[372] Commons' Journals, May 4 and 18, 1647. This minority were not, in general, republican; but were unwilling to increase the irritation of the army by so strong a vote.

[373] Commons' Journals; Whitelock, 271; Parl. Hist. 781. They had just been exasperated by his evasion of their propositions. Id. 778. By the smallness of the numbers, and the names of the tellers, it seems as if the presbyterian party had been almost entirely absent; which may be also inferred from other parts of the Journals. See October 9, for a long list of absentees. Haslerig and Evelyn, both of the army faction, told the Ayes, Martin and Sir Peter Wentworth the Noes. The house had divided the day before on the question for going into a committee to take this matter into consideration, 84 to 34; Cromwell and Evelyn telling the majority, Wentworth and Rainsborough the minority. I suppose it is from some of these divisions that Baron Maseres has reckoned the republican party in the house not to exceed thirty.

It was resolved on Nov. 6, 1647, that the King of England, for the time being, was bound in justice and by the duty of his office, to give his assent to all such laws as by the Lords and Commons in parliament shall be adjudged to be for the good of the kingdom, and by them tendered unto him for his assent. But the previous question was carried on the following addition: "And in case the laws, so offered unto him, shall not thereupon be assented unto by him, that nevertheless they are as valid to all intents and purposes as if his assent had been thereunto had and obtained, which they do insist upon as an undoubted right."—Com. Jour.

[374] Ludlow says that Cromwell, "finding the king's friends grow strong in 1648, began to court the commonwealth's party. The latter told him he knew how to cajole and give them good words, when he had occasion to make use of them; whereat, breaking out into a rage, he said they were a proud sort of people, and only considerable in their own conceits."—P. 240. Does this look as if he had been reckoned one of them?

[375] Clarendon says that there were many consultations among the officers about the best mode of disposing of the king; some were for deposing him, others for poison or assassination, which, he fancies, would have been put in practice, if they could have prevailed on Hammond. But this is not warranted by our better authorities.

It is hard to say at what time the first bold man dared to talk of bringing the king to justice. But in a letter of Baillie to Alexander Henderson, May 19, 1646, he says, "If God have hardened him, so far as I can perceive, this people will strive to have him in their power, and make an example of him; I abhor to think what they speak of execution!"—ii. 20. Published also in Dalrymple's Memorials of Charles I., p. 166. Proofs may also be brought from pamphlets by Lilburne and others in 1647, especially towards the end of that year; and the remonstrance of the Scots parliament, dated Aug. 13, alludes to such language. Rushw. Abr. vi. 245. Berkley indeed positively assures us, that the resolution was taken at Windsor in a council of officers, soon after the king's confinement at Carisbrook; and this with so much particularity of circumstance that, if we reject his account, we must set aside the whole of his memoirs at the same time. Maseres's Tracts, i. 383. But it is fully confirmed by an independent testimony, William Allen, himself one of the council of officers and adjutant-general of the army, who, in a letter addressed to Fleetwood, and published in 1659, declares that after much consultation and prayer at Windsor Castle, in the beginning of 1648, they had "come to a very clear and joint resolution that it was their duty to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord's cause and people in these poor nations." This is to be found in Somers Tracts, vi. 499. The only discrepancy, if it is one, between him and Berkley, is as to the precise time, which the other seems to place in the end of 1647. But this might be lapse of memory in either party; nor is it clear, on looking attentively at Berkley's narration, that he determines the time. Ashburnham says, "For some days before the king's remove from Hampton Court, there was scarcely a day in which several alarms were not brought him by and from several considerable persons, both well affected to him and likely to know much of what was then in agitation, of the resolution which a violent party in the army had to take away his life. And that such a design there was, there were strong insinuations to persuade." See also his Narrative, published in 1830.

[376] Somers Tracts, v. 160, 162.

[377] Sept. 11. Parl. Hist. 1077; May's "Breviate" in Maseres's Tracts, vol. i. p. 127; Whitelock, 335.

[378] Nov. 17. Parl. Hist. 1077; Whitelock, p. 355. A motion, Nov. 30, that the house do now proceed on the remonstrance of the army, was lost by 125 to 58 (printed, 53 in Parl. Hist.). Commons' Journals. So weak was still the republican party. It is indeed remarkable that this remonstrance itself is rather against the king, than absolutely against all monarchy; for one of the proposals contained in it is that kings should be chosen by the people, and have no negative voice.

[379] The division was on the previous question, which was lost by 129 to 83.

[380] No division took place on any of the votes respecting the king's trial.

[381] Ludlow, i. 267.

[382] Hutchinson, p. 303.

[383] The king's manners were not good. He spoke and behaved to ladies with indelicacy in public. See Warburton's Notes on Clarendon, vii. 629, and a passage in Milton's Defensio pro populo Anglicano, quoted by Harris and Brodie. He once forgot himself so far as to cane Sir Henry Vane for coming into a room of the palace reserved for persons of higher rank. Carte's Ormond, i. 366, where other instances are mentioned by that friendly writer. He had in truth none who loved him, till his misfortunes softened his temper, and excited sympathy.

An anecdote, strongly intimating the violence of Charles's temper, has been rejected by his advocates. It is said that Burnet, in searching the Hamilton papers, found that the king, on discovering the celebrated letter of the Scots covenanting lords to the King of France, was so incensed that he sent an order to Sir William Balfour, lieutenant-governor of the Tower, to cut off the head of his prisoner, Lord Loudon; but that the Marquis of Hamilton, to whom Balfour immediately communicated this, urged so strongly on the king that the city would be up in arms on this violence, that with reluctance he withdrew the warrant. This story is told by Oldmixon, Hist. of the Stuarts, p. 140. It was brought forward on Burnet's authority, and also on that of the Duke of Hamilton, killed in 1712, by Dr. Birch, no incompetent judge of historical evidence; it seems confirmed by an intimation given by Burnet himself in his Memoirs of the Duke of Hamilton, p. 161. It is also mentioned by Scott of Scotstarvet, a contemporary writer. Harris, p. 350, quotes other authorities, earlier than the anecdote told by Burnet; and upon the whole, I think the story deserving credit, and by no means so much to be slighted as the Oxford editor of Burnet has thought fit to do.

[384] Clement Walker, Hist. of Independency, Part II. p. 55.

[385] Clarendon, Collier, and the high church writers in general, are very proud of the superiority they fancy the king to have obtained in a long argumentation held at Newcastle with Henderson, a Scots minister, on church authority and government. This was conducted in writing, and the papers afterwards published. They may be read in the King's Works, and in Collier, p. 842. It is more than insinuated that Henderson died of mortification at his defeat. He certainly had not the excuse of the philosopher who said he had no shame in yielding to the master of fifty legions. But those who take the trouble to read these papers, will probably not think one party so much the stronger as to shorten the other's days. They show that Charles held those extravagant tenets about the authority of the church and of the fathers, which are irreconcilable with protestantism in any country where it is not established, and are likely to drive it out where it is so.

[386] The note on this passage, which, on account of its length, was placed at the end of the volume in the two first editions, is withdrawn in this, as relating to a matter of literary controversy, little connected with the general objects of this work. It is needless to add, that the author entertains not the smallest doubt about the justness of the arguments he had employed.—Note to the Third Edition.

[387] Parl. Hist. 349. The council of war more than once, in the year 1647, declared their intention of preserving the rights of the peerage. Whitelock, 288, and Sir William Waller's Vindication, 192.

[388] Commons' Journal, 13th and 19th May 1646.

[389] Lords' Journals.

[390] Commons' Journals. It had been proposed to continue the House of Lords as a court of judicature, or as a court of consultation, or in some way or other to keep it up. The majority, it will be observed, was not very great; so far was the democratic scheme from being universal even within the house. Whitelock, 377. Two divisions had already taken place; one on Jan. 9, when it was carried by thirty-one to eighteen, that "a message from the Lords should be received;" Cromwell strongly supporting the motion, and being a teller for it; and again on Jan. 18, when, the opposite party prevailing, it was negatived by twenty-five to eighteen, to ask their assent to the vote of the 4th instant, that the sovereignty resides in the Commons; which doubtless, if true, could not require the Lords' concurrence.

[391] Whitelock, 396. They voted that Pembroke, as well as Salisbury and Howard of Escrick, who followed the ignominious example, should be added to all committees.

[392] Commons' Journals; Whitelock. It had been referred to a committee of five members, Lisle, Holland, Robinson, Scott, and Ludlow, to recommend thirty-five for a council of state; to whose nominations the house agreed, and added their own. Ludlow, i. 288. They were appointed for a year; but in 1650 the house only left out two of the former list, besides those who were dead. Whitelock, 441. In 1651 the change was more considerable. Id. 488.

[393] Six judges agreed to hold on their commissions, six refused. Whitelock, who makes a poor figure at this time on his own showing, consented to act still as commissioner of the great seal. Those who remained in office affected to stipulate that the fundamental laws should not be abolished; and the house passed a vote to this effect. Whitelock, 378.

[394] Whitelock, 444 et alibi. Baxter's Life, 64. A committee was appointed, April 1649, to enquire about ministers who asperse the proceedings of parliament in their pulpits. Whitelock, 395.

[395] State Trials, v. 43. Baxter says that Love's death hurt the new commonwealth more than would be easily believed, and made it odious to all the religious party in the land, except the sectaries. Life of B., 67. But "oderint dum metuant" is the device of those who rule in revolutions. Clarendon speaks, on the contrary, of Love's execution triumphantly. He had been distinguished by a violent sermon during the treaty of Uxbridge, for which the parliament, on the complaint of the king's commissioners, put him in confinement. Thurloe, i. 65; State Trials, 201; though the noble historian, as usual, represents this otherwise. He also misstates Love's dying speech.

[396] Whitelock, 516.

[397] The parliament had resolved, 24th July 1650, that Henry Stuart, son of the late king, and the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of the late king, be removed forthwith beyond the seas, out of the limits of this commonwealth. Yet this intention seems to have been soon changed; for it is resolved, Sept. 11, to give the Duke of Glocester £1500 per annum for his maintenance, so long as he should behave himself inoffensively. Whether this proceeded from liberality, or from a vague idea that they might one day make use of him, is hard to say. Clarendon mentions the scheme of making the Duke of Glocester king, in one of his letters (iii. 38, 11th Nov. 1651); but says, "Truly I do believe that Cromwell might as easily procure himself to be chosen king as the Duke of Glocester; for, as none of the king's party would assist the last, so I am persuaded both presbyterians and independents would have much sooner the former than any of the race of him whom they have murthered."

[398] Id. p. 548. Lord Orrery told Burnet that he had once mentioned to Cromwell a report that he was to bring in the king, who should marry his daughter, and observed, that he saw no better expedient. Cromwell, without expressing any displeasure, said, "the king cannot forgive his father's blood;" which the other attempted to answer. Burnet, i. 95. It is certain, however, that such a compromise would have been dishonourable for one party, and infamous for the other.

[399] Cromwell, in his letter to the parliament, after the battle of Worcester, called it a crowning mercy. This, though a very intelligible expression, was taken in an invidious sense by the republicans.

[400] Journals, passim.

[401] One of their most scandalous acts was the sale of the Earl of Craven's estate. He had been out of England during the war, and could not therefore be reckoned a delinquent. But evidence was offered that he had seen the king in Holland; and upon this charge, though he petitioned to be heard, and, as is said, indicted the informer for perjury, whereof he was convicted, they voted by 33 to 31 that his lands should be sold; Haslerig, the most savage zealot of the whole faction, being a teller for the ayes, Vane for the noes. Journals, 6th March 1651, and 22nd June 1652. State Trials, v. 323. On the 20th of July in the same year, it was referred to a committee to select thirty delinquents, whose estates should be sold for the use of the navy. Thus, long after the cessation of hostility, the royalists continued to stand in jeopardy, not only collectively but personally, from this arbitrary and vindictive faction. Nor were these qualities displayed against the royalists alone: one Josiah Primatt, who seems to have been connected with Lilburne, Wildman, and the levellers, having presented a petition complaining that Sir Arthur Haslerig had violently dispossessed him of some collieries, the house, after voting every part of the petition to be false, adjudged him to pay a fine of £3000 to the commonwealth, £2000 to Haslerig, and £2000 more to the commissioners for compositions. Journals, 15th Jan. 1651-2. There had been a project of erecting an university at Durham, in favour of which a committee reported (18th June 1651), and for which the chapter lands would have made a competent endowment. Haslerig, however, got most of them into his own hands; and thus frustrated, perhaps, a design of great importance to education and literature in this country. For had an university once been established, it is just possible, though not very likely, that the estates would not have reverted, on the king's restoration, to their former, but much less useful possessors.

[402] Mrs. Hutchinson speaks very favourably of the levellers, as they appeared about 1647, declaring against the factions of the presbyterians and independents, and the ambitious views of their leaders, and especially against the unreasonable privileges claimed by the houses of parliament collectively and personally. "Indeed, as all virtues are mediums and have their extremes, there rose up after in that house a people who endeavoured the levelling of all estates and qualities, which those sober levellers were never guilty of desiring; but were men of just and sober principles, of honest and religious ends, and were therefore hated by all the designing self-interested men of both factions. Colonel Hutchinson had a great intimacy with many of these; and so far as they acted according to the just, pious, and public spirit which they professed, owned them and protected them as far as he had power. These were they who first began to discover the ambition of Lieut.-Gen. Cromwell and his idolaters, and to suspect and dislike it."—P. 285.

[403] Whitelock, 399, 401. The levellers rose in arms at Banbury and other places; but were soon put down, chiefly through the energy of Cromwell, and their ringleaders shot.

[404] It was referred to a committee, 29th April 1652, to consider how a convenient and competent maintenance for a godly and able ministry may be settled, in lieu of tithes. A proposed addition, that tithes be paid as before till such maintenance be settled, was carried by 27 to 17.

[405] Journals, 19th Jan. 1652. Hale was the first named on this commission, and took an active part; but he was associated with some furious levellers, Desborough, Tomlinson, and Hugh Peters, so that it is hard to know how far he concurred in the alterations suggested. Many of them, however, seem to bear marks of his hand. Whitelock, 475, 517, 519, 820, et alibi. There had been previously a committee for the same purpose in 1650. See a list of the acts prepared by them in Somers Tracts, vi. 177; several of them are worthy of attention. Ludlow indeed blames the commission for slowness; but their delay seems to have been very justifiable, and their suggestions highly valuable. It even appears that they drew up a book containing a regular digest or code, which was ordered to be printed. Journals, 20th Jan. 1653.

[406] A committee was named, 15th May 1649, to take into consideration the settling of the succession of future parliaments and regulating their elections. Nothing more appears to have been done till Oct. 11th, when the committee was ordered to meet next day, and so de die in diem, and to give an account thereof to the house on Tuesday come fortnight; all that came to have voices, but the special care thereof commended to Sir Henry Vane, Colonel Ludlow, and Mr. Robinson. We find nothing farther till Jan. 3rd, 1650, when the committee is ordered to make its report the next Wednesday. This is done accordingly, Jan. 9, when Sir H. Vane reports the resolutions of the committee, one of which was, that the number in future parliaments should be 400. This was carried, after negativing the previous question in a committee of the whole house. They proceeded several days afterwards on the same business. See also Ludlow, pp. 313, 435.

[407] Two divisions had taken place, Nov. 14 (the first on the previous question), on a motion, that it is convenient to declare a certain time for the continuance of this parliament, 50 to 46, and 49 to 47. On the last division, Cromwell and St. John were tellers for the ayes.

[408] Whitelock was one of these; and being at that time out of Cromwell's favour, inveighs much against this destruction of the power from which he had taken his commission. Pp. 552, 554. St. John appears to have concurred in the measure. In fact, there had so long been an end of law that one usurpation might seem as rightful as another. But, while any House of Commons remained, there was a stock left from which the ancient constitution might possibly germinate. Mrs. Macauley, whose lamentations over the Rump did not certainly proceed from this cause, thus vents her wrath on the English nation: "An acquiescence thus universal in the insult committed on the guardians of the infant republic, and the first step towards the usurpation of Cromwell, fixes an indelible stain on the character of the English, as a people basely and incorrigibly attached to the sovereignty of individuals, and of natures too ignoble to endure an empire of equal laws."—Vol. v. p. 112.

[409] Harrison, when Ludlow asked him why he had joined Cromwell to turn out the parliament, said, he thought Cromwell would own and favour a set of men who acted on higher principles than those of civil liberty; and quoted from Daniel "that the saints shall take the kingdom and possess it." Ludlow argued against him; but what was argument to such a head? Mem. of Ludlow, p. 565. Not many months after, Cromwell sent his coadjutor to Carisbrook Castle.

[410] Hume speaks of this assembly as chiefly composed of the lowest mechanics. But this was not the case. Some persons of inferior rank there were, but a large proportion of the members were men of good family, or, at least, military distinction, as the list of the names in the Parliamentary History is sufficient to prove; and Whitelock remarks, "it was much wondered at by some that these gentlemen, many of them being persons of fortune and knowledge, would at this summons, and from those hands, take upon them the supreme authority of this nation."—P. 559. With respect to this, it may be observed, that those who have lived in revolutions find it almost necessary, whether their own interest or those of their country are their aim, to comply with all changes, and take a greater part in supporting them, than men of inflexible consciences can approve. No one felt this more than Whitelock; and his remark in this place is a satire upon all his conduct. He was at the moment dissatisfied, and out of Cromwell's favour, but lost no time in regaining it.

[411] Journals, August 19. This was carried by 46 to 38 against Cromwell's party. Yet Cromwell, two years afterwards, published an ordinance for regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of chancery; which offended Whitelock so much that he resigned the great seal, not having been consulted in framing the regulations. This is a rare instance in his life; and he vaunts much of his conscience accordingly, but thankfully accepted the office of commissioner of the treasury instead. Pp. 621, 625. He does not seem, by his own account, to have given much satisfaction to suitors in equity (p. 548); yet the fault may have been theirs, or the system's.

[412] 4th October.

[413] This had been proposed by the commission for amendment of the law appointed in the long parliament. The great number of dissenters from the established religion rendered it a very reasonable measure.

[414] Thurloe, i. 369; iii. 132.

[415] Journals, 2nd and 10th Dec. 1653; Whitelock. See the sixth volume of the Somers Tracts, p. 266, for a long and rather able vindication of this parliament by one of its members. Ludlow also speaks pretty well of it (p. 471); and says, truly enough, that Cromwell frightened the lawyers and clergy, by showing what the parliament meant to do with them, which made them in a hurry to have it destroyed. See also Parl. Hist. 1412, 1414.

[416] See the instrument of government in Whitelock, p. 571; or Somers Tracts, vi. 257. Ludlow says, that some of the officers opposed this; but Lambert forced it down their throats. P. 276. Cromwell made good use of this temporary power. The union of Scotland with England was by one of these ordinances, April 12 (Whitelock, 586); and he imposed an assessment of £120,000 monthly, for three months, and £90,000 for the next three, instead of £70,000, which had been paid before (Id. 591), besides many other ordinances of a legislative nature. "I am very glad," says Fleetwood (Feb. 1655, Thurloe, iii. 183), "to hear his highness has declined the legislative power, which by the instrument of government, in my opinion, he could not exercise after this last parliament's meeting." And the parliament of 1656, at the Protector's desire, confirmed all ordinances made since the dissolution of the long parliament. Thurloe, vi. 243.

[417] I infer this from the report of a committee of privileges on the election for Lynn, Oct. 20, 1656. See also Journals, Nov. 26, 1654.

[418] It is remarkable that Clarendon seems to approve this model of a parliament, saying, "it was then generally looked upon as an alteration fit to be more warrantably made, and in a better time."

[419] Bordeaux, the French ambassador, says, "some were for Bradshaw as speaker, but the Protector's party carried it for Lenthall. By this beginning one may judge what the authority of the lord protector will be in this parliament. However it was observed that as often as he spoke in his speech of liberty or religion, the members did seem to rejoice with acclamations of joy." Thurloe, v. 588. But the election of Lenthall appears by Guibbon Goddard's Journal, lately published in the Introduction to Burton's Diary, to have been unanimous.

[420] Journals, 14th and 18th Sept.; Parl. Hist. 1445, 1459; Whitelock, 605, etc.; Ludlow, 499; Goddard's Journal, 32.

[421] This division is not recorded in the Journals, in consequence, I suppose, of its having been resolved in a committee of the whole house. But it is impossible to doubt the fact, which is referred to Oct. 19 by a letter of Bourdeaux, the French ambassador (Thurloe, ii. 681), who observes, "Hereby it is easily discerned that the nation is nowise affected to his family, nor much to himself. Without doubt he will strengthen his army, and keep that in a good posture." It is also alluded to by Whitelock, 609. They resolved to keep the militia in the power of the parliament, and that the Protector's negative should extend only to such bills as might alter the instrument; and in other cases, if he did not pass bills within twenty days, they were to become laws without his consent. Journals, Nov. 10, 1654; Whitelock, 608. This was carried against the court by 109 to 85.

Ludlow insinuates that this parliament did not sit out its legal term of five months; Cromwell having interpreted the months to be lunar instead of calendar. Hume has adopted this notion; but it is groundless, the month in law being always of twenty-eight days, unless the contrary be expressed. This seems, however, not to have been generally understood at the time; for Whitelock says that Cromwell's dissolution of the parliament, because he found them not so pliable to his purposes as he expected, caused much discontent in them and others; but that he valued it not, esteeming himself above those things. P. 618. He gave out that the parliament were concerned in the conspiracy to bring in the king.

[422] Exiles are seldom scrupulous: we find that Charles was willing to propose to the States, in return for their acknowledging his title, "such present and lasting advantages to them by this alliance as may appear most considerable to that nation and to their posterity, and a valuable compensation for whatever present advantages the king can receive by it." Clarendon State Papers, iii. 90. These intrigues would have justly made him odious in England.

[423] Ormond wrote strongly to this effect, after the battle of Worcester, convinced that nothing but foreign assistance could restore the king. "Amongst protestants there is none that hath the power, and amongst the catholics it is visible." Carte's Letters, i. 461.

[424] Clarendon State Papers, ii. 481 et sæpe alibi. The protestant zeal of Hyde had surely deserted him; and his veracity in one letter gave way also. See vol. iii. p. 158. But the great criminality of all these negotiations lay in this, that Charles was by them soliciting such a measure of foreign aid as would make him at once the tyrant of England and the vassal of Spain; since no free parliament, however royalist, was likely to repeal all the laws against popery. "That which the king will be ready and willing to do, is to give his consent for the repeal of all the penal laws and statutes which have been made in the prejudice of catholics, and to put them into the same condition as his other subjects." Cottington to Father Bapthorpe. Id. 541. These negotiations with Rome were soon known; and a tract was published by the parliament's authority, containing the documents. Notwithstanding the delirium of the restoration, this had made an impression which was not afterwards effaced.

[425] Clarendon State Papers, iii. 181.

[426] "The pope very well knows," says Hyde to Clement, an agent at the court of Rome, 2nd April 1656, "how far the king is from thoughts of severity against his catholic subjects; nay, that he doth desire to put them into the same condition with his other subjects, and that no man shall suffer in any consideration for being a Roman catholic." Id. 291.

[427] Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, b. 14; State Papers, iii. 265, 300, etc. Whitelock observes at this time, "Many sober and faithful patriots did begin to incline to the king's restoration;" and hints, that this was his opinion, which excited Cromwell's jealousy of him. P. 620.

[428] Clarendon's History, vii. 129; State Papers, iii. 265, etc. These levellers were very hostile to the interference of Hyde and Ormond, judging them too inflexibly attached to the ancient constitution; but this hostility recommended them to others of the banished king's court who showed the same sentiments.

[429] Pp. 315, 324, 343; Thurloe, i. 360, 510. In the same volume (p. 248) we find even a declaration from the king, dated at Paris, 3rd May 1654, offering £500 per annum to any one who should kill Cromwell, and pardon to any one who should leave that party, except Bradshaw, Lenthall, and Haslerig. But this seems unlikely to be authentic: Charles would not have avowed a design of assassination so openly; and it is strange that Lenthall and Haslerig, especially the former, should be thus exempted from pardon, rather than so many regicides.

[430] See what Clarendon says of Ascham's death. State Papers, ii. 542. In another place he observes: "It is a worse and a baser thing that any man should appear in any part beyond sea under the character of an agent from the rebels, and not have his throat cut." Id. iii. 144.

[431] State Trials, 518; Thurloe, ii. 416. Some of the malecontent commonwealth men were also eager to get rid of Cromwell by assassination; Wildman, Saxby, Titus. Syndercome's story is well known; he was connected in the conspiracy with those already mentioned. The famous pamphlet by Titus, "Killing no Murder," was printed in 1657. Clarendon State Papers, 315, 324, 343.

[432] A very reprehensible passage occurs in Clarendon's account of this transaction (vol. vii. p. 140), where he blames and derides the insurgents for not putting Chief Justice Rolle and others to death, which would have been a detestable and useless murder.

[433] Whitelock, 618, 620; Ludlow, 513; Thurloe, iii. 264, and through more than half the volume, passim. In the preceding volume we have abundant proofs how completely master Cromwell was of the royalist schemes. The "sealed knot" of the king's friends in London is mentioned as frequently as we find it in the Clarendon Papers at the same time.

[434] Thurloe, iii. 371, etc. "Penruddock and Grove," Ludlow says, "could not have been justly condemned, if they had as sure a foundation in what they declared for, as what they declared against. But certainly it can never be esteemed by a wise man to be worth the scratch of a finger to remove a single person acting by an arbitrary power, in order to set up another with the same unlimited authority."—P. 518. This is a just and manly sentiment. Woe to those who do not recognise it! But is it fair to say that the royalists were contending to set up an unlimited authority?

[435] They were originally ten, Lambert, Desborough, Whalley, Goffe, Fleetwood, Skippon, Kelsey, Butler, Worseley, and Berry. Thurloe, iii. 701. Barkstead was afterwards added. "The major-generals," says Ludlow, "carried things with unheard-of insolence in their several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and interrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who pretended themselves aggrieved; threatening such as would not yield a ready submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica, or some other plantations in the West Indies," etc.—P. 559.

[436] Thurloe, vol. iv. passim. The unpopularity of Cromwell's government appears strongly in the letters of this collection. Duckinfield, a Cheshire gentleman, writes: "Charles Stuart hath 500 friends in these adjacent counties for every one friend to you amongst them." Vol. iii. 294.

[437] It may be fair towards Cromwell to give his own apology for the decimation of the royalists, in a declaration, published 1655. "It is a trouble to us to be still rubbing upon the old sore, disobliging those whom we hoped time and patience might make friends; but we can with comfort appeal to God, and dare also to their own consciences, whether this way of proceeding with them hath been the matter of our choice, or that which we have sought an occasion for; or whether, contrary to our own inclinations and the constant course of our carriage towards them, which hath been to oblige them by kindness to forsake their former principles, which God hath so often and so eminently bore witness against, we have not been constrained and necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof we should have been wanting to our duty to God and these nations.

"That character of difference between them and the rest of the people which is now put upon them is occasioned by themselves, not by us. There is nothing they have more industriously laboured in than this; to keep themselves distinguished from the well-affected of this nation: To which end they have kept their conversation apart; as if they would avoid the very beginnings of union, have bred and educated their children by the sequestered and ejected clergy, and very much confined their marriages and alliances within their own party, as if they meant to entail their quarrel, and prevent the means to reconcile posterity; which with the great pains they take upon all occasions to lessen and suppress the esteem and honour of the English nation in all their actions and undertakings abroad, striving withal to make other nations distinguish their interest from it, gives us ground to judge that they have separated themselves from the body of the nation; and therefore we leave it to all mankind to judge whether we ought not to be timely jealous of that separation, and to proceed so against them as they may be at the charge of those remedies which are required against the dangers they have bred."

[438] Ludlow, 528; Clarendon, etc. Clarendon relates the same story, with additional circumstances of Cromwell's audacious contempt for the courts of justice, and for the very name of magna charta.

[439] State Trials, vi.; Whitelock advised the protector to proceed according to law against Hewit and Slingsby; "but his highness was too much in love with the new way."—P. 673.

[440] The late editor of the State Trials, v. 935, has introduced a sort of episodical dissertation on the administration of justice during the commonwealth, with the view, as far as appears, of setting Cromwell in a favourable light. For this purpose he quotes several passages of vague commendation from different authors, and among others one from Burke, written in haste, to serve an immediate purpose, and evidently from a very superficial recollection of our history. It has been said that Cromwell sought out men of character from the party most opposite to his designs. The proof given is the appointment of Hale to be a puisné judge. But Hale had not been a royalist, that is, an adherent of Charles, and had taken the engagement as well as the covenant. It was no great effort of virtue to place an eminent lawyer and worthy man on the bench. And it is to be remembered that Hale fell under the usurper's displeasure for administering justice with an impartiality that did not suit his government; and ceased to go the circuit, because the criminal law was not allowed to have its course.

[441] Thurloe writes to Montague (Carte's Letters, ii. 110) that he cannot give him the reasons for calling this parliament, except in cipher. He says in the same place of the committal of Ludlow, Vane, and others, "There was a necessity not only for peace sake to do this, but to let the nation see those that govern are in good earnest, and intend not to quit the government wholly into the hands of the parliament, as some would needs make the world believe."—P. 112. His first direct allusion to the projected change is in writing to Henry Cromwell, 9th Dec. 1656. Thurl. Papers, v. 194. The influence exerted by his legates, the major-generals, appears in Thurloe, v. 299 et post. But they complained of the elections. Id. 302, 341, 371.

[442] Whitelock, 650; Parl. Hist. 1486. On a letter to the speaker from the members who had been refused admittance at the door of the lobby, Sept. 18, the house ordered the clerk of the commonwealth to attend next day with all the indentures. The deputy clerk came accordingly, with an excuse for his principal, and brought the indentures; but on being asked why the names of certain members were not returned to the house, answered that he had no certificate of approbation for them. The house on this sent to inquire of the council why these members had not been approved. They returned for answer, that whereas it is ordained by a clause in the instrument of government that the persons who shall be elected to serve in parliament shall be such and no other than such as are persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; that the council, in pursuance of their duty, and according to the trust reposed in them, have examined the said returns, and have not refused to approve any who have appeared to them to be persons of integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; and those who are not approved, his highness hath given order to some persons to take care that they do not come into the house. Upon this answer, an adjournment was proposed, but lost by 115 to 80: and it being moved that the persons, who have been returned from the several counties, cities, and boroughs to serve in this parliament, and have not been approved, be referred to the council for approbation, and that the house do proceed with the great affairs of the nation; the question was carried by 125 to 29. Journals, Sept. 22.

[443] Clar. State Papers, iii. 201, etc.

[444] The whole conference that took place at Whitehall, between Cromwell and the committee of parliament on this subject, was published by authority, and may be read in the Somers Tracts, vi. 349. It is very interesting. The lawyers did not hesitate to support the proposition, on the ground of the more definite and legal character of a king's authority. "The king's prerogative," says Glyn, "is known by law; he (King Charles) did expatiate beyond the duty; that's the evil of the man: but in Westminster Hall the king's prerogative was under the courts of justice, and is bounded as well as any acre of land, or anything a man hath, as much as any controversy between party and party: and therefore the office being lawful in its nature, known to the nation, certain in itself, and confined and regulated by the law, and the other office not being so, that was a great ground of the reason why the parliament did so much insist upon this office and title, not as circumstantial, but as essential."—P. 359. See also what Lenthall says (p. 356) against the indefiniteness of the protector's authority.

Those passages were evidently implied censures of the late course of government. Cromwell's indistinct and evasive style in his share of this debate betrays the secret inclinations of his heart. He kept his ultimate intentions, however, very secret; for Thurloe's professes his ignorance of them, even in writing to Henry Cromwell. Vol. vi. p. 219 et post. This correspondence shows that the prudent secretary was uneasy at the posture of affairs, and the manifest dissatisfaction of Fleetwood and Desborough, which had a dangerous influence on others less bound to the present family; yet he had set his heart on this mode of settlement, and was much disappointed at his master's ultimate refusal.

[445] Clarendon's Hist. vii. 194. It appears by Clarendon's private letters that he had expected to see Cromwell assume the title of king from the year 1654. Vol. iii. pp. 201, 223, 224. If we may trust what is here called an intercepted letter (p. 328), Mazarin had told Cromwell that France would enter into a strict league with him, if he could settle himself in the throne, and make it hereditary; to which he answered, that he designed shortly to take the crown, restore the two houses, and govern by the ancient laws. But this may be apocryphal.

[446] Clar. vii. 203.

[447] Ludlow, p. 581. The major-generals, or at least many of them, joined the opposition to Cromwell's royalty. Id. p. 586; Clar. State Papers, 332.

[448] This appears from the following passage in a curious letter of Mr. Vincent Gookin to Henry Cromwell, 27th Jan. 1657. "To-morrow the bill for decimating the cavaliers comes again into debate. It is debated with much heat by the major-generals, and as hotly almost by the anti-decimators. I believe the bill will be thrown out of the house. In my opinion those that speak against the bill have much to say in point of moral justice and prudence; but that which makes me fear the passing of the bill is, that thereby his highness's government will be more founded in force, and more removed from that natural foundation which the people in parliament are desirous to give him; supposing that he will become more theirs than now he is, and will in time find the safety and peace of the nation to be as well maintained by the laws of the land as by the sword. And truly, sir, if any others have pretensions to succeed him by their interest in the army, the more of force upholds his highness living, the greater when he is dead will be the hopes and advantages for such a one to effect his aim, who desires to succeed him. Lambert is much for decimations." Thurloe, vi. 20. He writes again, "I am confident it is judged by some that the interest of the godly cannot be preserved but by the dissolution of this, if not all, parliaments; and their endeavours in it have been plainly discovered to the party most concerned to know them; which will, I believe, suddenly occasion a reducing of the government to kingship, to which his highness is not averse. Pierpoint and St. John have been often, but secretly, at Whitehall, I know, to advise thereof."—P. 37. Thurloe again to the same Henry Cromwell, on February 3, that the decimation bill was thrown out by a majority of forty: "Some gentlemen do think themselves much trampled upon by this vote, and are extremely sensible thereof; and the truth is, it hath wrought such a heat in the house, that I fear little will be done for the future." Id. p. 38. No such bill appears, eo nomine, in the journals. But a bill for regulating the militia forces was thrown out, Jan. 29, by 124 to 88, Col. Cromwell (Oliver's cousin) being a teller for the majority. Probably there was some clause in this renewing the decimation of the royalists.

[449] Whitelock, who was consulted by Cromwell on this business, and took an active part as one of the committee of conference appointed by the House of Commons, intimates that the project was not really laid aside. "He was satisfied in his private judgment that it was fit for him to take upon him the title of king, and matters were prepared in order thereunto; but afterwards, by solicitation of the commonwealth's men, and fearing a mutiny and defection of a great part of the army, in case he should assume that title and office, his mind changed, and many of the officers of the army gave out great threatenings against him in case he should do it; he therefore thought it best to attend some better season and opportunity in this business, and refused it at this time with great seeming earnestness."—P. 656. The chief advisers with Cromwell on this occasion, besides Whitelock, were Lord Broghill, Pierrepont, Thurloe, and Sir Charles Wolseley. Many passages in Thurloe (vol. vii.) show that Cromwell preserved to the last his views on royalty.

[450] Whitelock, 657. It had been agreed, in discussing the petition and advice in parliament, to postpone the first article requesting the protector to assume the title of king, till the rest of the charter (to use a modern but not inapplicable word) had been gone through. One of the subsequent articles, fixing the revenue at £1,300,000 per annum, provides that no part thereof should be raised by a land-tax, "and this not to be altered without the consent of the three estates in parliament." A division took place, in consequence, no doubt, of this insidious expression, which was preserved by 97 to 50. Journals, 13th March. The first article was carried, after much debate on March 24, by 123 to 62. It stood thus: "Resolved, That your highness will be pleased to assume the name, style, dignity, and office of king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the respective dominions and territories thereunto belonging; and to exercise the same according to the laws of these nations." On Cromwell's first demurring to the proposal, it was resolved to adhere to the petition and advice by the small majority of 78 to 65. This was perhaps a sufficient warning that he should not proceed.

[451] Journals, 21st June. This oath, which effectually declared the parliament to be the protector's subjects, was only carried by 63 to 55. Lambert refused it, and was dismissed the army in consequence, with a pension of £2000 per annum, instead of his pay, £10 a day. So well did they cater for themselves. Ludlow, 593. Broderick wrote to Hyde, June 30, 1657, that there was a general tranquillity in England, all parties seeming satisfied with the compromise; Fleetwood and Desborough more absolutely Cromwell's friends than before, and Lambert very silent. Clar. State Papers, 349.

[452] Thurloe, vi. 310.

[453] Compare Journals, 11th March with 24th June.

[454] Whitelock, 665. They were to have a judicial power, much like that of the real House of Lords. Journals, March.

[455] Whitelock; Parl. Hist. The former says this was done against his advice. These debates about the other house are to be traced in the Journals, and are mentioned by Thurloe, vi. 107, etc.; and Ludlow, 597. Not one of the true peers, except Lord Eure, took his seat in this house; and Haslerig, who had been nominated merely to weaken his influence, chose to retain his place in the Commons. The list of these pretended lords in Thurloe, vi. 668, is not quite the same as that in Whitelock.

[456] This junto of nine debated how they might be secure against the cavaliers. One scheme was an oath of abjuration; but this it was thought they would all take: another was to lay a heavy tax on them: "a moiety of their estates was spoken of; but this, I suppose, will not down with all the nine, and least of all will it be swallowed by the parliament, who will not be persuaded to punish both nocent and innocent without distinction." 22nd June, Thurloe, vol. vii. p. 198. And again, p. 269: "I believe we are out of danger of our junto, and I think also of ever having such another. As I take it, the report was made to his highness upon Thursday. After much consideration, the major part voted that succession in the government was indifferent whether it were by election or hereditary; but afterwards some would needs add that it was desirable to have it continued elective; that is, that the chief magistrate should always name his successor; and that of hereditary avoided; and I fear the word 'desirable' will be made 'necessary,' if ever it come upon the trial. His highness finding he can have no advice from those he most expected it from, saith he will take his own resolutions, and that he can no longer satisfy himself to sit still, and make himself guilty of the loss of all the honest party and of the nation itself."

[457] Harris, p. 348, has collected some curious instances of the servility of crowned heads to Cromwell.

[458] See Clarendon, vii. 297. He saved Nismes from military execution on account of a riot, wherein the Huguenots seem to have been much to blame. In the treaty between England and France, 1654, the French, in agreeing to the secret article about the exclusion of the royalists, endeavoured to make it reciprocal, that the commissioners of rebels in France should not be admitted in England. This did not seem very outrageous—but Cromwell objected that the French protestants would be thus excluded from imploring the assistance of England, if they were persecuted; protesting, however, that he was very far from having any thought to draw them from their obedience, as had been imputed to him, and that he would arm against them, if they should offer frivolously and without a cause to disturb the peace of France. Thurloe, iii. 6. In fact, the French protestants were in the habit of writing to Thurloe, as this collection testifies, whenever they thought themselves injured, which happened frequently enough. Cromwell's noble zeal in behalf of the Vaudois is well known. See this volume of Thurloe, p. 412, etc. Mazarin and the catholic powers in general endeavoured to lye down that massacre; but the usurper had too much protestant spirit to believe them. Id. 536.

[459] Ludlow, 607; Thurloe, i. and ii. passim.

[460] Mrs. Macauley, who had nothing of compromise or conciliation in her temper, and breathed the entire spirit of Vane and Ludlow, makes some vigorous and just animadversions on the favour shown to Cromwell by some professors of a regard for liberty. The dissenting writers, such as Neal, and in some measure Harris, were particularly open to this reproach. He long continued (perhaps the present tense is more appropriate) to be revered by the independents. One who well knew the manners he paints, has described the secret idolatry of that sect to their hero-saint. See Crabbe's Tale of the Frank Courtship.

Slingsly Bethell, an exception perhaps to the general politics of this sect, published in 1667 a tract, entitled "The World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell," with the purpose of decrying his policy and depreciating his genius. Harleian Miscellany, i. 280. But he who goes about to prove the world mistaken in its estimate of a public character has always a difficult cause to maintain. Bethell, like Mrs. Macauley and others, labours to set up the Rump parliament against the soldier who kicked them; and asserts that Cromwell, having found £500,000 in ready money, with the value of £700,000 in stores, and the army in advance of their pay (subject, however, to a debt of near £500,000); the customs and excise bringing in nearly a million annually, left a debt which, in Richard's parliament, was given in at £1,900,000, though he believes this to have been purposely exaggerated in order to procure supplies. I cannot say how far these sums are correct; but it is to be kept in mind, that one great resource of the parliament, confiscation, sequestration, composition, could not be repeated for ever. Neither of these governments, it will be found on inquiry, were economical, especially in respect to the emoluments of those concerned in them.

[461] Whitelock, 674; Ludlow, 611, 624. Lord Fauconberg writes in cipher to Henry Cromwell, on Aug. 30, that "Thurloe has seemed resolved to press him in his intervals to such a nomination (of a successor); but whether out of apprehensions to displease him if recovering, or others hereafter, if it should not succeed, he has not yet done it, nor do I believe will." Thurloe, however, announces on Sept. 4, that "his highness was pleased before his death to declare my Lord Richard successor. He did it on Monday; and the Lord hath so ordered it, that the council and army hath received him with all manner of affection. He is this day proclaimed, and hitherto there seems great face of peace; the Lord continue it." Thurloe State Papers, vii. 365, 372. Lord Fauconberg afterwards confirms the fact of Richard's nomination. P. 375; and see 415.

[462] "Many sober men that called his father no better than a traitorous hypocrite, did begin to think that they owed him [R. C.] subjection," etc. Baxter, 100.

[463] Hutchinson, 343. She does not name Pierrepont, but I have little doubt that he is meant.

[464] Richard's conduct is more than once commended in the correspondence of Thurloe, pp. 491, 497; and in fact he did nothing amiss during his short administration.

[465] Thurloe, vii. 320 et post, passim, in letters both from himself and Lord Fauconberg. Thus, immediately on Richard's accession, the former writes to Henry Cromwell, "It hath pleased God hitherto to give his highness your brother a very easy and peaceable entrance upon his government. There is not a dog that wags his tongue, so great a calm we are in.... But I must needs acquaint your excellency that there are some secret murmurings in the army, as if his highness were not general of the army as his father was," etc. P. 374. Here was the secret: the officers did not like to fall back under the civil power, by obeying one who was not a soldier. This soon displayed itself openly; and Lord Fauconberg thought the game was over as early as Sept. 28. P. 413. It is to be observed that Fauconberg was secretly a royalist, and might hope to bring over his brother-in-law.

[466] Id. 573.

[467] Lord Fauconberg says, "the commonwealth men in the parliament were very numerous, and beyond measure bold, but more than doubly overbalanced by the sober party; so that, though this make their results slow, we see no great cause as yet to fear."—P. 612. And Dr. Barwick, a correspondent of Lord Clarendon, tells him the republicans were the minority, but all speakers, zealous and diligent—it was likely to end in a titular protector without militia or negative voice. P. 615.

According to a letter from Allen Broderick to Hyde (Clar. St. Pap. iii. 443) there were 47 republicans, from 100 to 140 neuters or moderates (including many royalists), and 170 court lawyers, or officers.

[468] Ludlow tells us, that he contrived to sit in the house without taking the oath, and that some others did the same. P. 619.

[469] Whitelock, Parl. Hist. 1530, 1541.

[470] The numbers are differently, but, I suppose, erroneously stated in Thurloe, vii. 640. It is said, in a pamphlet of the time, that this clause was introduced to please the cavaliers, who acted with the court; Somers Tracts, vi. 482. Ludlow seems also to think that these parties were united in this parliament (p. 629); but this seems not very probable, and is contrary to some things we know. Clarendon had advised that the royalists should try to get into parliament, and there to oppose all raising of money, and everything else that might tend to settle the government. Clar. State Papers, 411. This of course was their true game.

It is said that, Richard pressing the Earl of Northumberland to sit in the other house, he declined, urging that when the government was such as his predecessors had served under, he would serve him with his life and fortune. Id. 433.

[471] Parl. Hist.; Journals, 27 Jan., 14, 18 Feb., 1, 8, 21, 23, 28 March. The names of the tellers in these divisions show the connections of leading individuals: we find indifferently presbyterian and republican names for the minority, as Fairfax, Lambert, Nevil, Haslerig, Townshend, Booth.

[472] There seems reason to believe that Richard would have met with more support both in the house and among the nation, if he had not been oppressed by the odium of some of his father's counsellors. A general indignation was felt at those who had condemned men to death in illegal tribunals, whom the republicans and cavaliers were impatient to bring to justice. He was forced also to employ and to screen from vengeance his wise and experienced secretary Thurloe, master of all the secret springs that had moved his father's government, but obnoxious from the share he had taken in illegal and arbitrary measures. Petitions were presented to the house from several who had been committed to the Tower upon short written orders, without any formal warrant, or expressed cause of commitment. In the case of one of these, Mr. Portman, the house resolved that his apprehension, imprisonment, and detention in the Tower was illegal and unjust. Journals, 26 Feb. A still more flagrant tyranny was that frequently practised by Cromwell of sending persons disaffected to him as slaves to the West Indies. One Mr. Thomas petitioned the House of Commons, complaining that he had been thus sold as a slave. A member of the court side justified it on the score of his being a malignant. Major-General Browne, a secret royalist, replied that he was nevertheless an Englishman and free-born. Thurloe had the presumption to say that he had not thought to live to see the day, when such a thing as this, so justly and legally done by lawful authority, should be brought before parliament. Vane replied that he did not think to have seen the day, when free-born Englishmen should be sold for slaves by such an arbitrary government. There were, it seems, not less than fifty gentlemen, sold for slaves at Barbadoes. Clarendon State Papers, p. 447. The royalists had planned to attack Thurloe for some of these unjustifiable proceedings, which would have greatly embarrassed the government. Ibid, 423, 428. They hoped that Richard would be better disposed towards the king, if his three advisers, St. John, Thurloe, and Pierrepont, all implacable to their cause, could be removed. But they were not strong enough in the house. If Richard, however, had continued in power, he must probably have sacrificed Thurloe to public opinion; and the consciousness of this may have led this minister to advise the dissolution of the parliament, and perhaps to betray his master, from the suspicion of which he is not free.

It ought to be remarked what an outrageous proof of Cromwell's tyranny is exhibited in this note. Many writers glide favourably over his administration, or content themselves with treating it as an usurpation, which can furnish no precedent, and consequently does not merit particular notice; but the effect of this generality is, that the world forms an imperfect notion of the degree of arbitrary power which he exerted; and I believe there are many who take Charles the First, and even Charles the Second, for greater violators of the laws than the protector. Neal and Harris are full of this dishonest bigotry. Since this note was first printed, the publication of Burton's Diary has confirmed its truth, which had rashly been called in question by a passionate and prejudiced reviewer. See Vol. iv. p. 253, etc.