“They (the Nonconformists) complain that these things should be imposed on them with so high a penalty as want nothing of a sacramental nature but divine institution. And because a human institution is herein made of equal force to a divine institution therefore it is that they are aggrieved.... For without the sign of the Cross our Church will not receive any one in Baptism; as also without kneeling no man is suffered to come to the Communion.... But here, I say, then is their (the Nonconformists’) main exception that things indifferent and that have no proper signature or significancy to that purpose should by command be made conditions of Church-communion. I have many times wished for peaceableness’ sake that they had a greater latitude, but if, unless they should stretch their consciences till they tear again, they cannot conform, what remedy? For I must confess that Christians have a better right and title to the Church and to the ordinances of God there, than the Author hath to his surplice.... Bishop Bramhall saith, ‘I do profess to all the world that the transforming of indifferent opinions into necessary articles of faith hath been that insana laurus or cursed bay tree, the cause of all our brawling and contention.’ That which he saw in matter of doctrine, he would not discern in discipline.... It is true and very piously done that our Church doth declare that the kneeling at the Lord’s Supper is not enjoined for adoration of those elements and concerning the other ceremonies as before. But the Romanists (from whom we have them and who said of old we would come to feed on their meat as well as eat of their porridge) do offer us here many a fair declaration and distinction in very weighty matters to which nevertheless the conscience of our Church hath not complyed. But in this particular matter of kneeling which came in first with the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Romish Church do reproach us with flat idolatry, in that we, not believing the real presence in the bread and wine, yet do pay to something or other the same adoration. Suppose the ancient pagans had declared to the primitive Christians that the offerings of some grains of incense was only to perfume the room—do you think the Christians would have palliated so far and colluded with their consciences? Therefore although the Church do consider herself so much as not to alter her mode unto the fashion of others, yet I cannot see why she ought to exclude those from communion whose weaker consciences cannot, for fear of scandal, step further.”1
With Parker’s thunders and threats of the authority of princes and states, Marvell deals more in the mood of a statesman than of a philosopher, more as a man of affairs than as a jurist. He deplores the ferocity of Parker’s tone and that of a certain number of the clergy.
“Why is it,” he asks, “that this kind of clergy should always be and have been for the most precipitate, brutish, and sanguinary counsels? The former Civil War cannot make them wise, nor his Majesty’s happy return good-natured, but they are still for running things up unto the same extremes. The softness of the Universities where they have been bred, the gentleness of Christianity, in which they have been nurtured, hath but exasperated their nature, and they seem to have contracted no idea of wisdom but what they learnt at school—the pedantry of Whipping. For whether it be or no that the clergy are not so well fitted by education as others for political affairs I know not, though I should rather think they have advantage above others, and even if they would but keep to their Bibles, might make the best Ministers of State in the world; yet it is generally observed that things miscarry under their government. If there be any council more precipitate, more violent, more extreme than other, it is theirs. Truly, I think the reason that God does not bless them in affairs of State is because he never intended them for that employment.”1
Of Archbishop Laud and Charles the First, Marvell says:—
“I am confident the Bishop studied to do both God and his Majesty good service; but alas, how utterly was he mistaken. Though so learned, so pious, so wise a man, he seem’d to know nothing beyond Ceremonies, Armenianism, and Mainwaring. With that he begun, with that ended, and thereby deform’d the whole reign of the best prince that ever wielded the English sceptre. For his late Majesty, being a prince truly pious and religious, was therefore the more inclined to esteem and favour the clergy. And thence, though himself of a most exquisite understanding, yet he could not trust it better than in their treatment. Whereas every man is best at his own post, and so the preacher in the pulpit.”2
Kings, Marvell points out to Parker, must take wider views than parsons.
“’Tis not with them as with you. You have but one cure of souls, or perhaps two as being a nobleman’s chaplain, to look after, and if you made conscience of discharging them as you ought, you would find you had work sufficient without writing your ‘Ecclesiastical Policies.’ But they are the incumbents of whole kingdoms, and the rectorship of the common people, the nobility, and even of the clergy. The care I say of all this rests on them, so that they are fain to condescend to many things for peace sake and the quiet of mankind that your proud heart would break before it would bend to. They do not think fit to require any thing that is impossible, unnecessary or wanton of their people, but are fain to consider the very temper of the climate in which they live, the constitution and laws under which they have been formerly bred, and upon all occasions to give them good words and humour them like children. They reflect upon the histories of former times and the present transactions to regulate themselves by in every circumstance.... They (Kings) do not think fit to command things unnecessary.”1
These extracts, however fatal to Marvell’s traditional reputation in the eighteenth century as a Puritan and a Republican, call for no apology.
An example of Marvell’s Interludes ought to be given. There are many to choose from.
“There was a worthy divine, not many years dead, who in his younger time, being of a facetious and unlucky humour, was commonly known by the name of Tom Triplet; he was brought up at Paul’s school under a severe master, Dr. Gill, and from thence he went to the University. There he took liberty (as ’tis usual with those that are emancipated from School) to tel tales and make the discipline ridiculous under which he was bred. But not suspecting the doctor’s intelligence, coming once to town he went in full school to give him a visite and expected no less than to get a play day for his former acquaintances. But instead of that he found himself hors’d up in a trice, though he appeal’d in vain to the priviledges of the University, pleaded adultus and invoked the mercy of the spectators. Nor was he let down till the master had planted a grove of birch in his back-side for the terrour and publick example of all waggs that divulge the secrets of Priscian and make merry with their teachers. This stuck so with Triplet that all his life-time he never forgave the doctor, but sent him every New Year’s tide an anniversary ballad to a new tune, and so in his turn avenged himself of his jerking pedagogue.”2
Marvell’s game of picquet with a parson plays such a part in Parker’s Reproof to the Rehearsal Transprosed that it deserves to be mentioned:—
“’Tis not very many years ago that I used to play at picket; there was a gentleman of your robe, a dignitory of Lincoln, very well known and remembered in the ordinaries, but being not long since dead, I will save his name. Now I used to play pieces, and this gentleman would always go half-a-crown with me; and so all the while he sate on my hand he very honestly ‘gave the sign’ so that I was always sure to lose. I afterwards discovered it, but of all the money that ever I was cheated of in my life, none ever vexed me so as what I lost by his occasion.”1
There is no need to pursue the controversy further. It is still unsettled.
Parker’s Reproof, published in 1673, is less argumentative and naturally enough more personal than the Ecclesiastical Politie. Any use I now make of it will be purely biographical. Let us see Andrew Marvell depicted by an angry parson—not in passages of mere abuse, as e.g. “Thou dastard Craven, thou Swad, thou Mushroom, thou coward in heart, word and deed, thou Judas, thou Crocodile”; for epithets such as these are of no use to a biographer—but in places where Marvell is at least made to sit for the portrait, however ill-natured.
“And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman, that was born of pure parents and bred among cabin-boys, and sent from school to the University and from the University to the Gaming Ordinaries, but the young man, being easily rooked by the old Gamesters, he was sent abroad to gain courage and experience, and beyond sea saw the Bears of Berne and the large race of Capons at Geneva, and a great many fine sights beside, and so returned home as accomplished as he went out, tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a gentleman of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet.” ... “And now to conclude; is it not a sad thing that a well-bred and fashionable gentleman that has frequented Ordinaries, that has worn Perukes and Muffs and Pantaloons and was once Master of a Watch, that has travelled abroad and seen as many men and countries as the famous Vertuosi, Sorbier and Coriat, that has heard the City Lions roar, that has past the Alps and seen all the Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy, that has sat in the Porphyric Chair at Rome, that can describe the methods of the Elections of Popes and tell stories of the tricks of Cardinals, that has been employed in Embassies abroad and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home, that has read Plays and Histories and Gazettes; that I say a Gentleman thus accomplished and embellished within and without and all over, should ever live to that unhappy dotage as at last to dishonour his grey hairs and his venerable age with such childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffoonery.”—(Reproof, pp. 270, 274-5.)1
Marvell was very little over fifty years of his age at this time, nor is Parker’s portrait to be regarded as truthful in any other particular—yet something of a man’s character may be discovered by noticing the way he is abused by those who want to abuse him.
Marvell, though no orator, or even debater, was the stuff of which controversialists are made. In a letter, printed in the Duke of Portland’s papers, and dated May 3, 1673, he writes:—
“Dr. Parker will be out the next week. I have seen it—already three hundred and thirty pages and it will be much more. (It was five hundred twenty-eight pages.) I perceive by what I have read that it is the rudest book, one or other, that ever was published, I may say since the first invention of printing. Although it handles me so roughly, yet I am not at all amated by it. But I must desire the advice of some few friends to tell me whether it will be proper for me and in what way to answer it. However I will for mine own private satisfaction forthwith draw up an answer that shall have as much of spirit and solidity in it as my ability will afford and the age we live in will endure. I am, if I may say it with reverence, drawn in I hope by a good Providence to intermeddle on a noble and high argument. But I desire that all the discourse of my friends may run as if no answer ought to be expected to so scurrilous a book.”—(Hist. MSS. Comm., Portland Papers, iii. 337.)
The title-page of the Second Part of the Rehearsal Transprosed is a curiosity:—
THE
REHEARSALL
TRANSPROS’D:
The Second Part.
Occasioned by Two Letters: The first Printed
by a nameless Author, Intituled, A
Reproof, etc.
The Second Letter left for me at a Friends
House, Dated Nov. 3, 1673. Subscribed
J. G. and concluding with these words;
If thou darest to Print or Publish any
Lie or Libel against Doctor Parker, By
the Eternal God I will cut thy Throat.
Answered by Andrew Marvel.
LONDON,
Printed for Nathaniel Ponder at the Peacock
in Chancery Lane near Fleet-Street, 1673.
The Second Part is an exceedingly witty though too lengthy a performance. Marvell’s “companion picture” of Parker is full of matter, and of the very spirit of the times. Some of it must be given:—
“But though he came of a good mother, he had a very ill sire. He was a man bred toward the Law, and betook himself, as his best practice, to be a sub-committee-man, or, as the stile ran, one of the Assistant Committee in Northamptonshire. In the rapine of that employment, and what he got by picking the teeth of his masters, he sustain’d himself till he had raked together some little estate. And then, being a man for the purpose, and that had begun his fortune out of the sequestration of the estates of the King’s Party, he, to perfect it the more, proceeded to take away their lives; not in the hot and military way (which diminishes always the offence), but in the cooler blood and sedentary execution of an High Court of Justice. Accordingly he was preferr’d to be one of that number that gave sentence against the three Lords, Capel, Holland, and Hamilton, who were beheaded. By this learning in the Law he became worthy of the degree of a serjeant, and sometimes to go the Circuit, till for misdemeanor he was petition’d against. But for a taste of his abilities, and the more to reingratiate himself, he printed, in the year 1650, a very remarkable Book, called ‘The Government of the People of England, precedent and present the same. Ad subscribentes confirmandum, Dubitantes informandum, Opponentes convincendum; and underneath Multa videntur quae non sunt, multa sunt quae non videntur. Under that ingraven two hands joyn’d, with the motto, Ut uniamur; and beneath a sheaf of arrows, with this device, Vis unita fortior; and to conclude, Concordia parvae res crescunt discordia dilabuntur.’ A most hieroglyphical title, and sufficient to have supplied the mantlings and atchievements of the family! By these parents he was sent to Oxford, with intention to breed him up to the ministry. There in a short time he enter’d himself into the company of some young students who were used to fast and pray weekly together; but for their refection fed sometimes on broth, from whence they were commonly called Grewellers; only it was observed that he was wont still to put more graves than all the rest in his porridge. And after that he pick’d acquaintance not only with the brotherhood at Wadham Colledge, but with the sisterhood too, at another old Elsibeth’s, one Elizabeth Hampton’s, a plain devout woman, where he train’d himself up in hearing their sermons and prayers, receiving also the Sacrament in the house, till he had gain’d such proficience, that he too began to exercise in that Meeting, and was esteem’d one of the preciousest young men in the University. But when thus, after several years’ approbation, he was even ready to have taken the charge, not of an ‘admiring drove or heard,’ as he now calls them, but of a flock upon him, by great misfortune the King came in by the miraculous providence of God, influencing the distractions of some, the good affections of others, and the weariness of all towards that happy Restauration, after so many sufferings, to his regal crown and dignity. Nevertheless he broke not off yet from his former habitudes; and though it were now too late to obviate this inconvenience, yet he persisted as far as in him was—that is, by praying, caballing, and discoursing—to obstruct the restoring of the episcopal government, revenues, and authority. Insomuch that, finding himself discountenanced on those accounts by the then Warden of Wadham, he shifted colledges to Trinity, and, when there, went away without his degree, scrupling, forsooth, the Subscription then required. From thence he came to London, where he spent a considerable time in creeping into all corners and companies, horoscoping up and down concerning the duration of the Government; not considering anything as best, but as most lasting and most profitable. And after having many times cast a figure, he at last satisfyed himself that the Episcopal Government would endure as long as this King lived; and from thence forward cast about how to be admitted into the Church of England, and find the highway to her preferments. In order to this he daily enlarged, not only his conversation, but his conscience, and was made free of some of the town-vices; imagining, like Muleasses King of Tunis (for I take witness that on all occasions I treat him rather above his quality than otherwise), that by hiding himself among the onions, he should escape being traced by his perfumes. Ignorant and mistaken man, that thought it necessary to part with any virtue to get a living; or that the Church of England did not require and incourage more sobriety than he could ever be guilty of; whereas it hath alwayes been fruitful of men who, together with obedience to that discipline, have lived to the envy of the Nonconformists in their conversation, and without such could never either have been preserved so long, or after so long a dissipation have ever recover’d. But neither was this yet, in his opinion, sufficient; and therefore he resolv’d to try a shorter path, which some few men had trod not unsuccessfully; that is, to print a Book; if that would not do, a second; if not that, a third of an higher extraction, and so forward, to give experiment against their former party of a keen stile and a ductile judgment. His first proof-piece was in the year 1665, the Tentamina Physico-Theologica; a tedious transcript of his common-place book, wherein there is very little of his own, but the arrogance and the unparalleled censoriousness that he exercises over all other Writers. When he had cook’d up these musty collections, he makes his first invitation to his ‘old acquaintance’ my lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who had never seen before nor heard of him. But I must confess he furbishes-up his Grace in so glorious an Epistle, that had not my Lord been long since proof against the most spiritual flattery, the Dedication only, without ever reading the Book, might have serv’d to have fix’d him from that instant as his favourite. Yet all this I perceive did not his work, but his Grace was so unmindful, or rather so prudent, that the gentleman thought it necessary to spur-up again the next year with another new Book, to show more plainly what he would be at. This he dedicates to Doctor Bathurst; and to evidence from the very Epistle that he was ready to renounce that very education, the civility of which he is so tender of as to blame me for disordering it, he picks occasion to tell him: ‘to your prevailing advice, Sir, do I owe my first rescue from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education.’ But in the Book, which he calls ‘A free and impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophy’ (censure ’tis sure to be, whatsoever he writes), he speaks out, and demonstrates himself ready and equipp’d to surrender not only the Cause, but betray his Party without making any conditions for them, and to appear forthwith himself in the head of the contrary interest. Which, supposing the dispute to be just, yet in him was so mercenary, that none would have descended to act his part but a divine of fortune. And even lawyers take themselves excused from being of counsel for the King himself, in a cause where they have been entertain’d and instructed by their client. But so flippant he was and forward in this book, that in despight of all chronology, he could introduce Plato to inveigh against Calvin, and from the Platoniques he could miraculously hook-in a Discourse against the Nonconformists. (Cens. Plat. Phil., pp. 26, 27, 28, etc.) After this feat of activity he was ready to leap over the moon; no scruple of conscience could stand in his way, and no preferment seemed too high for him; for about this time, I find that having taken a turn at Cambridge to qualifie himself, he was received within doors to be my Lord Archbishop’s other chaplain, and into some degree of favour; which, considering the difference of their humours and ages, was somewhat surprizing. But whether indeed, in times of heat and faction, the most temperate spirits may sometimes chance to take delight in one that is spightful, and make some use of him; or whether it be that even the most grave and serious persons do for relaxation divert themselves willingly by whiles with a creature that is unlucky, inimical, and gamesome,—so it was. And thenceforward the nimble gentleman danced upon bell-ropes, vaulted from steeple to steeple, and cut capers out of one dignity to another. Having thus dexterously stuck his groat in Lambeth wainscot, it may easily be conceived he would be unwilling to lose it; and therefore he concern’d himself highly, and even to jealousie, in upholding now that palace, which, if falling, he would out of instinct be the first should leave it. His Majesty about that time labouring to effect his constant promises of Indulgence to his people, the Author therefore walking with his own shadow in the evening, took a great fright lest all were agoe. And in this conceit being resolv’d to make good his figure, and that one government should not last any longer than the other, he set himself to write those dangerous Books which I have now to do with; wherein he first makes all that he will to be Law, and then whatsoever is Law to be Divinity.”1
The Second Part is not all raillery. There is much wisdom in it and a trace of Machiavelli:—
“But because you are subject to misconstrue even true English, I will explain my self as distinctly as I can, and as close as possible, what is mine own opinion in this matter of the magistrate and government; that, seeing I have blamed you where I thought you blame-worthy, you may have as fair hold of me too, if you can find where to fix your accusation.
“The power of the magistrate does most certainly issue from the divine authority. The obedience due to that power is by divine command; and subjects are bound, both as men and as Christians, to obey the magistrate actively in all things where their duty to God intercedes not, and however passively, that is, either by leaving their countrey, or if they cannot do that (the magistrate, or the reason of their own occasions hindring them), then by suffering patiently at home, without giving the least publick disturbance. But the dispute concerning the magistrate’s power ought to be superfluous; for that it is certainly founded upon his commission from God, and for the most part sufficiently fortified with all humane advantages. There are few soveraign princes so abridged, but that, if they be not contented, they may envy their own fortune. But the modester question (if men will needs be medling with matters above them) would be, how far it is advisable for a prince to exert and push the rigour of that power which no man can deny him; for princes, as they derive the right of succession from their ancestors, so they inherit from that ancient and illustrious extraction a generosity that runs in the blood above the allay of the rest of mankind. And being moreover at so much ease of honour and fortune, that they are free from the gripes of avarice and twinges of ambition, they are the more disposed to an universal benignity toward their subjects. What prince that sees so many millions of men, either labouring industriously toward his revenue, or adventuring their lives in his service, and all of them performing his commands with a religious obedience, but conceives at the same time a relenting tenderness over them, whereof others out of the narrowness of their minds cannot be capable? But whoever shall cast his eye thorow the history of all ages, will find that nothing has alwayes succeeded better with princes then the clemency of government; and that those, on the contrary, who have taken the sanguinary course, have been unfortunate to themselves and the people, the consequences not being separable. For whether that royal and magnanimous gentleness spring from a propensity of their nature, or be acquired and confirmed by good and prudent consideration, it draws along with it all the effects of Policy. The wealth of a shepherd depends upon the multitude of his flock, the goodness of their pasture, and the quietness of their feeding; and princes, whose dominion over mankind resembles in some measure that of men over other creatures, cannot expect any considerable increase to themselves, if by continual terrour they amaze, shatter, and hare their people, driving them into woods, and running them upon precipices. If men do but compute how charming an efficacy one word, and more, one good action has from a superior upon those under him, it can scarce be reckon’d how powerful a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour of humanity in government, go on daily gaining upon the affections of his people. There is not any privilege so dear, but it may be extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be done; but it is enough if a great and durable design be accomplish’d in the third life; and supposing an hereditary succession of any three taking up still where the other left, and dealing still in that fair and tender way of management, it is impossible but that, even without reach or intention upon the prince’s part, all should fall into his hand, and in so short a time the very memory or thoughts of any such thing as publick liberty would, as it were by consent, expire and be for ever extinguish’d. So that whatever the power of the magistrate be in the institution, it is much safer for them not to do that with the left hand which they may do with the right, nor by an extraordinary, what they may effect by the ordinary, way of government. A prince that goes to the top of his power is like him that shall go to the bottom of his treasure.”1
And as for the “common people” he has this to say:—
“Yet neither do they want the use of reason, and perhaps their aggregated judgment discerns most truly the errours of government, forasmuch as they are the first, to be sure, that smart under them. In this only they come to be short-sighted, that though they know the diseases, they understand not the remedies; and though good patients, they are ill physicians. The magistrate only is authorized, qualified, and capable to make a just and effectual Reformation, and especially among the Ecclesiasticks. For in all experience, as far as I can remember, they have never been forward to save the prince that labour. If they had, there would have been no Wickliffe, no Husse, no Luther in history. Or at least, upon so notable an emergency as the last, the Church of Rome would then in the Council of Trent have thought of rectifying itself in good earnest, that it might have recover’d its ancient character; whereas it left the same divisions much wider, and the Christian people of the world to suffer, Protestants under Popish governors, Popish under Protestants, rather than let go any point of interested ambition.”2
152:1 “But the most virulent of all that writ against the sect was Parker, afterwards made Bishop of Oxford by King James: who was full of satirical vivacity and was considerably learned, but was a man of no judgment and of as little virtue, and as to religion rather impious: after he had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books writ with much life, he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, who writ in a burlesque strain but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct that from the King down to the tradesman his books were read with great pleasure, that not only humbled Parker but the whole party, for the author of the Rehearsal Transprosed had all the men of wit (or as the French phrase it all the laughers) on his side.”—Burnet’s History of his Own Time.
152:2 See the dedication to A Free and Impartial Censure of the Plutonick Philosophy, by Sam Parker, A.M., Oxford 1666. Parker was a man of some taste, and I have in my small collection a beautifully bound copy of this treatise presented by the author to Seth Ward, then Bishop of Exeter, and afterwards of Salisbury.
165:1 Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 145-8.
166:1 Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 155-9.
167:1 Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 170, 210-1.
167:2 Grosart, vol. iii. p. 211.
168:1 Grosart, vol. iii. p. 171.
168:2 Grosart, vol. iii. p. 63.
169:1 Grosart, vol. iii. p. 198.
170:1 For a still more unfriendly sketch of Andrew Marvell by the same spiteful hand, see Parker’s History of his Own Time, a posthumous work, first published in Latin in 1726, and in an English Translation by Thomas Newlin in 1727. This book contains an interesting enumeration of the numerous conspiracies against the life and throne of Charles the Second during the earlier part of his reign, a panegyric upon Archbishop Sheldon and plentiful abuse of Andrew Marvell. Parker died in unhappy circumstances (see Macaulay’s History, vol. ii. p. 205), but he left behind him a pious nonjuring son, and his grandson founded the famous publishing firm at Oxford.
176:1 Grosart, vol. iii. p. 284.
178:1 Grosart, vol. iii. p. 370.
178:2 Ibid., p. 382.
CHAPTER VI
LAST YEARS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
Marvell’s last ten years in the House of Commons were made miserable by the passionate conviction that there existed in high quarters of the State a deep, dangerous, and well-considered plot to subvert the Protestant faith and to destroy by armed force Parliamentary Government in England. Marvell was not the victim of a delusion. Such a plot, plan, or purpose undoubtedly existed, though, as it failed, it is now easy to consider the alarm it created to have been exaggerated.
Marvell was, of all public men then living, the one most deeply imbued with the spirit of our free constitution. Its checks and balances jumped with his humour. His nature was without any taint of fanaticism, nor was he anything of the doctrinaire. He was neither a Richard Baxter nor a John Locke. He had none of the pure Erastianism of Selden, who tells us in his inimitable, cold-blooded way that “a King is a King men have made for their own sakes, for quietness’ sake.” “Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat,” and that “there is no such thing as spiritual jurisdiction; all is civil, the Church’s is the same with the Lord Mayor’s. The Pope he challenges jurisdiction over all; the Bishops they pretend to it as well as he; the Presbyterians they would have it to themselves, but over whom is all this, the poor layman” (see Selden’s Table Talk).
This may be excellent good sense but it does not represent Marvell’s way of looking at things. He thought more nobly of both church and king.
In Marvell’s last book, his famous pamphlet “An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England,” printed at Amsterdam and recommended to the reading of all English Protestants, 1678, which made a prodigious stir and (it is sad to think) paved the way for the “Popish Plot,” Marvell sets forth his view of our constitution in language as lofty as it is precise. I know no passage in any of our institutional writers of equal merit.
“For if first we consider the State, the kings of England rule not upon the same terms with those of our neighbour nations, who, having by force or by address usurped that due share which their people had in the government, are now for some ages in the possession of an arbitrary power (which yet no prescription can make legal) and exercise it over their persons and estates in a most tyrannical manner. But here the subjects retain their proportion in the Legislature; the very meanest commoner of England is represented in Parliament, and is a party to those laws by which the Prince is sworn to govern himself and his people. No money is to be levied but by the common consent. No man is for life, limb, goods, or liberty, at the Sovereign’s discretion: but we have the same right (modestly understood) in our propriety that the prince hath in his regality: and in all cases where the King is concerned, we have our just remedy as against any private person of the neighbourhood, in the Courts of Westminster Hall or in the High Court of Parliament. His very Prerogative is no more than what the Law has determined. His Broad Seal, which is the legitimate stamp of his pleasure, yet is no longer currant, than upon the trial it is found to be legal. He cannot commit any person by his particular warrant. He cannot himself be witness in any cause: the balance of publick justice being so delicate, that not the hand only but even the breath of the Prince would turn the scale. Nothing is left to the King’s will, but all is subjected to his authority: by which means it follows that he can do no wrong, nor can he receive wrong; and a King of England keeping to these measures, may without arrogance, be said to remain the onely intelligent Ruler over a rational People. In recompense therefore and acknowledgment of so good a Government under his influence, his person is most sacred and inviolable; and whatsoever excesses are committed against so high a trust, nothing of them is imputed to him, as being free from the necessity or temptation; but his ministers only are accountable for all, and must answer it at their perils. He hath a vast revenue constantly arising from the hearth of the Householder, the sweat of the Labourer, the rent of the Farmer, the industry of the Merchant, and consequently out of the estate of the Gentleman: a large competence to defray the ordinary expense of the Crown, and maintain its lustre. And if any extraordinary occasion happen, or be but with any probable decency pretended, the whole Land at whatsoever season of the year does yield him a plentiful harvest. So forward are his people’s affections to give even to superfluity, that a forainer (or Englishman that hath been long abroad) would think they could neither will nor chuse, but that the asking of a supply were a meer formality, it is so readily granted. He is the fountain of all honours, and has moreover the distribution of so many profitable offices of the Household, of the Revenue, of State, of Law, of Religion, of the Navy and (since his present Majestie’s time) of the Army, that it seems as if the Nation could scarce furnish honest men enow to supply all those imployments. So that the Kings of England are in nothing inferiour to other Princes, save in being more abridged from injuring their own subjects: but have as large a field as any of external felicity, wherein to exercise their own virtue, and so reward and incourage it in others. In short, there is nothing that comes nearer in Government to the Divine Perfection, than where the Monarch, as with us, injoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to mankind, under a disability to all that is evil.”1
This was the constitution which Marvell, whose means of information were great and whose curiosity was insatiable, believed to be in danger. No wonder he was agitated.
The politics in which Marvell was immersed during his last years are difficult to unravel and still more difficult to illuminate, for they had their dim origin in the secret thoughts and wavering purposes of the king.
Charles the Second, like many another Englishman guiltless of Stuart blood in his veins, was mainly governed by his dislikes, his pleasures, and his financial necessities. To suppose, as some hasty moralisers have done, that Charles cared for nothing but his women is to misread his character. He had many qualifications to be the chief magistrate of a nation of shopkeepers. He was ever alive to the supreme importance of English trade upon the high seas. His thoughts were often turned in the direction of the Indies, east and west. He took a constant, though not always an honest, interest in the navy. He hated Holland for more reasons than one, but among these reasons was his hatred of England’s most formidable and malicious trade competitor. He also disliked her arid and ugly Protestantism, and blood being thicker than water, he hated Holland for what he considered her shabby treatment of his youthful nephew, whose ultimate destiny was happily hidden from Whitehall. Among Charles’s many dislikes must be included the Anglican bishops, who had prevented him from keeping his word, and foiled his purpose of a wide toleration. He envied his brother of France the wide culture, the literature and art of Catholicism. He regretted the Reformation, and would have been best pleased to see the English Church in communion with Rome and in possession of “Anglican liberties” akin to those enjoyed by the Gallican Church. Charles was also jealous of Louis the Fourteenth, and in many moods had no mind to play perpetually a second fiddle. He longed for a navy to sweep the seas, for an army strong enough to keep his Parliament in check, and for liberty for himself and for all those of his subjects who were so minded, to hear Mass on Sundays. Behind, and above, and always surrounding these desires and dislikes, was an ever-present, ever-pressing need for money. Like a royal Becky Sharp, Charles might have found it easy to be a patriotic king on five millions a year.
The king was his own Foreign Minister, and being what he was, and swayed by the considerations I have imperfectly described, his foreign policy was necessarily tortuous and perplexing. As Ranke says, “Charles was capable of proposing offensive alliances to the three neighbouring powers, to the Dutch against France, to the French against Spain and Holland, to the Spaniards against France to the detriment of Holland, but in these propositions two fundamental views always recur—demands for money, and assurance of world-wide commerce for England.”1
Charles first allowed Sir William Temple, a cool, prudent man, to form, in a famous five days’ negotiation, the defensive treaty with Holland, which, after Sweden had joined it, became known as the Triple Alliance (1668). This alliance had for its objects mutual promises between the contracting parties to come to each other’s assistance by sea and land if attacked by any power (France being here intended), to force Spain to make peace with France on the terms already offered, and to compel France to keep those terms when agreed to by Spain.
The Triple Alliance was not only very popular in England, but was good diplomacy, for it was quite within the range of practical politics that France and Holland might have combined against England; nor could it easily be maintained that the alliance was hostile to France, as it provided that Spain should be forced to accept the terms France had already proposed.
What wrecked the Triple Alliance and prepared the way for the secret Treaty of Dover (1670), was the impossibility of settling those religious difficulties which, despite the Act of Uniformity, were more rampant than ever. The king wanted to patch up peace, and to secure some working plan of comprehension or composure, under cover of which the Catholic religion should be tolerated and Presbyterianism formally recognised. But, king though he was, he could not get his way. The Church and the House of Commons, full as the latter was of his pimps and pensioners, were as obstinate as mules in this matter of toleration. They would neither favour Papists nor Dissenters, protested against Indulgences as unconstitutional, and clamoured for a rigorous administration of that penal legislation against Nonconformists which they had purchased with so many and such lavish supplies. As a matter of fact, these penal laws were very fitfully enforced. In London they were often totally disregarded, and we read of congregations numbering two thousand openly attending Presbyterian services. The Lord Mayor for the time being took his orders direct from the king.
What was Charles to do? After the fall of Clarendon, the king’s favourite privy councillors, called the “Cabal,” because the initial letters of their names formed a word which for some time previously had been in common use, represent only too faithfully the confusion and corruption of the times. Clifford was a zealous Roman, Arlington a cautious one, Buckingham a free-thinker and mocker, friendly to France and on good terms with the more advanced English sectaries; Ashley made no pretence to be a Christian, but favoured philosophic toleration; whilst Lauderdale, one of the most learned ministers that ever sat in council (so Ranke says1), was, as a matter of profession, a Presbyterian, but in reality a man wholly and slavishly devoted to the king’s interests, and prepared at any moment to pour into the kingdom soldiers from Scotland to purge or suppress all Free Institutions.
Irritated, disgusted, thwarted, and annoyed, the king, acting, it well may be, under the influence of his accomplished sister, the beautiful and ill-fated Duchess of Orleans, struck up, to use Marvell’s own words, “an invisible league with France.” The negotiations were either by word of mouth or by letters which have been burnt. Dr. Lingard in his history gives an interesting account of this mysterious transaction. Two things are apparent as the objects of the Treaty of Dover. The Dutch Republic is to be destroyed, and the cause of Catholicism in England is to be promoted and maintained. It was this latter object that seems most to have excited the hopes of the Duchess of Orleans. A woman’s hand is traceable throughout. Charles promised to profess himself openly a Roman Catholic at the time that should appear to be most expedient, and subsequently to that profession he was to join with Louis in making war upon the Dutch Republic. At the date of this bewildering agreement, it was high treason by statute even to say that Charles was a Roman Catholic. In case the king’s public conversion should lead to disturbances, Louis promised an “aid” of two millions of livres and an armed force of six thousand men. He also agreed to pay the whole cost of the Dutch War on land, and to contribute thirty men-of-war to the English fleet. Holland once crushed, England’s share of the plunder was to be Walcheren, Sluys, and Cadsand. A remarkable conversion! It is difficult to suppose that either Charles or Louis were quite serious over this part of the business. Yet there it is. The Catholic provisions of the secret Treaty of Dover were only known to Clifford, whose soul was fired by them, and to Arlington, who did not share the confident hopes of his co-religionist. Clifford thought there were thousands of Englishmen “of light and leading” among the English Catholics who would be both willing and able to assume the burdens of the State and to rally round a Catholic king. Arlington thought otherwise.
The king’s public conversion never took place. No hint was given of any such impending event. Parliament met on the 24th of October 1670, and after hearing a good deal about the Triple Alliance and voting large sums of money, was prorogued in April 1671, and did not meet again till February 1673.
To pick a quarrel with the Dutch was never difficult. Marvell tells us how it was done. “A sorry yacht, but bearing the English Jack, in August 1671 sails into the midst of the Dutch fleet, singles out the Admiral, shooting twice as they call it, sharp upon him. Which must sure have appeared as ridiculous and unnatural as for a lark to dare the hobby.” The Dutch admiral asking “Why,” was told “because he and his whole fleet had failed to strike sail to his small craft.” The Dutch commander then “civilly excused it as a matter of the first instance, and in which he could have no instruction, therefore proper to be referred to their masters, and so they parted. The yacht having thus acquitted itself, returned fraught with the quarrel she was sent for.”1 Surinam was a perpetual casus belli. Some offence against the law of nations was always happening there. A third matter, very full of gunpowder, was made great use of by the promoters of the war already agreed upon. A picture had been hung at Dort representing De Witt sailing up the Medway very much in the manner described in Marvell’s poem. Medals also had been struck and distributed in commemoration of the same event. War was declared against Holland by England and France in March 1672. The Declaration of War was preceded by the Declaration of Indulgence, whereby, wrote Marvell, “all the penal laws against Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many supplies, and against Nonconformists for which this Parliament had paid more largely, were at one instant suspended in order to defraud the nation of all that religion which they had so dearly purchased, and for which they ought at least, the bargain being broke, to have been reimbursed.”2
The unconstitutional suspension of bad laws put lovers of freedom in a predicament. Marvell was what he calls a “composure,” that is a “comprehension,” man. In the Growth of Popery he sorrowfully admits that it is the gravest reproach of human wisdom that no man seems able or willing to find out the due temper of Government in divine matters.