[1] For the state of Puritanism during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth I must refer the reader to my former Volumes. I take up the thread of the History where I dropped it, at the death of Oliver Cromwell.
[2] Cromwellian Diary, iii., Int. v. viii.
[3] Letter to Hyde, Cosin's Works, iv. 465.
[4] Proclamation for the better Encouraging of Godly Ministers, Nov. 25. In the notes of the speech of the Protector to the Officers of the Army (Thurloe, vii. 447), "Liberty of Conscience, as we are Christians," is one of the heads.
[5] Thurloe, vii. 4:4.
[6] Ludlow, ii. 618.
[7] Cromwellian Diary, iii. 1.
[8] Ibid., 10.
[9] Cromwellian Diary, iii. 13, Jan. 28.
[10] Ibid., 83, 138, Feb. 5.
[11] Cromwellian Diary, iii. 403, Feb. 21.
[12] Guizot's Richard Cromwell, &c. i. 103.
[13] Cromwellian Diary, iv. 328, April 2.
[14] Ibid., iii. 177, Feb. 9.
[15] Ibid., 448, Feb. 22; 494, Feb. 26.
[16] Cromwellian Diary, iii. 87, et seq., Feb. 7th and 9th.
[17] Guizot's Richard Cromwell and the Restoration, i. 91, March 16. No other historian has so patiently traced the steps by which the Stuarts were restored as this eminent Frenchman.
[18] Clarendon's State Papers, iii. 440, March 18.
[19] This petition to Richard followed the humble representation presented on the 6th of April.
[20] Prynne got in for a few hours, and had an angry altercation with Haselrig and Vane.
[21] Parl. Hist., iii. 1553.
[22] Of the popularity of Fleetwood amongst "Anabaptists and other sectaries," and of the importance attributed to him by lookers on, there are illustrations in the correspondence of the French ambassador,—Guizot, i. 246.
[23] Howe's Life, by Rogers, 94.
[24] Rogers, 91. Noble's Protectorate House, i. 172, 180, 176.
[25] Noticed in an article on Keble in Macmillan's Magazine for March, 1869. Baxter speaks favourably of Richard Cromwell. His wife, who died in 1676, whilst he was abroad, is spoken of as a prudent, godly, practical Christian. It appears from one of her letters, that, after the Protectorate, she "wanted some scholar or godly man to reside at Hursley, to minister spiritual consolation under her present sorrows."—Noble, i. 343.
[26] Neal (iv. 209) relates this, and thinks the story probable; but Orme, in his Life of Owen, p. 213, disputes it. Respecting what Baxter says about Owen (Life and Times, i. 101) see an Historical Account of my own Life, by Calamy, i. 378.
[27] As I am not aware of these important entries having been published by any one else I introduce them here:—
June 7th—"This day," so runs the record, "the Church received a letter from the Church at Wallingford House, desiring advice from the Church what they apprehended was needful for the Commonwealth; the Church considering it, ordered the elders to write to them, thanking them for their love and care of them; and also desiring to give the right-hand of fellowship with them; but concerning civil business the Church, as a Church, desire not to meddle with."
July 10th—"Ordered by the Church upon the receipt of a letter from the Church at Wallingford House, that Wednesday, the 13th of July, should be set apart to humble our souls before the Lord, both in regard of the sins of the nation, and also for our own sins, as also to seek the Lord for direction and assistance for the carrying on the Lord's work in the nation."
[28] This confession will be noticed in the next volume in the account given of the development of Congregationalism.
[29] MS. Yarmouth Independent Church Records, Dec. 28, 1659. As to the opinions of Independents on these questions during the Commonwealth see the former volumes of this Ecclesiastical History.
[30] Owen's Works, xix. 385–393.
[31] Hist. of the Rebellion (Oxford Edit., 1843), 855–6. The documents are without date. They are placed by Clarendon under the year 1658.
[32] Ibid., 857.
[33] Neal (iv. 195) alludes to this affair, and regards it as an artifice to get money "out of the poor King's purse." Crosby (ii. 91) speaks of the Baptists as making "overtures to the King for his restoration," but does not relate any particulars. The modern historian of the Baptists, Dr. Evans, as far as I can find, says nothing upon the subject.
[34] Lingard, xi. 156.
[35] Newcome's Autobiography, i. 117.
[36] Dated November 1st, 1659. Thurloe, vii. 771.
[37] December 14th, 1659. Ibid., 795.
[38] December 16th, 1659. Ibid., 797.
[39] Thorndike's Works, vol. ii. part i., preface.
[40] May 4. Barwick's Life, 401; Thorndike, vi. 219.
[41] Barwick's Life, 449.
[42] Barwick, 201, 218, 412. Various difficulties felt at the time by the Bishops are mentioned in the letters printed in the appendix to Barwick's Life.
[43] Barwick, 413, 424.
[44] Ibid., 517, 519, 525.
[45] 1659, Nov. 9 & 18, Dec. 9. 1660, Feb. 3.
[46] Ludlow, ii. 674.
[47] See pamphlets: The Leveller; The Rota; or, Model of a Free State; and Gallicantus seu præcursor Gallicinii Secundus.
[48] State Papers, Dom. Interreg., No. 659.
[49] See prices in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, B. I. c. II.
[50] Guizot, ii. 62.
[51] Price says Christmas-day. Hist. of the King's Restoration, 72.
[52] Numerous illustrations of the state of feeling at the time might be culled from these and other pamphlets of the period. Some of them are printed in the Harleian Miscellany. Some are noticed and described in Kennet's Register. A large collection of them may be found in the British Museum.
[53] Price's Mystery and Method of His Majesty's Happy Restoration, 79, 80.
[54] Neal (iv. 238–242) says that when Monk had joined the Presbyterians, and the Independents saw that they were betrayed, they offered to support their friends in Parliament, and to raise four new regiments for the purpose of resisting the General's designs. He further states that Owen and Nye consulted with Whitelocke and St. John, and engaged to procure £100,000 to support the Army, if the Army would again undertake the defence of religious liberty; but he gives no authority for what he relates.
[55] Coverdale's Version.
[56] Price, 86, 87.
[57] Quoted in Guizot, ii. 122.
[58] Pepys' Diary, i. 22, Saturday, Feb. 11.
[59] Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, 362.
[60] Milton's Ready and Easy Way, &c. Works, i. 589.
[61] Parl. Hist., iii. 1580.
[62] Baxter's Life and Times, i. 105; ii. 214.
[63] 1660, April 8. Thurloe, vii. 892. The rest of the letter is interesting, and shows how much personal feeling was mixed up in court intrigues.
[64] Life and Times, ii. 207, 215. It is curious that as the Presbyterians suspected the King, so the King suspected the Presbyterians. See letter by Kingstoun, April 8, just referred to.
[65] See Valley of Baca, a pamphlet published about that time.
[66] See a "Declaration," which is worth reading, printed in Kennet's Register, 121 (April 24), with a long list of noble signatures.
[67] All this Baxter describes with great simplicity in his Life and Times, ii. 216.
[68] See correspondence between Sharp and Douglas, in the months of March and April, Kennet's Register, 78–124.
[69] Thurloe, vii. 872, 873.
[70] April 8, Thurloe, vii. 889.
[71] April 6, Ibid., 887.
[72] Price's Mystery and Method of His Majesty's Happy Restoration, 136.
[73] See Lives of him by Gumble and by Price. Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was a confidant of Monk, and Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson tells us that he assured her husband, even after Monk's designs became apparent, that there was no intention besides a Commonwealth, and that if the violence of the people should bring the King in, he would perish body and soul rather than see a hair of any man's head touched, or a penny of any man's estate forfeited through the quarrel. Hutchinson held Cooper "for a more execrable traytor than Monke himselfe."—Memoirs, 360.
Aubrey, putting down his recollections of what he heard at the time from Royalist agents in London, says, "I remember, in the main, that they were satisfied he no more intended or designed the King's restoration, when he came into England, or first came to London, than his horse did." Letters iii. 454. I have no doubt that, in February, Monk thought of restoring the King; but before that date I am inclined to believe he was waiting to see which way the wind blew. Whatever hypothesis may be adopted as to his intentions, it must be admitted that he acted the part of a thoroughly untruthful man. Guizot, in his life of Monk, represents him as a Royalist at heart throughout the whole of the business. Of course Monk, after he openly took the King's side, would wish to be so regarded.
[74] Ludlow's Memoirs, ii. 865.
[75] Guizot, ii. 411.
[76] See in Appendix notice of a letter in the State Paper Office referring to projected insurrections.
[77] See Journals of both Houses, 1st of May. When examining, some years ago, the papers in the House of Lords, belonging to that period, I saw the original letter from Charles, but not the Declaration.
[78] Clarendon's Hist., 904.
[79] Burnet's Hist. of his Own Time, i. 88.
[80] Kennet's Register, 129. Sharp afterwards became Archbishop Sharp.
[81] Worcester MS.
[82] Public Intelligencer, No. 20. Newcome's Diary, published by the Cheetham Society, and Life of Philip Henry, 59.
[83] Hale's reflections on the crisis may be seen in his Memoirs by Williams, 63–65.
[84] Pepys' Diary (May 15) i. 62.
[85] Kennet's Register, 146.
[86] In The Secret History of the Reign of Charles II. and James II., 1690—a book not very trustworthy—we have the original of the story, often repeated, respecting Mr. Case, "who, with the rest of the brethren coming where the King lay, and desiring to be admitted into the King's presence, were carried into the chamber next or very near to the King's closet, but told withal that the King was busy at his devotions, and that till he had done they must be contented to stay. Being thus left alone, by contrivance no doubt, and hearing a sound of groaning piety, such was the curiosity of Mr. Case, that he would needs go and lay his ear to the closet door. By heavens, how was the good old man ravished to hear the pious ejaculations that fell from the King's lips: 'Lord, since Thou art pleased to restore me to the throne of my ancestors, grant me a heart constant in the exercise and protection of thy true Protestant religion. Never may I seek the oppression of those who out of tenderness to their consciences, are not free to conform to outward and indifferent ceremonies.'"
[87] Kennet's Register under date May 20th.
[88] Barwick's Life, 270, 520.
[89] Buckingham's Works, ii. 55. See Harris's Lives, v. 52, et seq., for evidence as to his being a Papist.
[90] See what Harris has collected on this subject, v. 13 et seq.
[91] Character of Charles II., 56.
[92] "23rd. General Monk marched from London, with a gallant train of attendants to meet the King. It is said that several fanatics intermingled themselves with the troops, but were discovered, whereof three killed, and some hurt, and three taken, who do confess the design was to pistol the King. 24th. One to be put to the rack for discovery. It is said the King escaped a plot of some Frenchmen at the Hague to pistol the King in his coach, but discovered by one who was in presence once hearing them, and they suspecting him, shot him as dead, but recovering to speak, discovered their intentions. From all such or any other, God ever preserve and protect his pious Majesty!"—Worcester MS.
[93] Kennet, 160–164.
[94] Butler's Hist. Memorials of the Catholics, iii. 23.
[95] From Godly ministers in Exeter and Devonshire.—State Papers, Dom. Charles II., 1660, vol. i. 28.
—State Papers, Dom. Charles II., vol i. No. 36.
[97] (Signed) John Angier, Nathaniel Heywood, Henry Newcome, Nathaniel Baxter, and many others. Peter Aspinwall signs himself "minister of Formby, where now more people go openly to Mass than to our Church." State Papers xxiv., 29.
[98] A new Act, touching the Royal Supremacy, was passed in the Scotch Parliament, January, 1661 (See Murray's Collection of the Acts), but that does not come within the limits of our history.
[99] Stat. 26 Henry VIII. c. i., repealed 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, c. viii., ss. 12–20. That Act was repealed by 1 Elizabeth c. i., ss. 1, 2. Except in certain particulars, provision is made for the ecclesiastical Supremacy of the Crown by 1 Elizabeth c. i., ss. 16-23.—Digest of Statutes ii., 1387. The doctrine of the Royal Supremacy arose as a counter-action of the doctrine of Papal Supremacy; and nothing in its way can be more dignified and noble than the preface to the Statute 24 Henry VIII., c. 12. The conflict between Papal Supremacy and national English Independence began long before the Reformation.
[100] Charles I. in 1646, 30.
[101] Clarendon's State Papers, ii. 237.
[102] Hist. of his own Times, i. 95.
[103] Ibid. Compared with Clarendon (1220), who gives a long character of Southampton.
[104] Clarendon, 1005.
[105] Burnet, i. 97.
[106] Ibid., 96. Burnet, who knew Ashley, afterwards Lord Shaftesbury, states the last particular upon the authority of conversations with him.
[107] July 9, 16. Parl. Hist. iv. 79, 84.
[108] 12 Charles II. c. 17.—Upon the 26th of May Mr. Prynne made a report touching the quiet possession of ministers, schoolmasters, and other ecclesiastical persons, in sequestered livings, until they, on order, should be legally convicted; and two days afterwards allusion was made in a further report from the same member to several riots which had "been committed, and forcible entries made upon the possessions of divers persons, ecclesiastical and temporal;" when an order to prevent such disturbances in future was recommitted, to be put into the form of a proclamation "to be offered to the King's Majesty."—Commons' Journals, May 26th & 28th, 1660; This was for the benefit of the Presbyterians, but the current of feeling in the House was setting in the other direction.
[109] There is an account in Calamy of Abraham Wright, Incumbent of Cheavely, Cambridgeshire, being turned out of his living, because it did not appear to the Justices that he was in orders, and of his commencing an action for the recovery of his tithes: and against Mr. Deken, who had been substituted in his place, "for the making good his title to the living."—Cont. of the Account, 158, et seq.
[110] Hunter's Life of Heywood, 125.
[111] Kennet, 204.—I am indebted for the following note to the Dean of Westminster, to whom it was communicated by the Rector of Acton: "Mr. Philip Nye appears to have been made Rector of Acton soon after the Battle of Brentford, in the room of Dr. Daniel Featley (or Fairclough), who held Lambeth Rectory as well. There is a curious entry in the Register, which I append;—'April, 165—, Richard Meredith, esquire, eldest son of Sr. William Meredith...Baronet, was marryed unto Mrs. Susanne Skippon, youngest daughter of right honourable Major General Philip Skippon [Traytor] by Sr. John Thoroughgood [Knave] in the publick congregation within the Parish Church at Acton...Mr. Philip Nye at the same time praying and teaching upon that occasion.' The interpolations, 'Traytor' and 'Knave,' are, of course, by a different hand, and are always attributed by me to Dr. Bruno Ryves (one of Charles the Second's Chaplains?) who was appointed Rector of Acton at the Restoration. To the same Dr. Ryves is attributed the erasure of all 'Lord' Francis Rous' titles on a tablet in Acton Church, the said Lordship being of Cromwell's creation.
E. P."
[112] Journals of the Lords, Sept. 1.
[113] Ibid., June 4.—The Earl of Manchester was restored to the Chancellorship, and he immediately issued warrants for the restoration of ejected Heads and Fellows.
[114] Between the 25th of June, 1660, and the 2nd of March, 1661, no less than 121 Doctors of Divinity were created by the King's mandate, and 39 degrees were conferred on other faculties.—Kennet's Reg. Cooper's Cambridge, iii. 481.
[115] Kennet's Register, 293.
[116] D'Oyley's Life of Sancroft, i. 123.—A curious story about Stephen Scanderet, of Trinity College, Cambridge, is related by Calamy, Account, 655.
[117] Journals under date.
[118] Read a second time 6th July. Journals. It came to nothing.
[119] Kennet's Register, 200.
[120] "Resolved, That it be referred to the Grand Committee, to whom the Bill for Sales is committed, to receive proposals from any of the purchasers of the estates of Bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons, and from any the ecclesiastical persons themselves, or from any others; touching satisfaction to be given to the purchasers of any public lands; and, on consideration thereof, to report their opinion to the House."—Commons' Journals, August 6th, 1660.
[121] Kennet, 312.
[122] Harris, iv. 345.—"Almost all the leases of the Church estates over England were fallen in, there having been no renewal for twenty years. The leases for years were determined. And the wars had carried off so many men, that most of the leases for lives were fallen into the incumbents' hands. So that the Church estates were in them: And the fines raised by the renewing the leases rose to about a million and a half. It was an unreasonable thing to let those who were now promoted carry off so great a treasure. If the half had been applied to the buying of tithes or glebes for small Vicarages, here a foundation had been laid down for a great and effectual reformation."—Burnet, i. 186. Burnet's statements on this subject are very general. So are those made by Clarendon from his point of view. (1047.) No doubt the ecclesiastical bodies on the one side, and the tenants on the other, tried to make the best bargain they could. In the Library of Canterbury Cathedral is a curious collection of letters respecting leases, which throw light on this point. Persons plead their sufferings under the Commonwealth, and pray for the renewal of their leases on the most favourable terms. See in our next vol. (under the year 1677) notice of an Act for augmenting small incomes.
[123] Amongst the State Papers, Dom. Charles II., vol. lxxv. 69, there is an account by John Cosin, Bishop of Durham, of the true state of the present revenues of his see. They diminished £1,000 a year, through resumption of lands by Queen Elizabeth, who afterwards regranted them on a rental of £880; he lost £2,000 by taking away the Court of Ward and Liveries, the revenues of which in the County Palatine belonged to the Bishops; he prays that as the King receives £1,500 a year excise money, as given in lieu of the Court of Wards in Durham, the rental of £880, paid by the Bishops, should be remitted.
[124] Calendar Dom., 1660–1661, 218–236.
[125] Kennet, 162. The other names given by Baxter (Life and Times, ii. 229) are Wallis, Bates, Manton, Case, Ash, all of whom accepted; and Newcomen, who declined the office. Neal (iv. 263) gives the name of Woodbridge.
[126] Life and Times, ii. 229. Amongst the Baxter MSS. in Dr. Williams' library, I have seen a note, apparently relating to the period now before us. Baxter said:—The late Archbishop Ussher and he had in an hour's time agreed on the most easy terms. These words were printed. Episcopal Divines called on him to know what the terms were, i.e., Dr. Gauden, Dr. Gouldson, Dr. Helen, Dr. Bernard, &c. They expressed great delight, and were willing to make abatements necessary thereto. Some men of greater power stept in and frustrated all. Mr. Calamy thought the best way was to interest and engage the King on the matter. It was mentioned to him accordingly. Calamy consulted the London ministers, and it was agreed that Ussher's reduction should be offered as a ground of union. This was laid before the King with other proposals, but the Lord Chancellor would not allow the matter to be taken into consideration.