It being remarked, that the king, the moment before he stretched out his neck to the executioner, had said to Juxon with a very earnest accent, the single word “Remember,” great mysteries were supposed to be concealed under that expression; and the generals vehemently insisted with the prelate, that he should inform them of the king’s meaning, Juxon told them that the king, having frequently charged him to inculcate on his son the forgiveness of his murderers, had taken this opportunity, in the last moment of his life, when his commands, he supposed would be regarded as sacred and inviolable, to reiterate that desire; and that his mild spirit thus terminated its present course by an act of benevolence towards his greatest enemies.
The character of this prince, as that of most men, if not of all men, was mixed; but his virtues predominated extremely above his vices, or, more properly speaking, his imperfections; for scarce any of his faults rose to that pitch as to merit the appellation of vices. To consider him in the most favorable light, it may be affirmed, that his dignity was free from pride, his humanity from weakness, his bravery from rashness, his temperance from austerity, his frugality from avarice; all these virtues in him maintained their proper bounds, and merited unreserved praise. To speak the most harshly of him, we may affirm, that many of his good qualities were attended with some latent frailty, which, though seemingly inconsiderable was able, when seconded by the extreme malevolence of his fortune, to disappoint them of all their influence: his beneficent disposition was clouded by a manner not very gracious; his virtue was tinctured with superstition; his good sense was disfigured by a deference to persons of a capacity inferior to his own; and his moderate temper exempted him not from hasty and precipitate resolutions. He deserves the epithet of a good, rather than of a great man: and was more fitted to rule in a regular established government, than either to give way to the encroachments of a popular assembly, or finally to subdue their pretensions. He wanted suppleness and dexterity sufficient for the first measure; he was nor endowed with the vigor requisite for the second. Had he been born an absolute prince, his humanity and good sense had rendered his reign happy and his memory precious; had the limitations on prerogative been in his time quite fixed and certain, his integrity had made him regard as sacred the boundaries of the constitution. Unhappily, his fate threw him into a period, when the precedents of many former reigns savored strongly of arbitrary power, and the genius of the people ran violently towards liberty. And if his political prudence was not sufficient to extricate him from so perilous a situation, he may be excused; since, even after the event, when it is commonly easy to correct all errors, one is at a loss to determine what conduct, in his circumstances, could have maintained the authority of the crown, and preserved the peace of the nation. Exposed, without revenue, without arms, to the assault of furious, implacable, and bigoted factions, it was never permitted him, but with the most fatal consequences, to commit the smallest mistake; a condition too rigorous to be imposed on the greatest human capacity.
Some historians have rashly questioned the good faith of this prince; but, for this reproach, the most malignant scrutiny of his conduct, which in every circumstance is now thoroughly known, affords not any reasonable foundation. On the contrary, if we consider the extreme difficulties to which he was so frequently reduced, and compare the sincerity of his professions and declarations, we shall avow, that probity and honor ought justly to be numbered among his most shining qualities. In every treaty, those concessions which he thought he could not in conscience maintain, he never could, by any motive or persuasion, be induced to make. And though some violations of the petition of right may perhaps be imputed to him, these are more to be ascribed to the necessity of his situation, and to the lofty ideas of royal prerogative, which, from former established precedents, he had imbibed, than to any failure in the integrity of his principles.[*] 20
This prince was of a comely presence; of a sweet, but melancholy aspect. His face was regular, handsome, and well complexioned; his body strong, healthy, and justly proportioned; and being of a middle stature, he was capable of enduring the greatest fatigues. He excelled in horsemanship and other exercises; and he possessed all the exterior, as well as many of the essential qualities which form an accomplished prince.
The tragical death of Charles begat a question, whether the people, in any case, were entitled to judge and to punish their sovereign; and most men, regarding chiefly the atrocious usurpation of the pretended judges, and the merit of the virtuous prince who suffered, were inclined to condemn the republican principle, as highly seditious and extravagant: but there still were a few who, abstracting from the particular circumstances of this case, were able to consider the question in general, and were inclined to moderate, not contradict, the prevailing sentiment. Such might have been their reasoning. If ever, on any occasion, it were laudable to conceal truth from the populace, it must be confessed, that the doctrine of resistance affords such an example; and that all speculative reasoners ought to observe, with regard to this principle, the same cautious silence which the laws, in every species of government, have ever prescribed to themselves. Government is instituted in order to restrain the fury and injustice of the people; and being always founded on opinion, not on force, it is dangerous to weaken, by these speculations, the reverence which the multitude owe to authority, and to instruct them beforehand, that the case can ever happen when they may be freed from their duty of allegiance. Or should it be found impossible to restrain the license of human disquisitions, it must be acknowledged, that the doctrine of obedience ought alone to be inculcated; and that the exceptions, which are rare, ought seldom or never to be mentioned in popular reasonings and discourses. Nor is there any danger that mankind, by this prudent reserve, should universally degenerate into a state of abject servitude. When the exception really occurs, even though it be not previously expected and descanted on, it must, from its very nature, be so obvious and undisputed, as to remove all doubt, and overpower the restraint, however great, imposed by teaching the general doctrine of obedience. But between resisting a prince and dethroning him, there is a wide interval; and the abuses of power which can warrant the latter violence, are greater and more enormous than those which will justify the former. History, however, supplies us with examples even of this kind; and the reality of the supposition, though for the future it ought ever to be little looked for, must, by all candid inquirers, be acknowledged in the past. But between dethroning a prince and punishing him, there is another very wide interval; and it were not strange, if even men of the most enlarged thought should question, whether human nature could ever, in any monarch, reach that height of depravity, as to warrant, in revolted subjects, this last act of extraordinary jurisdiction. That illusion, if it be an illusion, which teaches us to pay a sacred regard to the persona of princes, is so salutary, that to dissipate it by the formal trial and punishment of a sovereign, will have more pernicious effects upon the people, than the example of justice can be supposed to have a beneficial influence upon princes, by checking their career of tyranny. It is dangerous also, by these examples, to reduce princes to despair, or bring matters to such extremities against persons endowed with great power as to leave them no resource, but in the most violent and most sanguinary counsels. This general position being established, it must, however, be observed, that no reader, almost of any party or principle, was ever shocked, when he read in ancient history, that the Roman senate voted Nero, their absolute sovereign, to be a public enemy, and, even without trial, condemned him to the severest and most ignominious punishment; a punishment from which the meanest Roman citizen was, by the laws, exempted. The crimes of that bloody tyrant are so enormous, that they break through all rules; and extort a confession, that such a dethroned prince is no longer superior to his people, and can no longer plead, in his own defence, laws which were established for conducting the ordinary course of administration. But when we pass from the case of Nero to that of Charles, the great disproportion, or rather total contrariety, of character immediately strikes us; and we stand astonished, that, among a civilized people, so much virtue could ever meet with so fatal a catastrophe. History, the great mistress of wisdom, furnishes examples of all kinds; and every prudential, as well as moral precept, may be authorized by those events which her enlarged mirror is able to present to us. From the memorable revolutions which passed in England during this period, we may naturally deduce the same useful lesson which Charles himself, in his later years, inferred; that it is dangerous for princes, even from the appearance of necessity, to assume more authority than the laws have allowed them. But it must be confessed, that these events furnish us with another instruction, no less natural and no less useful, concerning the madness of the people, the furies of fanaticism, and the danger of mercenary armies.
In order to close this part of British history, it is also necessary to relate the dissolution of the monarchy in England: that event soon followed upon the death of the monarch. When the peers met, on the day appointed in their adjournment, they entered upon business, and sent down some votes to the commons, of which the latter deigned not to take the least notice. In a few days, the lower house passed a vote, that they would make no more addresses to the house of peers nor receive any front them; and that that house was useless and dangerous, and was therefore to be abolished. A like vote passed with regard to the monarchy; and it is remarkable, that Martin, a zealous republican, in the debate on this question, confessed, that if they desired a king, the last was as proper as any gentleman in England.[*] The commons ordered a new great seal to be engraved, on which that assembly was represented, with this legend, “On the first year of freedom, by God’s blessing, restored, 1648.” The forms of all public business were changed, from the king’s name, to that of the keepers of the liberties of England.[**] And it was declared high treason to proclaim, or any otherwise acknowledge Charles Stuart, commonly called prince of Wales.
The commons intended, it is said, to bind the princess Elizabeth apprentice to a button-maker: the duke of Gloucester was to be taught some other mechanical employment. But the former soon died; of grief, as is supposed, for her father’s tragical end: the latter was, by Cromwell, sent beyond sea.
The king’s statue, in the exchange, was thrown down; and on the pedestal these words were inscribed: “Exit tyrannus, regum ultimus;” The tyrant is gone, the last of the kings.
Duke Hamilton was tried by a new high court of justice, as earl of Cambridge, in England; and condemned for treason. This sentence, which was certainly hard, but which ought to save his memory from all imputations of treachery to his master, was executed on a scaffold erected before Westminster Hall. Lord Capel underwent the same fate. Both these noblemen had escaped from prison, but were afterwards discovered and taken. To all the solicitations of their friends for pardon, the generals and parliamentary leaders still replied, that it was certainly the intention of Providence they should suffer; since it had permitted them to fall into the hands of their enemies, after they had once recovered their liberty.
The earl of Holland lost his life by a like sentence. Though of a polite and courtly behavior, he died lamented by no party. His ingratitude to the king, and his frequent changing of sides, were regarded as great stains on his memory. The earl of Norwich and Sir John Owen, being condemned by the same court, were pardoned by the commons.
The king left six children—three males: Charles, born in 1630; James, duke of York, born in 1633; Henry, duke of Gloucester, born in 1641;—and three females: Mary, princess of Orange, born 1631; Elizabeth, born 1635; and Henrietta, afterwards duchess of Orleans, born at Exeter, 1644.
The archbishops of Canterbury in this reign were Abbot and Laud; the lord keepers, Williams bishop of Lincoln, Lord Coventry, Lord Finch, Lord Littleton, and Sir Richard Lane; the high admirals, the duke of Buckingham and the earl of Northumberland; the treasurers, the earl of Marlborough, the earl of Portland, Juxon bishop of London, and Lord Cottington; the secretaries of state, Lord Conway, Sir Albertus Moreton, Coke, Sir Henry Vane, Lord Falkland, Lord Digby, and Sir Edward Nicholas.
It may be expected that we should here mention the Icon Basiliké, a work published in the king’s name a few days after his execution. It seems almost impossible, in the controverted parts of history, to say any thing which will satisfy the zealots of both parties: but with regard to the genuineness of that production, it is not easy for an historian to fix any opinion which will be entirely to his own satisfaction. The proofs brought to evince that this work is or is not the king’s, are so convincing, that if an impartial reader peruse any one side apart,[*] he will think it impossible that arguments could be produced, sufficient to counterbalance so strong an evidence: and when he compares both sides, he will be some time at a loss to fix any determination. Should an absolute suspense of judgment be found difficult or disagreeable in so interesting a question, I must confess, that I much incline to give the preference to the arguments of the royalists. The testimonies which prove that performance to be the king’s, are more numerous, certain, and direct, than those on the other side. This is the case, even if we consider the external evidence: but when we weigh the internal, derived from the style and composition, there is no manner of comparison. These meditations resemble, in elegance, purity, neatness, and simplicity, the genius of those performances which we know with certainty to have flowed from the royal pen; but are so unlike the bombast, perplexed, rhetorical, and corrupt style of Dr. Gauden, to whom they are ascribed, that no human testimony seems sufficient to convince us that he was the author. Yet all the evidences which would rob the king of that honor, tend to prove that Dr. Gauden had the merit of writing so fine a performance, and the infamy of imposing it on the world for the king’s.
It is not easy to conceive the general compassion excited towards the king, by the publishing, at so critical a juncture, a work so full of piety, meekness, and humanity. Many have not scrupled to ascribe to that book the subsequent restoration of the royal family. Milton compares its effects to those which were wrought on the tumultuous Romans by Anthony’s reading to them the will of Cæsar. The Icon passed through fifty editions in a twelvemonth; and, independent of the great interest taken in it by the nation, as the supposed production of their murdered sovereign, it must be acknowledged the best prose composition which, at the time of its publication, was to be found in the English language.
1649.
The confusions which overspread England after the murder of Charles I., proceeded as well from the spirit of refinement and innovation which agitated the ruling party, as from the dissolution of all that authority, both civil and ecclesiastical, by which the nation had ever been accustomed to be governed. Every man had framed the model of a republic; and, however new it was, or fantastical, he was eager in recommending it to his fellow-citizens, or even imposing it by force upon them. Every man had adjusted a system of religion, which, being derived from no traditional authority, was peculiar to himself; and being founded on supposed inspiration, not on any principles of human reason, had no means, besides cant and low rhetoric, by which it could recommend itself to others. The levellers insisted on an equal distribution of power and property, and disclaimed all dependence and subordination. The Millenarians, or Fifth Monarchy men, required, that government itself should be abolished, and all human powers be laid in the dust, in order to pave the way for the dominion of Christ, whose second coming they suddenly expected. The Antinomians even insisted, that the obligations of morality and natural law were suspended, and that the elect, guided by an internal principle more perfect and divine, were superior to the beggarly elements of justice and humanity. A considerable party declaimed against tithes and a hireling priesthood, and were resolved that the magistrate should not support by power or revenue any ecclesiastical establishment. Another party inveighed against the law and its professors; and, on pretence of rendering more simple the distribution of justice, were desirous of abolishing the whole system of English jurisprudence, which seemed interwoven with monarchical government. Even those among the republicans who adopted not such extravagancies, were so intoxicated with their saintly character, that they supposed themselves possessed of peculiar privileges; and all professions, oaths, laws, and engagements, had, in a great measure, lost their influence over them. The bands of society were every where loosened; and the irregular passions of men were encouraged by speculative principles, still more unsocial and irregular.
The royalists, consisting of the nobles and more considerable gentry, being degraded from their authority and plundered of their property, were inflamed with the highest resentment and indignation against those ignoble adversaries who had reduced them to subjection. The Presbyterians, whose credit had first supported the arms of the parliament, were enraged to find that, by the treachery or superior cunning of then associates, the fruits of all their successful labors were ravished from them. The former party, from inclination and principle, zealously attached themselves to the son of their unfortunate monarch, whose memory they respected, and whose tragical death they deplored. The latter cast their eye towards the same object; but they had still many prejudices to overcome, many fears and jealousies to be allayed, ere they could cordially entertain thoughts of restoring the family which they had so grievously offended, and whose principles they regarded with such violent abhorrence.
The only solid support of the republican independent faction, which, though it formed so small a part of the nation, had violently usurped the government of the whole, was a numerous army of near fifty thousand men. But this army, formidable from its discipline and courage, as well as its numbers, was actuated by a spirit that rendered it dangerous to the assembly which had assumed the command over it. Accustomed to indulge every chimera in politics, every frenzy in religion, the soldiers knew little of the subordination of citizens, and had only learned, from apparent necessity, some maxims of military obedience. And while they still maintained, that all those enormous violations of law and equity, of which they had been guilty, were justified by the success with which providence had blessed them; they were ready to break out into any new disorder, wherever they had the prospect of a like sanction and authority.
What alone gave some stability to all these unsettled humors was the great influence, both civil and military, acquired by Oliver Cromwell. This man, suited to the age in which he lived, and to that alone, was equally qualified to gain the affection and confidence of men, by what was mean, vulgar, and ridiculous in his character, as to command their obedience by what was great, daring, and enterprising. Familiar even to buffoonery with the meanest sentinel, he never lost his authority: transported to a degree of madness with religious ecstasies, he never forgot the political purposes to which they might serve. Hating monarchy while a subject, despising liberty while a citizen, though he retained for a time all orders of men under a seeming obedience to the parliament, he was secretly paving the way, by artifice and courage, to his own unlimited authority.
The parliament,—for so we must henceforth call a small and inconsiderable part of the house of commons,—having murdered their sovereign with so many appearing circumstances of solemnity and justice, and so much real violence, and even fury, began to assume more the air of a civil legal power, and to enlarge a little the narrow bottom upon which they stood. They admitted a few of the excluded and absent members, such as were liable to least exception; but on condition that these members should sign an approbation of whatever had been done in their absence with regard to the king’s trial; and some of them were willing to acquire a share of power on such terms: the greater part disdained to lend their authority to such apparent usurpations. They issued some writs for new elections, in places where they hoped to have interest enough to bring in their own friends and dependents. They named a council of state, thirty-eight in number, to whom all addresses were made, who gave orders to all generals and admirals, who executed the laws, and who digested all business before it was introduced into parliament.[*] They pretended to employ themselves entirely in adjusting the laws, forms, and plan of a new representative; and as soon as they should have settled the nation, they professed their intention of restoring the power to the people, from whom they acknowledged they had entirely derived it.
The commonwealth found every thing in England composed into a seeming tranquillity by the terror of their arms. Foreign powers, occupied in wars among themselves, had no leisure or inclination to interpose in the domestic dissensions of this island. The young king, poor and neglected, living sometimes in Holland, sometimes in France, sometimes in Jersey, comforted himself amidst his present distresses with the hopes of better fortune. The situation alone of Scotland and Ireland gave any immediate inquietude to the new republic.
After the successive defeats of Montrose and Hamilton, and the ruin of their parties, the whole authority in Scotland fell into the hands of Argyle and the rigid churchmen, that party which was most averse to the interests of the royal family. Their enmity, however, against the Independents, who had prevented the settlement of Presbyterian discipline in England, carried them to embrace opposite maxims in their political conduct. Though invited by the English parliament to model their government into a republican form, they resolved still to adhere to monarchy, which had ever prevailed in their country, and which, by the express terms of their covenant they had engaged to defend. They considered, besides, that as the property of the kingdom lay mostly in the hands of great families, it would be difficult to establish a common wealth; or without some chief magistrate, invested with royal authority, to preserve peace or justice in the community. The execution, therefore, of the king, against which they had always protested, having occasioned a vacancy of the throne, they immediately proclaimed his son and successor, Charles II.; but upon condition “of his good behavior, and strict observance of the covenant, and his entertaining no other persons about him but such as were godly men, and faithful to that obligation.” These unusual clauses, inserted in the very first acknowledgment of their prince, sufficiently showed their intention of limiting extremely his authority. And the English commonwealth, having no pretence to interpose in the affairs of that kingdom, allowed the Scots, for the present, to take their own measures in settling their government.
The dominion which England claimed over Ireland, demanded more immediately their efforts for subduing that country. In order to convey a just notion of Irish affairs, it will be necessary to look backwards some years, and to relate briefly those transactions which had passed during the memorable revolutions in England. When the late king agreed to that cessation of arms with the Popish rebels,[*] which was become so requisite, as well for the security of the Irish Protestants as for promoting his interests in England, the parliament, in order to blacken his conduct, reproached him with favoring that odious rebellion, and exclaimed loudly against the terms of the cessation. They even went so far as to declare it entirely null and invalid, because finished without their consent; and in this declaration the Scots in Ulster, and the earl of Inchiquin, a nobleman of great authority in Munster, professed to adhere. By their means the war was still kept alive; but as the dangerous distractions in England hindered the parliament from sending any considerable assistance to their allies in Ireland, the marquis of Ormond, lord lieutenant, being a native of Ireland, and a person endowed with great prudence and virtue, formed a scheme for composing the disorders of his country, and for engaging the rebel Irish to support the cause of his royal master. There were many circumstances which strongly invited the natives of Ireland to embrace the king’s party. The maxims of that prince had always led him to give a reasonable indulgence to the Catholics throughout all his dominions; and one principal ground of that enmity which the Puritans professed against him, was this tacit toleration. The parliament, on the contrary, even when unprovoked, had ever menaced the Papists with the most rigid restraint, if not a total extirpation; and immediately after the commencement of the Irish rebellion, they put to sale all the estates of the rebels, and had engaged the public faith for transferring them to the adventurers, who had already advanced money upon that security. The success, therefore, which the arms of the parliament met with at Naseby, struck a just terror into the Irish; and engaged the council of Kilkenny, composed of deputies from all the Catholic counties and cities, to conclude a peace with the marquis of Ormond.[**]
They professed to return to their duty and allegiance, engaged to furnish ten thousand men for the support of the king’s authority in England, and were content with stipulating, in return, indemnity for their rebellion, and toleration of their religion. Ormond, not doubting but a peace, so advantageous and even necessary to the Irish, would be strictly observed, advanced with a small body of troops to Kilkenny, in order to concert measures for common defence with his new allies. The pope had sent over to Ireland a nuncio, Rinuccini, an Italian; and this man, whose commission empowered him to direct the spiritual concerns of the Irish, was emboldened, by their ignorance and bigotry, to assume the chief authority in the civil government. Foreseeing that a general submission to the lord lieutenant would put an end to his own influence, he conspired with Owen O’Neal, who commanded the native Irish, in Ulster, and who bore a great jealousy to Preston, the general chiefly trusted by the council of Kilkenny. By concert, these two malecontents secretly drew forces together, and were ready to fall on Ormond, who remained in security, trusting to the pacification so lately concluded with the rebels. He received intelligence of their treachery, made his retreat with celerity and conduct, and sheltered his small army in Dublin and the other fortified towns, which still remained in the hands of the Protestants.
The nuncio, full of arrogance, levity, and ambition, was not contented with this violation of treaty. He summoned an assembly of the clergy at Waterford, and engaged them to declare against that pacification which the civil council had concluded with their sovereign. He even thundered out a sentence of excommunication against all who should adhere to a peace so prejudicial, as he pretended, to the Catholic religion; and the deluded Irish, terrified with his spiritual menaces, ranged themselves every where on his side, and submitted to his authority. Without scruple, he carried on war against the lord lieutenant, and threatened with a siege the Protestant garrisons, which were all of them very ill provided for defence.
Meanwhile, the unfortunate king was necessitated to take shelter in the Scottish army; and being there reduced to close confinement, and secluded from all commerce with his friends, despaired that his authority, or even his liberty, would ever be restored to him. He sent orders to Ormond, if he could not defend himself, rather to submit to the English than to the Irish rebels; and accordingly the lord lieutenant, being reduced to extremities, delivered up Dublin, Tredah, Dundalk, and other garrisons, to Colonel Michael Jones, who took possession of them in the name of the English parliament. Ormond himself went over to England, was admitted into the king’s presence, received a grateful acknowledgment for his past services, and during some time lived in tranquillity near London. But being banished, with the other royalists, to a distance from that city, and seeing every event turn out unfortunately for his royal master, and threaten him with a catastrophe still more direful, he thought proper to retire into France, where he joined the queen and the prince of Wales.
In Ireland, during these transactions, the authority of the nuncio prevailed without control among all the Catholics; and that prelate, by his indiscretion and insolence, soon made them repent of the power with which they had intrusted him. Prudent men likewise were sensible of the total destruction which was hanging over the nation from the English parliament, and saw no resource or safety but in giving support to the declining authority of the king. The earl of Clanricarde, a nobleman of an ancient family, a person too of merit, who had ever preserved his loyalty, was sensible of the ruin which threatened his countrymen, and was resolved, if possible, to prevent it. He secretly formed a combination among the Catholics; he entered into a correspondence with Inchiquin, who preserved great authority over the Protestants in Munster; he attacked the nuncio, whom he chased out of the island; and he sent to Paris a deputation, inviting the lord lieutenant to return and take possession of his government.
Ormond, on his arrival in Ireland, found the kingdom divided into many factions, among which either open war or secret enmity prevailed. The authority of the English parliament was established in Dublin, and the other towns which he himself had delivered into their hands. O’Neal maintained his credit in Ulster; and having entered into a secret correspondence with the parliamentary generals, was more intent on schemes for his own personal safety, than anxious for the preservation of his country or religion. The other Irish, divided between their clergy, who were averse to Ormond, and their nobility, who were attached to him, were very uncertain in their motions and feeble in their measures. The Scots in the north, enraged, as well as their other countrymen, against the usurpations of the sectarian army, professed their adherence to the king; but were still hindered by many prejudices from entering into a cordial union with his lieutenant. All these distracted councils and contrary humors checked the progress of Ormond, and enabled the parliamentary forces in Ireland to maintain their ground against him. The republican faction, meanwhile, in England, employed in subduing the revolted royalists, in reducing the parliament to subjection, in the trial, condemnation, and execution of their sovereign, totally neglected the supplying of Ireland, and allowed Jones and the forces in Dublin to remain in the utmost weakness and necessity. The lord lieutenant, though surrounded with difficulties, neglected not the favorable opportunity of promoting the royal cause. Having at last assembled an army of sixteen thousand men, he advanced upon the parliamentary garrisons. Dundalk, where Monk commanded, was delivered up by the troops, who mutinied against their governor. Tredah, Neury, and other forts, were taken. Dublin was threatened with a siege; and the affairs of the lieutenant appeared in so prosperous a condition, that the young king entertained thoughts of coming in person into Ireland.
When the English commonwealth was brought to some tolerable settlement, men began to cast their eyes towards the neighboring island. During the contest of the two parties, the government of Ireland had remained a great object of intrigue; and the Presbyterians endeavored to obtain the lieutenancy for Waller, the Independents for Lambert. After the execution of the king, Cromwell himself began to aspire to a command, where so much glory, he saw, might be won, and so much authority acquired. In his absence, he took care to have his name proposed to the council of state; and both friends and enemies concurred immediately to vote him into that important office: the former suspected, that the matter had not been proposed merely by chance, without his own concurrence; the latter desired to remove him to a distance, and hoped, during his absence, to gain the ascendant over Fairfax, whom he had so long blinded by his hypocritical professions. Cromwell himself, when informed of his election, feigned surprise, and pretended at first to hesitate with regard to the acceptance of the command. And Lambert, either deceived by his dissimulation, or, in his turn, feigning to be deceived, still continued, notwithstanding this disappointment his friendship and connections with Cromwell.
The new lieutenant immediately applied himself with his wonted vigilance to make preparations for his expedition. Many disorders in England it behoved him previously to compose. All places were full of danger and inquietude. Though men, astonished with the successes of the army, remained in seeming tranquillity, symptoms of the greatest discontent every where appeared. The English, long accustomed to a mild administration, and unacquainted with dissimulation, could not conform their speech and countenance to the present necessity, or pretend attachment to a form of government which they generally regarded with such violent abhorrence. It was requisite to change the magistracy of London, and to degrade, as well as punish, the mayor and some of the aldermen, before the proclamation for the abolition of monarchy could be published in the city. An engagement being framed to support the commonwealth without king or house of peers, the army was with some difficulty brought to subscribe it; but though it was imposed upon the rest of the nation under severe penalties, no less than putting all who refused out of the protection of law, such obstinate reluctance was observed in the people, that even the imperious parliament was obliged to desist from it. The spirit of fanaticism, by which that assembly had at first been strongly supported, was now turned, in a great measure, against them. The pulpits, being chiefly filled with Presbyterians or disguised royalists, and having long been the scene of news and politics, could by no penalties be restrained from declarations unfavorable to the established government. Numberless were the extravagancies which broke out among the people. Everard, a disbanded soldier, having preached that the time was now come when the community of goods would be renewed among Christians, led out his followers to take possession of the land; and being carried before the general, he refused to salute him, because he was but his fellow-creature.[*] What seemed more dangerous, the army itself was infected with like humors.[**] 21
Though the levellers had for a time been suppressed by the audacious spirit of Cromwell, they still continued to propagate their doctrines among the private men and inferior officers, who pretended a right to be consulted, as before, in the administration of the commonwealth. They now practised against their officers the same lesson which they had been taught against the parliament. They framed a remonstrance, and sent five agitators to present it to the general and council of war: these were cashiered with ignominy by sentence of a court martial. One Lockier, having carried his sedition further, was sentenced to death; but this punishment was so far from quelling the mutinous spirit, that above a thousand of his companions showed their adherence to him, by attending his funeral, and wearing in their hats black and sea-green ribbons by way of favors. About four thousand assembled at Burford, under the command of Thomson, a man formerly condemned for sedition by a court martial, but pardoned by the general. Colonel Reynolds, and afterwards Fairfax and Cromwell, fell upon them, while unprepared for defence, and seduced by the appearance of a treaty. Four hundred were taken prisoners; some of them capitally punished, the rest pardoned. And this tumultuous spirit, though it still lurked in the army, and broke, out from time to time, seemed for the present to be suppressed.
Petitions, framed in the same spirit of opposition, were presented to the parliament by Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn, the person who, for dispersing seditious libels, had formerly been treated with such severity by the star chamber. His liberty was at this time as ill relished by the parliament; and he was thrown into prison, as a promoter of sedition and disorder in the commonwealth. The women applied by petition for his release; but were now desired to mind their household affairs, and leave the government of the state to the men. From all quarters the parliament was harassed with petitions of a very free nature, which strongly spoke the sense of the nation, and proved how ardently all men longed for the restoration of their laws and liberties. Even in a feast which the city gave to the parliament and council of state, it was deemed a requisite precaution, if we may credit Walker and Dugdale, to swear all the cooks, that they would serve nothing but wholesome food to them.
The parliament judged it necessary to enlarge the laws of high treason beyond those narrow bounds within which they had been confined during the monarchy. They even comprehended verbal offences, nay, intentions, though they had never appeared in any overt act against the state. To affirm the present government to be a usurpation, to assert that the parliament or council of state were tyrannical or illegal, to endeavor subverting their authority, or stirring up sedition against them: these offences were declared to be high treason. The power of imprisonment, of which the petition of right had bereaved the king, it was now found necessary to restore to the council of state; and all the jails in England were filled with men whom the jealousies and fears of the ruling party had represented as dangerous.[*] The taxes continued by the new government, and which, being unusual, were esteemed heavy, increased the general ill will under which it labored. Besides the customs and excise, ninety thousand pounds a month were levied on land for the subsistence of the army. The sequestrations and compositions of the royalists, the sale of the crown lands, and of the dean and chapter lands, though they yielded great sums, were not sufficient to support the vast expenses, and, as was suspected, the great depredations, of the parliament and of their creatures.[*]
Amidst all these difficulties and disturbances, the steady mind of Cromwell, without confusion or embarrassment, still pursued its purpose. While he was collecting an army of twelve thousand men in the west of England, he sent to Ireland, under Reynolds and Venables, a reënforcement of four thousand horse and foot, in order to strengthen Jones, and enable him to defend himself against the marquis of Ormond, who lay at Finglass, and was making preparations for the attack of Dublin. Inchiquin, who had now made a treaty with the king’s lieutenant, having, with a separate body, taken Tredah and Dundalk, gave a defeat to Offarrell, who served under O’Neal, and to young Coot, who commanded some parliamentary forces. After he had joined his troops to the main army, with whom for some time he remained united, Ormond passed the River Liffy, and took post at Rathmines, two miles from Dublin, with a view of commencing the siege of that city. In order to cut off all further supply from Jones, he had begun the reparation of an old fort which lay at the gates of Dublin; and being exhausted with continual fatigue for some days, he had retired to rest, after leaving orders to keep his forces under arms. He was suddenly awaked with the noise of firing; and starting from his bed, saw every thing already in tumult and confusion. Jones, an excellent officer, formerly a lawyer, had sallied out with the reënforcement newly arrived; and attacking the party employed in repairing the fort, he totally routed them, pursued the advantage, and fell in with the army, which had neglected Ormond’s orders. These he soon threw into disorder; put them to flight, in spite of all the efforts of the lord lieutenant; chased them off the field; seized all their tents, baggage, ammunition; and returned victorious to Dublin, after killing a thousand men, and taking above two thousand prisoners.[*]
This loss, which threw some blemish on the military character of Ormond, was irreparable to the royal cause. That numerous army, which, with so much pains and difficulty, the lord lieutenant had been collecting for more than a year, was dispersed in a moment. Cromwell soon after arrived in Dublin, where he was welcomed with shouts and rejoicings. He hastened to Tredah. That town was well fortified: Ormond had thrown into it a good garrison of three thousand men, under Sir Arthur Aston, an officer of reputation. He expected that Tredah, lying in the neighborhood of Dublin, would first be attempted by Cromwell, and he was desirous to employ the enemy some time in that siege, while he himself should repair his broken forces. But Cromwell knew the importance of despatch. Having made a breach, he ordered a general assault. Though twice repulsed with loss, he renewed the attack, and himself, along with Ireton, led on his men. All opposition was overborne by the furious valor of the troops. The town was taken sword in hand; and orders being issued to give no quarter, a cruel slaughter was made of the garrison. Even a few, who were saved by the soldiers, satiated with blood, were next day miserably butchered by orders from the general. One person alone of the garrison escaped to be a messenger of this universal havoc and destruction.
Cromwell pretended to retaliate by this severe execution the cruelty of the Irish massacre: but he well knew, that almost the whole garrison was English; and his justice was only a barbarous policy, in order to terrify all other garrisons from resistance. His policy, however, had the desired effect. Having led the army without delay to Wexford, he began to batter the town. The garrison, after a slight defence, offered to capitulate; but before they obtained a cessation, they imprudently neglected their guards; and the English army rushed in upon them. The same severity was exercised as at Tredah.
Every town before which Cromwell presented himself, now opened its gates without resistance. Ross, though strongly garrisoned, was surrendered by Lord Taffe. Having taken Estionage, Cromwell threw a bridge over the Barrow, and made himself master of Passage and Carrie. The English had no further difficulties to encounter than what arose from fatigue and the advanced season. Fluxes and contagious distempers crept in among the soldiers, who perished in great numbers. Jones himself, the brave governor of Dublin, died at Wexford. And Cromwell had so far advanced with his decayed army, that he began to find it difficult, either to subsist in the enemy’s country, or retreat to his own garrisons. But while he was in these straits, Corke, Kinsale, and all the English garrisons in Munster deserted to him, and opening their gates, resolved to share the fortunes of their victorious countrymen.
This desertion of the English put an end to Ormond’s authority, which was already much diminished by the misfortunes at Dublin, Tredah, and Wexford. The Irish, actuated by national and religious prejudices, could no longer be kept in obedience by a Protestant governor, who was so unsuccessful in all his enterprises. The clergy renewed their excommunications against him and his adherents, and added the terrors of superstition to those which arose from a victorious enemy. Cromwell, having received a reënforcement from England, again took the field early in the spring. He made himself master of Kilkenny and Clonmel, the only places where he met with any vigorous resistance. The whole frame of the Irish union being in a manner dissolved, Ormond soon after left the island, and delegated his authority to Clanricarde, who found affairs so desperate as to admit of no remedy. The Irish were glad to embrace banishment as a refuge, Above forty thousand men passed into foreign service; and Cromwell, well pleased to free the island from enemies who never could be cordially reconciled to the English, gave them full liberty and leisure for their embarkation.
While Cromwell proceeded with such uninterrupted success in Ireland, which in the space of nine months he had almost entirely subdued, fortune was preparing for him a new scene of victory and triumph in Scotland. Charles was at the Hague, when Sir Joseph Douglas brought him intelligence, that he was proclaimed king by the Scottish parliament. At the same time, Douglas informed him of the hard conditions annexed to the proclamation, and extremely damped that joy which might arise from his being recognized sovereign in one of his kingdoms. Charles too considered, that those who pretended to acknowledge his title, were at that very time in actual rebellion against his family, and would be sure to intrust very little authority in his hands, and scarcely would afford him personal liberty and security. As the prospect of affairs in Ireland was at that time not unpromising, he intended rather to try his fortune in that kingdom, from which he expected more dutiful submission and obedience.
Meanwhile he found it expedient to depart from Holland. The people in the United Provinces were much attached to his interests. Besides his connection with the family of Orange, which was extremely beloved by the populace, all men regarded with compassion his helpless condition, and expressed the greatest abhorrence against the murder of his father; a deed to which nothing, they thought, but the rage of fanaticism and faction could have impelled the parliament. But though the public in general bore great favor to the king, the states were uneasy at his presence. They dreaded the parliament, so formidable by their power, and so prosperous in all their enterprises. They apprehended the most precipitate resolutions from men of such violent and haughty dispositions. And after the murder of Dorislaus, they found it still more necessary to satisfy the English commonwealth, by removing the king to a distance from them.
1650.
Dorislaus, though a native of Holland, had lived long in England; and being employed as assistant to the high court of justice which condemned the late king, he had risen to great credit and favor with the ruling party. They sent him envoy to Holland; but no sooner had he arrived at the Hague, than he was set upon by some royalists, chiefly retainers to Montrose. They rushed into the room where he was sitting with some company; dragged him from the table; put him to death as the first victim to their murdered sovereign f very leisurely and peaceably separated themselves; and though orders were issued by the magistrates to arrest them, these were executed with such slowness and reluctance, that the criminals had all of them the opportunity of making their escape.
Charles, having passed some time at Paris, where no assistance was given him, and even few civilities were paid him, made his retreat into Jersey, where his authority was still acknowledged. Here Winram, laird of Liberton, came to him as deputy from the committee of estates in Scotland, and informed him of the conditions to which he must necessarily submit before he could be admitted to the exercise of his authority. Conditions more severe were never imposed by subjects upon their sovereign; but as the affairs of Ireland began to decline, and the king found it no longer safe to venture himself in that island, he gave a civil answer to Winram, and desired commissioners to meet him at Breda, in order to enter into a treaty with regard to these conditions.
The earls of Cassilis and Lothian, Lord Burley, the laird of Liberton, and other commissioners, arrived at Breda; but without any power of treating: the king must submit without reserve to the terms imposed upon him. The terms were, that he should issue a proclamation, banishing from court all excommunicated persons, that is, all those who, either under Hamilton or Montrose, had ventured their lives for his family; that no English subject who had served against the parliament, should be allowed to approach him; that he should bind himself by his royal promise to take the covenant; that he should ratify all acts of parliament by which Presbyterian government, the directory of worship, the confession of faith, and the catechism were established; and that in civil affairs he should entirely conform himself to the direction of parliament, and in ecclesiastical to that of the assembly. These proposals the commissioners, after passing some time in sermons and prayers, in order to express the more determined resolution, very solemnly delivered to the king.
The king’s friends were divided with regard to the part which he should act in this critical conjuncture. Most of his English counsellors dissuaded him from accepting conditions so disadvantageous and dishonorable. They said, that the men who now governed Scotland were the most furious and bigoted of that party which, notwithstanding his gentle government, had first excited a rebellion against the late king; after the most unlimited concessions, had renewed their rebellion, and stopped the progress of his victories in England; and after he had intrusted his person to them in his uttermost distress, had basely sold him, together with their own honor, to his barbarous enemies: that they had as yet shown no marks of repentance; and even in the terms which they now proposed, displayed the same anti-monarchical principles, and the same jealousy of their sovereign, by which they had ever been actuated: that nothing could be more dishonorable, than that the king, in his first enterprise, should sacrifice, merely for the empty name of royalty those principles for which his father had died a martyr, and in which he himself had been strictly educated: that by this hypocrisy he might lose the royalists, who alone were sincerely attached to him; but never would gain the Presbyterians, who were averse to his family and his cause, and would ascribe his compliance merely to policy and necessity: that the Scots had refused to give him any assurances of their intending to restore him to the throne of England; and could they even be brought to make such an attempt, it had sufficiently appeared, by the event of Hamilton’s engagement, how unequal their force was to so great an enterprise: that on the first check which they should receive, Argyle and his partisans would lay hold of the quickest expedient for reconciling themselves to the English parliament, and would betray the king, as they had done his father, into the hands of his enemies: and that, however desperate the royal cause, it must still be regarded as highly imprudent in the king to make a sacrifice of his honor, where the sole purchase was to endanger his life or liberty.
The earl of Laneric, now duke of Hamilton, the earl of Lauderdale, and others of that party who had been banished their country for the late engagement, were then with the king; and being desirous of returning home in his retinue, they joined the opinion of the young duke of Buckingham, and earnestly pressed him to submit to the conditions required of him. It was urged, that nothing would more gratify the king’s enemies than to see him fall into the snare laid for him, and by so scrupulous a nicety, leave the possession of his dominions to those who desired but a pretence for excluding him: that Argyle, not daring so far to oppose the bent of the nation as to throw off all allegiance to his sovereign, had embraced this expedient, by which he hoped to make Charles dethrone himself, and refuse a kingdom which was offered him: that it was not to be doubted but the same national spirit, assisted by Hamilton and his party, would rise still higher in favor of their prince after he had intrusted himself to their fidelity, and would much abate the rigor of the conditions now imposed upon him: that whatever might be the present intentions of the ruling party, they must unavoidably be engaged in a war with England, and must accept the assistance of the king’s friends of all parties, in order to support themselves against a power so much superior: that how much soever a steady, uniform conduct might have been suitable to the advanced age and strict engagements of the late king, no one would throw any blame on a young prince for complying with conditions which necessity had extorted from him: that even the rigor of those principles professed by his father, though with some it had exalted his character, had been extremely prejudicial to his interests; nor could any thing be more serviceable to the royal cause, than to give all parties room to hope for more equal and more indulgent maxims of government; and that where affairs were reduced to so desperate a situation, dangers ought little to be regarded; and the king’s honor lay rather in showing some early symptoms of courage and activity, than in choosing strictly a party among theological controversies, with which, it might be supposed, he was as yet very little acquainted.
These arguments, seconded by the advice of the queen mother and of the prince of Orange, the king’s brother-in-law, who both of them thought it ridiculous to refuse a kingdom merely from regard to Episcopacy, had great influence on Charles. But what chiefly determined him to comply, was the account brought him of the fate of Montrose, who, with all the circumstances of rage and contumely, had been put to death by his zealous countrymen. Though in this instance the king saw more evidently the furious spirit by which the Scots were actuated, he had now no further resource, and was obliged to grant whatever was demanded of him.
Montrose, having laid down his arms at the command of the late king, had retired into France, and, contrary to his natural disposition, had lived for some time inactive at Paris. He there became acquainted with the famous Cardinal de Retz, and that penetrating judge celebrates him in his memoirs as one of those heroes, of whom there are no longer any remains in the world, and who are only to be met with in Plutarch. Desirous of improving his martial genius, he took a journey to Germany, was caressed by the emperor, received the rank of mareschal, and proposed to levy a regiment for the imperial service. While employed for that purpose in the Low Countries, he heard of the tragical death of the king; and at the same time received from his young master a renewal of his commission of captain-general in Scotland.[*] His ardent and daring spirit needed but this authority to put him in action. He gathered followers in Holland and the north of Germany whom his great reputation allured to him. The king of Denmark and duke of Holstein sent him some small supply of money; the queen of Sweden furnished him with arms; the prince of Orange with ships; and Montrose, hastening his enterprise, lest the king’s agreement with the Scots should make him revoke his commission, set out for the Orkneys with about five hundred men, most of them Germans.