver might even now restore the glory which had
departed. Betrayed, disunited, and left without any chief in whom they
could confide, they were yet to be dreaded. It was no light thing to
encounter the rage and despair of fifty thousand fighting men, whose
backs no enemy had ever seen. Monk, and those with whom he acted, were
well aware that the crisis was most perilous. They employed every art
to soothe and to divide the discontented warriors. At the same time
vigorous preparation was made for a conflict. The army of Scotland, now
quartered in London, was kept in good humour by bribes, praises, and
promises. The wealthy citizens grudged nothing to a redcoat, and were
indeed so liberal of their best wine, that warlike saints were sometimes
seen in a condition not very honourable either to their religious or
to their military character. Some refractory regiments Monk ventured
to disband. In the mean time the greatest exertions were made by the
provisional government, with the strenuous aid of the whole body of
the gentry and magistracy, to organise the militia. In every county the
trainbands were held ready to march; and this force cannot be estimated
at less than a hundred and twenty thousand men. In Hyde Park twenty
thousand citizens, well armed and accoutred, passed in review, and
showed a spirit which justified the hope that, in case of need, they
would fight manfully for their shops and firesides. The fleet was
heartily with the nation. It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety, yet
of hope. The prevailing opinion was that England would be delivered, but
not without a desperate and bloody struggle, and that the class which
had so long ruled by the sword would perish by the sword.

Happily the dangers of a conflict were averted. There was indeed one
moment of extreme peril. Lambert escaped from his confinement, and
called his comrades to arms. The flame of civil war was actually
rekindled; but by prompt and vigorous exertion it was trodden out before
it had time to spread. The luckless imitator of Cromwell was again
a prisoner. The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the
soldiers; and they sullenly resigned themselves to their fate.

The new Parliament, which, having been called without the royal writ, is
more accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster. The
Lords repaired to the hall, from which they had, during more than eleven
years, been excluded by force. Both Houses instantly invited the King to
return to his country. He was proclaimed with pomp never before known.
A gallant fleet convoyed him from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he
landed, the cliffs of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among
whom scarcely one could be found who was not weeping with delight. The
journey to London was a continued triumph. The whole road from Rochester
was bordered by booths and tents, and looked like an interminable fair.
Everywhere flags were flying, bells and music sounding, wine and ale
flowing in rivers to the health of him whose return was the return of
peace, of law, and of freedom. But in the midst of the general joy, one
spot presented a dark and threatening aspect. On Blackheath the army was
drawn up to welcome the sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and extended his
hand graciously to the lips of the colonels and majors. But all his
courtesy was vain. The countenances of the soldiers were sad and
lowering; and had they given way to their feelings, the festive pageant
of which they reluctantly made a part would have had a mournful and
bloody end. But there was no concert among them. Discord and defection
had left them no confidence in their chiefs or in each other. The
whole array of the City of London was under arms. Numerous companies of
militia had assembled from various parts of the realm, under the command
of loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to welcome the King. That great day
closed in peace; and the restored wanderer reposed safe in the palace of
his ancestors.




CHAPTER II.

THE history of England, during the seventeenth century, is the history
of the transformation of a limited monarchy, constituted after the
fashion of the middle ages, into a limited monarchy suited to that more
advanced state of society in which the public charges can no longer be
borne by the estates of the crown, and in which the public defence
can no longer be entrusted to a feudal militia. We have seen that the
politicians who were at the head of the Long Parliament made, in 1642,
a great effort to accomplish this change by transferring, directly
and formally, to the estates of the realm the choice of ministers, the
command of the army, and the superintendence of the whole executive
administration. This scheme was, perhaps, the best that could then be
contrived: but it was completely disconcerted by the course which the
civil war took. The Houses triumphed, it is true; but not till after
such a struggle as made it necessary for them to call into existence
a power which they could not control, and which soon began to domineer
over all orders and all parties: During a few years, the evils
inseparable from military government were, in some degree, mitigated
by the wisdom and magnanimity of the great man who held the supreme
command. But, when the sword, which he had wielded, with energy indeed,
but with energy always guided by good sense and generally tempered by
good nature, had passed to captains who possessed neither his abilities
nor his virtues. It seemed too probable that order and liberty would
perish in one ignominious ruin.

That ruin was happily averted. It has been too much the practice of
writers zealous for freedom to represent the Restoration as a disastrous
event, and to condemn the folly or baseness of that Convention, which
recalled the royal family without exacting new securities against
maladministration. Those who hold this language do not comprehend the
real nature of the crisis which followed the deposition of Richard
Cromwell. England was in imminent danger of falling under the tyranny of
a succession of small men raised up and pulled down by military caprice.
To deliver the country from the domination of the soldiers was the first
object of every enlightened patriot: but it was an object which, while
the soldiers were united, the most sanguine could scarcely expect to
attain. On a sudden a gleam of hope appeared. General was opposed to
general, army to army. On the use which might be made of one auspicious
moment depended the future destiny of the nation. Our ancestors used
that moment well. They forgot old injuries, waved petty scruples,
adjourned to a more convenient season all dispute about the reforms
which our institutions needed, and stood together, Cavaliers and
Roundheads, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, in firm union, for the
old laws of the land against military despotism. The exact partition of
power among King, Lords, and Commons might well be postponed till it
had been decided whether England should be governed by King, Lords,
and Commons, or by cuirassiers and pikemen. Had the statesmen of the
Convention taken a different course, had they held long debates on the
principles of government, had they drawn up a new constitution and sent
it to Charles, had conferences been opened, had couriers been passing
and repassing during some weeks between Westminster and the Netherlands,
with projects and counterprojects, replies by Hyde and rejoinders by
Prynne, the coalition on which the public safety depended would have
been dissolved: the Presbyterians and Royalists would certainly have
quarrelled: the military factions might possibly have been reconciled;
and the misjudging friends of liberty might long have regretted, under
a rule worse than that of the worst Stuart, the golden opportunity which
had been suffered to escape.

The old civil polity was, therefore, by the general consent of both the
great parties, reestablished. It was again exactly what it had been when
Charles the First, eighteen years before, withdrew from his capital. All
those acts of the Long Parliament which had received the royal assent
were admitted to be still in full force. One fresh concession, a
concession in which the Cavaliers were even more deeply interested than
the Roundheads, was easily obtained from the restored King. The military
tenure of land had been originally created as a means of national
defence. But in the course of ages whatever was useful in the
institution had disappeared; and nothing was left but ceremonies and
grievances. A landed proprietor who held an estate under the crown by
knight service,--and it was thus that most of the soil of England was
held,--had to pay a large fine on coming to his property. He could not
alienate one acre without purchasing a license. When he died, if his
domains descended to an infant, the sovereign was guardian, and was not
only entitled to great part of the rents during the minority, but could
require the ward, under heavy penalties, to marry any person of suitable
rank. The chief bait which attracted a needy sycophant to the court was
the hope of obtaining as the reward of servility and flattery, a royal
letter to an heiress. These abuses had perished with the monarchy. That
they should not revive with it was the wish of every landed gentleman in
the kingdom. They were, therefore, solemnly abolished by statute; and
no relic of the ancient tenures in chivalry was allowed to remain except
those honorary services which are still, at a coronation, rendered to
the person of the sovereign by some lords of manors.

The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty thousand men, accustomed to
the profession of arms, were at once thrown on the world: and experience
seemed to warrant the belief that this change would produce much misery
and crime, that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every
street, or that they would be driven by hunger to pillage.