No. 162 -163. r-J«?«»WIW mm j *w X« l! " ' ***** ttWf ^=s cr=^=! E- :=3 r;:=r=s £=3 <=a tf=^a I . r ; '■": *.•*»•* MAYNARD'S EnouSH-Classjc-Seb h ; ;s ilp j Mr! *A X *& . 7 «c in Mil J§&*~~9 :• f J »HMi II „Sd 111 dmmmm m 9N Hs#i3£1 mm MM \\WM BY Lord Macaulay .BMW 1{P1e3=e^ jMjl l& ! ■ ; IP, flii llil »; w •; i s mm 11^ ill KEW YORK fp PIPS Maynard, Merriix 6c Co, 43,45 & 47 Bast jLOIS St. MftPMNKtOM iK>-'>n«iiu«af*«a MailinfiWse 24cU. ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, FOB Classes in English Literature, Beading, Grammar, etc* EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SOHOLARS. Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, Prefatory and Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ■ &&- i §Jjap..7.vi_'_. ©ojajrirffi Ifo. 1 Byron** Prophecy of Dante. (Cantos I. and II.) 2 Milton's L' Allegro, and II Pen- seroso. 3 Lord Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral. (Selected.) 4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 5 Moore's Fire "Worshippers, (Lalla Rookh. Selected.) 6 Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 7 Scott's Marmion. (Selections from Canto VI.) 8 Scott's Lav of the Last TVTinRtrel. (Intr 9 Burra and i 10 CrabL 11 Camp (Abr 12 Macai Pilg 13 Macai Poen 14 Shake nice III.,i 15 Golds 16 Hogg' men 17 Colerl 18 Addis ley. 19 Gray's JEiegy in a Uountry Churchyard. 20 Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Canto 21 Shakespeare's As Ton Like It, etc. (Selections.) 22 Shakespeare's King John, and Richard II. (Selections.) 23 Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- ry V., Henry VI. (Selections.) 24 Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 25 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 26 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 27 Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos I. and IL) 28 Cowper's Task. (BookL) 29 Milton's Comus. 30 Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, and Tithonus. (Seleo- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 31 living's Sketch Book. tions.) 32 Dickens's Christmas Carol. (Condensed.) 33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. (Condensed.) 35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- field. (Condensed.) 36 Tennyson's The Two Voices, and A Dream of Fair Women. 37 Memory Quotations. lander's Feast, 1 knoe. Ib of St. Agnes. 1 of Sleepy Hol- from Shake- to Teach Read- ier Hill Ora- j Orthoepist. A Unciation. as, and Hymn y. itopsis, and other era Painters. Pa- 49 The Shakespeare Speaker. 50 Thackeray's Roundabout pers. 51 Webster's Oration on Adams and Jefferson. 52 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 53 Morris's Life and Death of Jason. 54 Burke's Speech on American Taxation. 55 Pope's Rape of the Lock* 56 Tennyson's Elaine. 57 Tennyson's In Memorlam. 58 Church's Story of the ^Eneid. 59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput. 61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- con. (Condensed.) 62 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- lish Version by Eev. R. Potter Ji. A. (.Additional numbers on next page.) English Classic Series-continued^ OS The Antigone of Sophocles. English Version by Thos. Franck- lin, D.D. 64 Elizabeth Barrett Browning'. (Selected Poems.) 65 Robert Browning. (Selected Poems.) 66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec'ns.) 67 Scenes from George Eliot's Adam Bede. 68 Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy. 69 DeCjuincey's Joan of Arc. 70 Carlyle's Escsy on Burns. 71 Byron's Childe Harold's Pil- grimage. 72 Poe'o Raven, and other Poems. 73 & 74 Macaulay's Lord Olive. (Double Number.) 75 Webster's Reply to Hayne; 76 & 77 Macaulay's Lays of An- cient Rome. (Double Number.) 78 American Pa' *•' "tic Selections: Declaration of Independence, "Washington's Farewell Ad- dress, Lincoln's Gottysburg Speech, etc. 79 & 80 Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Condensed.) 81 & 82 Scott's Marmion. (Con- densed.) 83 & 84 Pope's Essay on Man. 85 Shelley's Skylark, Adonals, and other Poems. 86 Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth. 87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style* 88 Lamb's Essays of Elia. 89 Cowp er's Task, Book II. 90 Wordsworth's Selected Poems, 91 Tennyson's The Holy Grail, and Sir Galahad. 92 Addison's Cato. 93 Irving's Westminster Abbey, and Christmas Sketches. 94 & 95 Macaulay's Earl ,of Chat- ham. Second Essay. 96 Early English Ballads. 97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey* (Selected Poems.) 98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 99 Caxton and Daniel. (Selections.) 100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 101 Marlowe's Jew of Malta. (Con- densed.) 102-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- ton. 104-105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- dison. 106 Macaulay's Essay on Bos- well's Johnson. 107 Mandeville's Travels and Wy- cliffe's Bible. (Selections.) 10C 109 Macaulay's Essay on Fred- erick tho Great. 110-111 Milton's Samson Agonis- tes. I 112-113-114 Franklin's Autobiog- raphy. 115-116 Herodotus's Stories of Croesus, Cyrus, and Babylon. 117 Irving' s Alhambra. 118 Burke's Present Discontents. 110 Burke's Speech on Concilia-;; tion with American Colonies. 120 Macaulay's Essay on Byron. 121-122 Motley's Peter the Great. 123 Emerson's American Scholar. 124 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. 125-126 Longfellow's Evangeline. 127 Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales. (Selected.) 128 Tennyson's The Coming of Arthur, and Tho Passing of Arth-T. 129 L well's The Vision of Sir Launfal, and other Poems. 130 VJhittier's Songs of Labor, and other Poems. 131 Word, of Abraham Lincoln 13 Grimm's German Fairy Tales. (Selected.) 1Z" 2Li!sop' Fables. (Selected.) 13v> Arabian Nights. Aladdin, or th Wonderful Lamp. 135-3C Tho Psalter. 137-38 Scott's Ivanhoe. (Con- densed:) m M 139-40 Scott's Kenilworth. (Con- densed.) ,„ 141-42 Scott's The Talisman. (Con- 143 Gods and Heroes of the North. 144-45 Pope's Iliad of Homer. (Selections from Books I.-VIII.) 146 Four Medheval Chroniclers. 147 Dante's Inferno. (Condensed.) 148-49 The Book of Job. (Revised Version.) _ 150 Bow- Wow and Mew-Mew. By Georgiana M. Craik. 151 The Niirnberg Stove. ByOuida. 152 Hayne's Speech. To which Webster replied. 153 Alice's Adventures in Won- derland. (Condensed,) By Lewis Carroll. 154-155 Defoe's Journal of the Plague. (Condensed.) 156-157 More' s Utopia. (Con- densed.) ADDITIONAL NUMBERS ON NEXT PAGE« MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— No. 162*163 MACAU LAY'S HISTORY CHAPTER I A BRIEF HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO 1660 ®$Ct& SSfograpf))?, Critical Opinions, autr 2£rj)lauatot£ Notes NEW YORK MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO, /v THE or congress) WASHINGTON #& A Complete Course in the Study of English. Spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature. Reed's Word Lessons— A Compleie Speller. Reed's Introductory Language Work. Reed & Kellogg's Graded Lessons in English. Reed & Kellogg's Higher Lessons in English. Reed &. Kellogg's One-Book Course in English. Kellogg & Reed's Word Building. Kellogg & Reed's The English Language. Kellogg's Text-Book on Rhetoric. Kellogg's Illustrations of Style. Kellogg's Text-Book on English Literature. In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language as to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictions which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these subjects, and which require, much time for explanation in the school- room, will be avoided by tlie use of the above " Complete Course." Teachers are earnestly' invited to examine these books. MAYNARD, MERRILL, & Co., Publishers, 43, 45, and 47 East Tenth St., New York. Copyright, 1895, by Maynard, Merrill, & Co. LIFE OF LORD MACAULAY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY was born at Kothley Temple, in Leicestershire, on October 25th, 1800. His father, Zachary Macaulay, was a prominent member of that band of friends who spent the greater part of their life in labouring for the emancipation of the negro slaves. The young Macaulay was thus brought up among men who instinctively sacrificed personal convenience and private interest to public duty, and never thought of admiring themselves for it. His childhood was passed in or near London. From the time that he was three years old he read incessantly, and remembered without effort what he had read. " The secret of his immense acquirements," writes his biographer, " lay in two invaluable gifts of Nature — an unerring memory, and the capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printed page. ... To the end he read books more quickly than other people skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast as anyone else could turn the leaves. ' He seemed to read through the skin,' said one who had often watched the operation. And this speed was not in his case obtained at the expense of accuracy." Yet he was no mere book- worm. He was indeed utterly incapable of playing any athletic games, and " the only exercise in which he can be said to have excelled was that of threading crowded streets IV LIFE OF LORD MACATJLAT. with his eyes fixed upon a book." But he possessed, and retained long after he had come to man's estate, the high spirits and gaiety of a boy. He was, to quote his sister's words, " to old and young alike the sunshine of our home." After some years at a small school, Macaulay went into residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October, 1818. He had no taste for mathematics. "Discipline of the mind ! " he writes ; " say rather starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation!" Though he was "gulfed" in the tripos, he won several University prizes and a fellowship at Trinity (1824), and brought away from Cambridge what was more important — "self-knowledge, accuracy of mind, and habits of strong intellectual exertion." His definition of a scholar is characteristic, " One who reads Plato with his feet in the fender." His abilities were soon recognised outside Cambridge, and in 1825 his essay on Milton appeared in the Edinburgh Review, which was then at the height of its power. " The effect on the author's reputation was instantaneous. Like Lord Byron, he awoke one morning and found himself famous." He was from this time a welcome guest in the best society in London, and in 1830 — on the eve of the great Reform Bill — he entered Parliament for the pocket- borough of Calne, as a Whig. "If he speaks half as well as he writes," said Disraeli, "the House will be in fashion again." Macaulay's first Reform speech (March 1st, 1831) electrified the House. "Portions of the speech," said Sir Robert Peel, "were as beautiful as anything I have ever heard or read. It reminded one of the old times." After the Reform Act, Macaulay stood for Leeds. His relations with the electors whose votes he was courting may be gathered from the following words: "The practice of LIFE OF LOED MACAULAY. V begging for votes," he wrote to them, " is, as it seems to me, absurd, pernicious, and altogether at variance with the true principles of representative government. ... I have plainly- declared my opinions. But I think it, at this conjuncture, my duty to declare that I will give no pledges. I will not bind myself to make or to support any particular motion." He was elected, and admitted to office as Secretary of the Board of Control. He could not have continued in public life without some office ; he was as yet a poor man, and his family were largely dependent on him for support. But he was soon placed in a very trying position. The Ministry, pledged to the emancipation of the West Indian negroes, brought in a half-hearted measure for that object. It was a measure which the Abolitionists could not accept, and Macaulay, closely connected with that party through his father, tendered his resignation and spoke against the Bill. He believed that this step would be fatal to his public career, but he did not hesitate. His speech was one of the few that have turned votes ; the Ministry altered their measure to suit his views, and refused to accept his resigna- tion. " I have more reason than ever," Macaulay wrote to his father, " to say that honesty is the best policy." f At the end of 1833 he accepted the important post of member of the Supreme Council of India, at a salary o ,£10,000 a year. In February, 1834, he left England with his sister, and returned in 1838. His work in these four years has left indelible marks on our Indian Empire. (1.) A great question was being debated when he came — Should Oriental learning be encouraged among the natives, or should European education be introduced, and European ways of thought consciously fostered 3 Macaulay threw himself into the European side, and worked with a will a 2 VI LIFE OF LORD MACAULAY. to plan and create an educational system for the country. He showed a grasp of principles and details, and a sound common sense, which placed him high up in a rank of administrators. "I must frankly own," he writes, "that I do not like the list of books. Grammars of rhetoric and grammars of logic are among the most useless furniture of a shelf. Give a boy Robinson Crusoe; that is worth all the grammars of rhetoric and logic in the world. We ought to procure such books as are likely to give the children a taste for the literature of the West." (2.) Macaulay further proposed, and was the chief agent in carrying out, the codification of the Criminal Law of India. This was published just before his departure. " It has cost me," he writes, "very intense labour, and, whatever its faults be, it is certainly not a slovenly performance." Sir James Stephen, speaking of the Indian Penal Code, says, " Its practical success has been complete." When Macaulay returned to England the Whig Ministry was already beginning to totter. " Office was never," he writes, "within my memory, so little attractive, and there- fore I fear I cannot, as a man of spirit, flinch if it is offered to me." Much against his inclination, he entered Parliament as member for Edinburgh, and became Secretary at War with a seat in the Cabinet (1839). He was the object of violent and stupid abuse. Day after day for weeks the leading newspaper could find no other name fur him than "Mr. Babbletongue Macaulay." He was quite indifferent. "You think," he wrote to a friend, "a great deal too much about the Times. What does it signify whether they abuse me or not % " The Whigs went out of office in 1841. Macaulay continued to sit for Edinburgh, and in 1846 joined Lord John Russell's ministry. On the LIFE OF LORD MACAULAY. Vll occasion of his re-election he wrote to his sister, "I am exceedingly well, and in high spirits. I had become some- what effeminate in literary repose and leisure. You would not know me again, now that my blood is up." But when at the General Election in 1847 he was defeated at Edin- burgh, he regarded his defeat as a release from " bondage." Throughout his life a constant struggle was going on within his mind between the claims of politics and the claims of literature, and his natural bias was towards the latter. "The Tories," he writes to his sister Hannah in 1833, "are quite welcome to take everything, if they will only leave me my pen and my books, a warm fireside, and you chattering beside it." When his sister Margaret died, he said, " Literature has saved my life and my reason. . . I am more than half determined to abandon politics, and to give myself wholly to letters. A life of literary repose would be most to my own taste. Of my literary repose I am, however, willing to sacrifice exactly as much as public duty requires me to sacrifice, but I will sacrifice no more " (1838). But his literary life was really closely intertwined with his political; for "history," to quote Freeman's well- known words, "is past politics, politics present history." And Macaulay as a writer was essentially a historian. " I have never written a page of criticism on poetry or the fine arts which I would not burn if I had the power" (1838). "He viewed the works both of man and of Nature with the eyes of an historian, and not of an artist." The famous Essays appeared in the Edinburgh Review between 1825 and 1844. The History was the chief work of his life from 1839 onwards. He hoped to bring it down to the death of George IV., and make it "an entire view of all the transactions which took place between the Revohition Vlll LIFE OF LORD MACAT7LAY. which brought the Crown into harmony with the Parlia- ment, and the Eevolution which brought the Parliament into harmony with the nation." He succeeded only in finishing the reign of William III. The first two volumes appeared in December, 1848, three thousand copies being sold in the first ten days. On April 27, 1850, Macaulay notes, "The sixth edition of the History is gone. That makes 22,000 copies." The next two volumes appeared in December, 1855. The edition of 25,000 copies was soon sold out. His hope expressed in 1841 was more than fulfilled — "I shall not be satisfied unless I produce some- thing which shall for a few days supercede the last fashion- able novel on the tables of young ladies." In 1857 he was made Baron Macaulay of Rothley. Many others shared in his great success ; no one in distress appealed to him in vain. His generosity was often abused. "However," as he notes in his diary, "I have been prosperous beyond the common lot of men, and may well assist those who have been out of luck." But a change had been coming over him. In 1852 he was seized with a dangerous illness. "I became twenty years older in a week." His health never recovered com- pletely. His faculties and his power of working remained unimpaired. From 1854 he worked harder than ever at his History, giving up all society, and almost all letter- writing, for "a work which was the business and pleasure of his life." He died on December 28th, 1859, rich in fame and fortune and the love of friends. "The great difficulty of a work of this kind," writes Macaulay of his projected History in 1838, "is the be- ginning." The first chapter, which is here printed, is probably the least valuable part of the work to a student of LIFE OF LORD MACAULAY. ix history. But it may well be doubted whether any other writer could have compressed into so short a space so brilliant and, on the whole, truthful a sketch of the revolutions of English history. The style is more allusive here than in most of his work, but this was inevitable. There is never any doubt about his meaning ; and, in his own words, "The first rule of all writing is, that the words used by the writer shall be such as most fully and precisely convey his meaning to the great body of his readers." Macaulay was justly gratified at receiving from some working men in Lancashire a vote of thanks "for having written a history which working men can understand." His style is also vivid and full of force, though without the lightning flashes of Carlyle. "I never write to please myself until my subject has for the time driven every other out of my head." He never left a sentence till it was as good as he could make it. "He thought little of re- casting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrange- ment, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of one happy stroke or apt illustration." Thus, quite apart from the drudgery of historical research, the famous style was not formed without difficulty. " What trouble," he exclaimed once, "these few pages will have cost me ! The great object is that, after all this trouble, they may read as if they had been spoken off, and may seem to flow as easily as table-talk." He aimed "at interesting and pleasing readers, whom ordinary histories repel." He succeeded in quickening in countless minds the love of literature and the desire for knowledge. CRITICAL OPINIONS The first and most obvious secret of Macaulay's place on popular bookshelves is that he has a true genius for narration, and narra- tion will always, in the eyes not only of our squatters in the Aus- tralian bush, but of the many all over the world, stand first among literary gifts. The common run of plain men, as has been noticed since the beginning of the world, are as eager as children for a story, and like children they will embrace the man who will tell them a story with abundance of details and plenty of color and a realistic assurance that it is no mere make-believe. Ma- caulay never stops to brood over an incident or a character with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth of motive and cause to the farthest complexity of impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The spirit of analysis is not in him, and the divine spirit of meditation is not in him. His whole mind runs in action and movement ; it busies itself with eager interest in all objective particulars. . . . Another reason why people have sought Macaulay is that he has in one way or another something to tell them about many of the most striking personages and interesting events in the history of mankind. And he does really tell them something. If any one will be at the trouble to count up the number of those names that belong to the world and time about which Macaulay has found not merely something, but something definite and pointed, to say, he will be astonished to see how large a portion of the wide historic realm is traversed in that ample flight of reference, allusions, and illustrations, and what unsparing copiousness of knowledge gives substance, meaning, and attraction to that blaze and glare of rhetoric. Macaulay came upon the world of letters just as the middle classes were expanding into enormous prosperity, were vastly x CEITICAL OPINIONS. XI increasing in numbers, and were becoming more alive than they had ever been before to literary interests. His essays are as good as a library ; they make an incomparable manual and vade-mecum for a busy uneducated man who has curiosity and enlightenment enough to wish to know a little about the great lives and great thoughts, the shining words and many- colored complexities of action, that have marked the journey of man through the ages. — John Morley. Wherever and whenever read, he will be read with fascina- tion, with delight, with wonder. And with copious reserve, with questioning scrutiny, with liberty to reject, and with much exer- cise of that liberty. The contemporary mind may in rare cases be taken by storm ; but posterity never. The tribunal of the present is accessible to influence ; that of the future is incorrupt. The coming generations will not give Macaulay up, but they will probably attach much less value than we have done to his ipse dixit. They will hardly accept from him his net solutions of literary, and still less of historic, problems, yet they will obtain from his marked and telling points of view great aid in solving them. We sometimes fancy that ere long there will be editions of his works in which his readers may be saved from pitfalls by brief, respectful, and judicious commentary, and that his great achievements may be at once commemorated and corrected by men of slower pace, of drier light, and of more tranquil, broadset, and comprehensive judgment. For his works are in many respects among the prodigies of literature ; in some they have never been surpassed. As lights that have shone through the whole universe of letters, they have made their title to a place in the solid firmament of fame. But the tree is greater and better than its fruit ; and greater and better yet than the works them- selves are the lofty aims and conceptions, the large heart, the independent, manful mind, the pure and noble career. — W. E. Gladstone. There is something almost sublime about the grand unreason- ableness of the average Englishman. His dogged contempt for all foreigners and philosophers, his intense resolution to have his own way and use his own eyes, to see nothing that does not come Xll CRITICAL OPINIONS. within his narrow sphere of vision, and to see it quite clearly be- fore he acts upon it, are of course abhorrent to thinkers of a dif- ferent order. But they are great qualities in the struggle for existence, which must determine the future of the world. The Englishman, armed in his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts with unequaled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is not to be trifled with. Ma- caulay's sympathy with these qualities led to some annoying pe- culiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a commonness, sometimes a vulgarity, of style which is easily criticised. But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colors reso- lutely and honorably. If he natters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine love of fair play. When he hates a man he calls him knave or fool with unflinching frank- ness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the man- liness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his countrymen. He is proud of the healthy, vigorous stock from which he springs, and the fervor of his enthusiasm, though it may shock a delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at bottom — indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud. — Leslie Stephen in " Hours in- a Library." CONTENTS Introduction • • « Britain under the Romans . • Britain under the Saxons . Conversion of the Saxons to Christianity Danish Invasions . The Normans The Norman Conquest Separation of England and Normandy Amalgamation of Races English Conquests on the Continent Wars of the Roses Extinction of Villenage Beneficial Operation of the Roman Catholic Religion Early English Polity often Misrepresented Limited Monarchies of the Middle Ages Prerogatives of the Early English Kings: How Limited Limitations not always Strictly Observed, and Why ? Resistance an Ordinary Check on Tyranny Peculiar Character of the English Aristocracy . The Government of the Tudors The Limited Monarchies of the Middle Ages generally turned into absolute monarchies The English Monarchy a Singular Exception The Reformation and its Effects . Origin of the Church of England . , Her Peculiar Character Relation in which She stood to the Crown . The Puritans .... Their Republican Spirit . ... No Systematic Parliamentary Opposition to the Govern ment of Elizabeth , , • • . PAGB V 8 4 5 9 10 11 14 15 16 19 20 21 23 26 26 28 31 34 36 66 CONTENTS. same Empire AFTER THE Commons Question of the Monopolies Scotland and Ireland become parts of the with England Diminution of the Importance of England Accession of James I. Doctrine of Divine Right Separation between Church and Puritans becomes wider Accession and Character of Charles I. Tactics of the Opposition in the House of Petition of Right and its Violation Sir Thomas Wentworth Character of Laud Sta.r Chamber and High Commission Ship Money Resistance to the Liturgy in Scotland Parliament Called and Dissolved . The Long Parliament First Appearance of the two great English Parties The Irish Rebellion The Remonstrance . . Impeachment of the Five Members Departure of Charles from London The Civil War . Successes of the Royalists • Rise of the Independents . • Oliver Cromwell . . • Self -Denying Ordinance . • Victory of the Parliament Domination and Character of the Army Proceedings against the King His Execution Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland Expulsion of the Long Parliament The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell Richard Cromwell General Monk The Elections of 1660 Restoration of the Kino Notes . HISTORY OF ENGLAND 1 CHAPTER I. I purpose to write the History of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long 5 struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, success- fully defended against foreign and domestic enemies ; how, 10 under that settlement, the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known ; how, from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs lo had furnished no example ; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers ; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together ; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united to D England, not merely by legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties 1 The text of the first edition has been followed on account of copyright. B 2 macaulay's history. of interest and affection ; how, in America, the British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the Fifth ; how, in Asia, British 5 adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than that of Alexander. Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters mingled with triumphs, and great national crimes and follies far more humiliating than any disaster. It will be 10 seen that even what we justly account our chief blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen that the system which effectually secured our liberties against the encroach- ments of kingly power gave birth to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarchies are exempt. It will be seen 15 that, in consequence partly of unwise interference, and partly of unwise neglect, the increase of wealth and the extension of trade produced, together with immense good, some evils from which poor and rude societies are free. It will be seen how, in two important dependencies of the 20 crown, wrong was followed by just retribution ; how imprudence and obstinacy broke the ties which bound the North American colonies to the parent state ; how Ireland, cursed by the domination of race over race, and of religion over religion, remained indeed a member of the empire, but 25 a withered and distorted member, adding no strength to the body politic, and reproachfully pointed at by all who feared or envied the greatness of England. Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this chequered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in GO all religious minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For the history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those who compare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age which 35 exists only in their imagination may talk of degeneracy and decay ; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. BRITAIN UNDER THE ROMANS. 3 I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have undertaken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the people as well as the 5 history of the government, to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations, and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in dress, furniture, 10 repasts, and public amusements. I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors. 15 The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a great and eventful drama extending through ages, and must be very imperfectly understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be well known. I shall, therefore, in- troduce my narrative by a slight sketch of the history of 20 our country from the earliest times. I shall pass very rapidly over many centuries ; but I shall dwell at some length on the vicissitudes of that contest which the administration of King James the Second brought to a decisive crisis. 25 Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness which she was destined to attain. Her in- habitants, when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the natives of the Sand- wich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman arms: 30 but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Caesars she was the last that was conquered, and the first that was flung away. No magnificent remains of Latian porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain. No 35 writer of British birth is reckoned among the masters of Latian poetry and eloquence. It is not probable that the islanders were at any time generally familiar with the 4 MACAULAY S HISTORY. tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, heen predominant. It drove out the Celtic; it was not driven out by the German ; and it is at this day the basis 5 of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gallic speech, and could not stand its ground against the Anglo-Saxon. The scanty and superficial civilization which the Britons 10 had derived from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the fifth century. In the continental king- doms into which the Roman empire was then dissolved, the conquerors learned much from the conquered race. In Britain the conquered race became as barbarous as the 15 conquerors. All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in the continental provinces of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theo- doric, Clovis, Alboin, were zealous Christians. The followers of Ida and Cerdic, on the other hand, brought 20 to their settlements in Britain all the superstitions of the Elbe. While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries, and Ravenna listened with rever- ence to the instructions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the 25 Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Odin and Zernebock. The continental kingdoms which had risen on the ruins of the Western empire kept up some intercourse with those 80 eastern provinces where the ancient civilization, though slowly fading away under the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct barbarians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocletian and Con- stantine, where the public buildings were still adorned with 35 the sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious pedants, themselves destitute of taste, sense, and spirit, could still read and interpret the master- pieces of Sophocles, of Demosthenes, and of Plato. From CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. O this communion Britain was cut off. Her shores were, to the polished race which dwelt by the Bosporus, objects of a mysterious horror, such as that with which the Ionians of the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla and the city of the Lsestrygonian cannibals. There was one province 5 of our island in which, as Procopius had been told, the ground was covered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could inhale it and live. To this desolate region the spirits of the departed were ferried over from the land of the Franks at midnight. A strange race of fishermen per- 10 formed the ghastly office. The speech of the dead was distinctly heard by the boatmen : their weight made the keel sink deep in the water ; but their forms were invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which an able his- torian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of Simplicius, and 15 of Tribonian, gravely related in the rich and polite Con- stantinople, touching the country in which the founder of Constantinople had assumed the imperial purple. Concern- ing all the other provinces of the Western Empire we have continuous information. It is only in Britain that an age 20 of fable completely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and Totila, Euric and Thrasimund, Clovis, Eredegonda, and Brunechild, are historical men and women. But Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, 25 and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus. At length the darkness begins to break : and the country which had been lost to view as Britain reappears as England. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to 30 Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the Church had been deeply corrupted both by that superstition and by that philo- sophy against which she had long contended, and over which she had at last triumphed. She had given a 35 too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Roman policy and Gothic ignorance, Grecian 6 MACAULAY S HISTORY. ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. Some things also 5 which at a later period were justly regarded as among her chief blemishes were, in the seventh century, and long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should encroach on the functions of the civil magis- trate would, in our time, be a great evil. But that which 10 in an age of good government is an evil may, in an age of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that mankind should be governed by wise laws well adminis- tered, and by an enlightened public opinion, than by priestcraft : but it is better that men should be governed by 15 priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendency. Such a class 20 will doubtless abuse its power : but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in corporeal strength. We read in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who 25 abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they had pur- chased by guilt, who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances and incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some writers who, while they GO boasted of liberality, were in truth as narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which, however deformed by superstition, in- 35 troduced strong moral restraints into communities previously governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like his meanest bondman, a responsible CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS. 7 being, might have seemed to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists. The same observations will apply to the contempt with which, in the last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages, the sanctuaries, the crusades, and the monastic 5 institutions of the middle ages. In times when men were scarcely ever induced to travel by liberal curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was better that the rude inhabitant of the North should visit Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than that he should never see anything but those squalid 10 cabins and uncleared woods amidst which he was born. In times when life and when female honour were exposed to daily risk from tyrants and marauders, it was better that the precinct of a shrine should be regarded with an irrational awe, than that there should be no refuge inaccessible to 15 cruelty and licentiousness. In times when statesmen were incapable of forming extensive political combinations, it was better that the Christian nations should be roused and united for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, than that they should, one by one, be overwhelmed by the Mahometan 20 power. Whatever reproach may, at a later period, have been justly thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely good that, in an age of ignorance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely cultivated, in which 25 gentle and contemplative natures could find an asylum, in which one brother could employ himself in transcribing the iEneid of Yirgil, and another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle, in which he who had a genius for art might illuminate a martyrology or carve a crucifix, and in 30 which he who had a turn for natural philosophy might make experiments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such retreats been scattered here and there, among the huts of a miserable peasantry, and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy, European society would have consisted 35 merely of beasts of burden and beasts of prey. The Church has many times been compared by divines to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis ; but never 8 macatjlay's history. was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble 5 germ from which a second and more glorious civilisation was to spring. Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was, in the dark ages, productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the nations of Western Europe in one 10 great commonwealth. What the Olympian chariot course and the Pythian oracle were to all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her Bishop were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides. Thus grew up sentiments of enlarged benevo- 15 lence. Races separated from each other by seas and mountains acknowledged a fraternal tie and a common code of public law. Even in war, the cruelty of the conqueror was not seldom mitigated by the recollection that he and his vanquished enemies were all members of one great 20 federation. Into this federation the Anglo-Saxons were now admitted. A regular communication was opened between our shores and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible. Many noble 25 monuments which have since been destroyed or defaced still retained their pristine magnificence ; and travellers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa, still glittering with 30 bronze, the mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns and statues, the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the rude English pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilised world which had passed away. The islanders returned, with awe deeply 35 impressed on their half opened minds, and told the won- dering inhabitants of the hovels of London and York that, near the grave of St. Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would never be dissolved till DANISH INVASIONS. V the judgment day. Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede, of Alcuin, and of John, surnamed Erigena, were justly celebrated throughout 5 Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in the ninth century, began the last great migration of the northern barbarians. During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, 10 by valour, by merciless ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country suffered, so much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay near to the ports whence they sailed ; nor was any shire so far distant from the sea as to be secure from attack. The same atrocities 15 which had attended the victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Civilisation, just as it began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank down once more. Large colonies of adventurers from the Baltic estab- 20 lished themselves on the eastern shores of our island, spread gradually westward, and, supported by constant reinforce- ments from beyond the sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole realm. The struggle between the two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted through six generations. Each was alternately 25 paramount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel retribution, provinces wasted, convents plundered, and cities rased to the ground, make up the greater part of the history of those evil days. At length the North ceased to send forth a constant stream of fresh depredators ; and from that time 30 the mutual aversion of the races began to subside. Inter- marriage became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons.; and thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and Saxon tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were blended together. But the 35 distinction between the two nations was by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both, in common slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third people. 10 MAC AUL AY'S HISTORY. The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valour and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long the 5 terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maes- tricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, 10 watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea which was their favourite element. In that province they founded a mighty state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying aside that dauntless valour which had been 15 the terror of every land from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they settled. Their courage secured their territory against foreign invasion. They established internal order, 20 such as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Christianity ; and with Christianity they learned a great part of what the clergy had to teach. They abandoned their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant element. 25 They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a barbarous jargon ; they fixed it in writing ; and they employed it in legislation, in poetry, and in romance. They renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the SO other branches of the great German family were too much inclined. The polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of 35 strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather than abundant, and wines remark- able rather for their exquisite flavour than for their THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 11 intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, and manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating 5 address. They were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of their historians that the Norman gentlemen were orators from the cradle. But their chief fame was derived from their 10 military exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and valour. One Norman knight, at the head of a handful of warriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught. Another founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the 15 emperors both of the East and of the West fly before his arms. A third, the Ulysses of the first crusade, was in- vested by his fellow soldiers with the sovereignty of Antioch ; and a fourth, the Tancred whose name lives in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated through Christendom 20 as the bravest and most generous of the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre. The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English princes received their education in 25 Normandy. English sees and English estates were bestowed on Normans. The French of Normandy was familiarly spoken in the palace of Westminster. The court of Kouen seems to have been to the court of Edward the Confessor what the court of Versailles long afterwards was to the 30 court of Charles the Second. The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation of a 35 nation by a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. The country was portioned out among the captains of the invaders. Strong military institutions, 12 MAC AUL AY'S HISTORY. closely connected with the institution of property, enabled the foreign conquerors to oppress the children of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced, guarded the privi- leges, and even the sports, of the alien tyrants. Yet 5 the subject race, though beaten down and trodden under foot, still made its sting felt. Some bold men, the favourite heroes of our oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and there, in defiance of curfew laws and forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppressors. 10 Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace. The corpses of many were found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for them, but generally in vain ; for 15 the whole nation was in a conspiracy to screen them. It was at length thought necessary to lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a person of French extraction should be found slain ; and this regulation was followed up by another regulation, providing that every person who was found 20 slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless he were proved to be a Saxon. During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of England rose, indeed, to an eminence 25 which was the wonder and dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far more powerful on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings 30 of France. Asia, as well as Europe, was dazzled by the power and glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers re corded with unwilling admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the victorious march to Ascalon ; and Arabian mothers long awed their infants to silence with the 35 name of the lionhearted Plantagenet. At one time it seemed that the line of Hugh Capet was about to end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 13 the Pyrenees. So strong an association is established in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and splendour of her foreign 5 masters, and has lamented the decay of that power and splendour as a calamity to our country. This is, in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Kamilies with 10 patriotic regret and shame. The Conqueror and his de- scendants to the fourth generation were not Englishmen : most of them were born in France : they spent the greater part of their lives in France : their ordinary speech was French : almost every high office in their gift was filled by 15 a Frenchman : every acquisition which they made on the Continent estranged them more and more from the popu- lation of our island. One of the ablest among them indeed attempted to win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English princess. But, by many of his barons, 20 this marriage was regarded as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would now be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known by the honourable sur- name of Beauclerc ; but, in his own time, his own country- men called him by a Saxon nickname, in contemptuous 25 allusion to his Saxon connection. Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, suc- ceeded in uniting all France under their government, it is probable that England would never have had an independent existence. Her princes, her lords, her prelates, would have 30 been men differing in race and language from the artisans and the tillers of the earth. The revenues of her great pro- prietors would have been spent in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine. The noble language of Milton and Burke would have remained a rustic dialect, without a 35 literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed orthography, and would have been contemptuously abandoned to the use of boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to 14 macaulay's history. eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman. England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which her historians have generally represented as 5 disastrous. Her interest was so directly opposed to the interest of her rulers that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The talents and even the virtues of her first six French Kings were a curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her salvation. Had 10 John inherited the great qualities of his father, of Henry Beauclerc, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even pos- sessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had the King of France at the same time been as incapable as all the other successors of Hugh Capet had 15 been, the House of Plantagenet must have risen to un- rivalled ascendency in Europe. But, just at this con- juncture, France, for the first time since the death of Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and ability. On the other hand, England, which, since 20 the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election 25 between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English as their countrymen. The two races, so long hostile, soon found that they had common in- 30 terests and common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king. Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The greatgrandsons of those who had fought under William and the greatgrandsons of those 35 who had fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in friendship; and the first pledge of their re- conciliation was the Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for their common benefit. AMALGAMATION OF KACES. 15 Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has scarcely ever existed between 5 communities separated by physical barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no country has the enmity of race been carried farther than 10 in England. In no country has that enmity been more com- pletely effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us. But it is certain that, ■ when John became King, the distinction between Saxons 15 and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentleman was, "May I become an English- man ! " His ordinary form of indignant denial was, " Do 20 you take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a hundred years later was proud of the English name. The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are 25 to be sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our country during the thirteenth century may not unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that we must 30 seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders, islanders not merely 35 in geographical position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all changes, 16 macaulay's history. preserved its identity ; that constitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any great society has ever yet existed during 5 many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy 10 rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of learning were 15 founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of 20 that noble literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many glories of England. Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was all but complete ; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to be mistaken, that a people inferior to none 25 existing in the world had been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons. There was, indeed, scarcely anything in common between the England to which John had been chased by Philip Augustus, and the England from 30 which the armies of Edward the third went forth to con- quer France. A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a great empire on the Continent. The 35 claim of Edward to the inheritance occupied by the House of Valois was a claim in which it might seem that his subjects were little interested. But the passion for conquest spread fast from the prince to the people. ENGLISH CONQUESTS ON THE CONTINENT. 17 The war differed widely from the wars which the Plan- tagenets of the twelfth century had waged against the descendants of Hugh Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the First, would have made England a province of France. The effect of the successes 5 of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with which, in the twelfth century, the conquerors from the Continent had regarded the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on the people of the Continent. Every 10 yeoman from Kent to Northumberland valued himself as one of a race born for victory and dominion, and looked down with scorn on the nation before which his ancestors had trembled. Even those knights of Gascony and Guienne who had fought gallantly under the Black Prince were 15 regarded by the English as men of an inferior breed, and were contemptuously excluded from honourable and lucra- tive commands. In no long time our ancestors altogether lost sight of the original ground of quarrel. They began to consider the crown of France as a mere appendage to the 20 crown of England ; and when, in violation of the ordinary law of succession, they transferred the crown of England to the House of Lancaster, they seem to have thought that the right of Richard the Second to the crown of France passed, as of course, to that house. The zeal and vigour 25 which they displayed present a remarkable contrast to the torpor of the French, who were far more deeply interested in the event of the struggle. The most splendid victories recorded in the history of the middle ages were gained at this time, against great odds, by the English armies. 30 Victories indeed they were of which a nation may justly be proud ; for they are to be attributed to the moral superiority of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in the lowest ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal 35 foe in Du Guesclin. But France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills. A French king was brought prisoner to London. An English king was 18 MACAULAY'S HISTORY. crowned at Paris. The banner of Saint George was carried far beyond the Pyrenees and the Alps. On the south of the Ebro the English won a great battle, which for a time decided the fate of Leon and Castile ; and the English 5 Companies obtained a terrible preeminence among the bands of warriors who let out their weapons for hire to the princes and commonwealths of Italy. Nor were the arts of peace neglected by our fathers during that stirring period. While France was wasted by war, till 10 she at length found in her own desolation a miserable defence against invaders, the English gathered in their harvests, adorned their cities, pleaded, traded, and studied in security. Many of our noblest architectural monuments belong to that age. Then rose the fair chapels of New 15 College and of Saint George, the nave of Winchester and the choir of York, the spire of Salisbury and the majestic towers of Lincoln. A copious and forcible language, formed by an infusion of French into German, was now the common property of the aristocracy and of the people. Nor was it 20 long before genius began to apply that admirable machine to worthy purposes. While English warriors, leaving behind them the devastated provinces of France, entered Valladolid in triumph, and spread terror to the gates of Florence, English poets depicted in vivid tints all the wide variety of 25 human manners and fortunes, and English thinkers aspired to know, or dared to doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and to believe. The same age which produced the Black Prince and Derby, Chandos and Hawkwood, produced also Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe. 30 In so splendid and imperial a manner did the English people, properly so called, first take place among the nations of the world. Yet while we contemplate with pleasure the high and commanding qualities which our forefathers displayed, we cannot but admit that the end which they 35 pursued was an end condemned both by humanity and by enlightened policy, and that the reverses which compelled them, after a long and bloody struggle, to relinquish the hope of establishing a great continental empire, were really WARS OF THE ROSES. 19 blessings in the guise of disasters. The spirit of the French was at last aroused : they began to oppose a vigorous national resistance to the foreign conquerors ; and from that time the skill of the English captains and the courage of the English soldiers were, happily for mankind, exerted in vain. 5 After many desperate struggles, and with many bitter regrets, our ancestors gave up the contest. Since that age no British government has ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of making great conquests on the Continent. The people, indeed, continued to cherish with pride the recollec- 10 tion of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt. Even after the lapse of many years it was easy to fire their blood and to draw forth their subsidies by promising them an expedition for the conquest of France. But happily the energies of our country have been directed to better objects ; and she now 15 occupies in the history of mankind a place far more glorious than if she had, as at one time seemed not improbable, acquired by the sword an ascendency similar to that which formerly belonged to the Roman republic. Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, 20 the warlike people employed in civil strife those arms which had been the terror of Europe. The means of profuse expenditure had long been drawn by the English barons from the oppressed provinces of France. That source of supply was gone : but the ostentatious and 25 luxurious habits which prosperity had engendered still remained ; and the great lords, unable to gratify their tastes by plundering the French, were eager to plunder each other. The realm to which they were now confined would not, in the phrase of Comines, the most judicious observer of that 30 time, suffice for them all. Two aristocratical factions, headed by two branches of the royal family, engaged in a long and fierce struggle for supremacy. As the animosity of those factions did not really arise from the dispute about the succession, it lasted long after all ground of dispute 35 about the succession was removed. The party of the Red Rose survived the last prince who claimed the crown in right of Henry the Fourth. The party of the White Rose 20 macaulay's history. survived the marriage of Richmond and Elizabeth. Left without chiefs who had any decent show of right, the adherents of Lancaster rallied round a line of bastards, and the adherents of York set up a succession of impostors. 5 When, at length, many aspiring nobles had perished on the field of battle or by the hands of the executioner, when many illustrious houses had disappeared for ever from history, when those great families which remained had been exhausted and sobered by calamities, it was universally 10 acknowledged that the claims of all the contending Plan- tagenets were united in the house of Tudor. Meanwhile a change was proceeding infinitely more momentous than the acquisition or loss of any province, than the rise or fall of any dynasty. Slavery and the 15 evils by which slavery is everywhere accompanied were fast disappearing. It is remarkable that the two greatest and most salutary social revolutions which have taken place in England, that revolution which, in the thirteenth century, put an end 20 to the tyranny of nation over nation, and that revolution which, a few generations later, put an end to the property of man in man, were silently and imperceptibly effected. They struck contemporary observers with no surprise, and have received from historians a very scanty measure of attention. 25 They were brought about neither by legislative regulation nor by physical force. Moral causes noiselessly effaced first the distinction between Norman and Saxon, and then the distinction between master and slave. None can venture to fix the precise moment at which either distinction ceased. 30 Some faint traces of the old Norman feeling might perhaps have been found late in the fourteenth century. Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious so late as the days of the Stuarts ; nor has that institution ever, to this hour, been abolished by CO statute. It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the chief agent in these two great deliverances was religion; and it may perhaps be doubted whether a purer religion EXTINCTION OF VILLENAGE. 21 might not have been found a less efficient agent. The benevolent spirit of the Christian morality is undoubtedly adverse to distinctions of caste. But to the Church of Rome such distinctions are peculiarly odious ; for they are incompatible with other distinctions which are essential to 5 her system. She ascribes to every priest a mysterious dignity which entitles him to the reverence of every layman ; and she does not consider any man as disqualified, by reason of his nation or of his family, for the priesthood. Her doctrines respecting the sacerdotal character, however 10 erroneous they may be, have repeatedly mitigated some of the worst evils which can afflict society. That superstition cannot be regarded as unmixeclly noxious which, in regions cursed by the tyranny of race over race, creates an aris- tocracy altogether independent of race, inverts the relation 15 between the oppressor and the oppressed, and compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tribunal of the hereditary bondman. To this day, in some countries where negro slavery exists, Popery appears in advantageous contrast to other forms of Christianity. It is notorious 20 that the antipathy between the European and African races is by no means so strong at Eio Janeiro as at Washington. In our own country this peculiarity of the Roman Catholic system produced, during the middle ages, many salutary effects. It is true that, shortly after the battle of Hastings, 25 Saxon prelates and abbots were violently deposed, and that ecclesiastical adventurers from the Continent were intruded by hundreds into lucrative benefices. Yet even then pious divines of Norman blood raised their voices against such a violation of the constitution of the Church, refused to 30 accept mitres from the hands of William, and charged him, on the peril of his soul, not to forget that the van- quished islanders were his fellow Christians. The first protector whom the English found among the dominant caste was Archbishop Anselm. At a time when the 35 English name was a reproach, and when all the civil and military dignities of the kingdom were supposed to belong exclusively to the countrymen of the Conqueror, the 22 macaulay's history. despised race learned, with transports of delight, that one of themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had been elevated to the papal throne, and had held out his foot to be kissed by ambassadors sprung from the noblest houses of Normandy. 5 It was a national as well as a religious feeling that drew great multitudes to the shrine of Becket, whom they regarded as the enemy of their enemies. Whether he was a Norman or a Saxon may be doubted : but there is no doubt that he perished by Norman hands, and that the Saxons cherished 10 his memory with peculiar tenderness and veneration, and, in their popular poetry, represented him as one of their own race. A successor of Becket was foremost among the refractory magnates who obtained that charter which secured the privileges both of the Norman barons and of the Saxon 15 yeomanry. How great a part the Roman Catholic ecclesi- astics subsequently had in the abolition of villenage we learn from the unexceptionable testimony of Sir Thomas Smith, one of the ablest Protestant councillors of Elizabeth. When the dying slaveholder asked for the last sacraments, his 20 spiritual attendants regularly adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate his brethren for whom Christ had died. So successfully had the Church used her formidable machinery that, before the Reformation came, she had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom except 25 her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very tenderly treated. There can be no doubt that, when these two great revolutions had been effected, our forefathers were by far the best governed people in Europe. During three hundred 80 years the social system had been in a constant course of improvement. Under the first Plantagenets there had been barons able to bid defiance to the sovereign, and peasants degraded to the level of the swine and oxen which they tended. The exorbitant power of the baron had been 35 gradually reduced. The condition of the peasant had been gradually elevated. Between the aristocracy and the working people had sprung up a middle class, agricultural and commercial. There was still, it may be, more inequality EARLY ENGLISH POLITY OFTEN MISREPRESENTED. 23 than is favourable to the happiness and virtue of our species : but no man was altogether above the restraints of law ; and no man was altogether below its protection. That the political institutions of England were, at this early period, regarded by the English with pride and 5 affection, and by the most enlightened men of neighbour- ing nations with admiration and envy, is proved by the clearest evidence. But touching the nature of those insti- tutions there has been much dishonest and acrimonious controversy. 10 The historical literature of England has indeed suffered grievously from a circumstance which has not a little con- tributed to her prosperity. The change, great as it is, which her polity has undergone during the last six centuries, has been the effect of gradual development, not of demolition and 15 reconstruction. The present constitution of our country is, to the constitution under which she flourished five hundred years ago, what the tree is to the sapling, what the man is to the boy. The alteration has been great. Yet there never was a moment at which the chief part of what existed was not old. 20 A polity thus formed must abound in anomalies. But for the evils arising from mere anomalies we have ample compensation. Other societies possess written constitutions more symmetrical. But no other society has yet succeeded in uniting revolution with prescription, progress with 25 stability, the energy of youth with the majesty of immemorial antiquity. This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks : and one of those drawbacks is that every source of information as to our early history has been poisoned by party spirit. As 30 there is no country where statesmen have been so much under the influence of the past, so there is no country where historians have been so much under the influence of the present. Between these two things, indeed, there is a natural connection. Where history is regarded merely as a 35 picture of life and manners, or as a collection of experiments from which general maxims of civil wisdom may be drawn, a writer lies under no very pressing temptation to misrepre- 24 macaulay's history. sent transactions of ancient date. But where history ig regarded as a repository of titledeeds, on which the rights of governments and nations depend, the motive to falsification becomes almost irresistible. A Frenchman is not now impelled 5 by any strong interest either to exaggerate or to underrate the power of the kings of the house of Yalois. The privileges of the States General, of the States of Britanny, of the States of Burgundy, are to him matters of as little practical importance as the constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim or 10 of the Amphictyonic Council. The gulph of a great revolution completely separates the new from the old system. No such chasm divides the existence of the English nation into two distinct parts. Our laws and customs have never been lost in general and irreparable ruin. With us the 15 precedents of the middle ages are still valid precedents, and are still cited, on the gravest occasions, by the most eminent statesmen. For example, when King George the Third was attacked by the malady which made him incapable of performing his regal functions, and when the most distin- 20 guished lawyers and politicians differed widely as to the course which ought, in such circumstances, to be pursued, the Houses of Parliament would not proceed to discuss any plan of regency till all the precedents which were to be found in our annals, from the earliest times, had been 25 collected and arranged. Committees were appointed to examine the ancient records of the realm. The first case reported was that of the year 1217 : much importance was attached to the cases of 1326, of 1377, and of 1422 : but the case which was justly considered as most in point was 30 that of 1455. Thus in our country the dearest interests of parties have frequently been staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries. The inevitable consequence was that our antiquaries conducted their researches in the spirit of partisans. 85 It is therefore not surprising that those who have written concerning the limits of prerogative and liberty in the old polity of England should generally have shown the temper, not of judges, but of angry and uncandid advocates. EARLY ENGLISH POLITY OFTEN MISREPRESENTED. 25 For they were discussing, not a speculative matter, but a matter which had a direct and practical connection with the most momentous and exciting disputes of their own day. From the commencement of the long contest between the Parliament and the Stuarts down to the time when the 5 pretensions of the Stuarts ceased to be formidable, few questions were practically more important than the question whether the administration of that family had or had not been in accordance with the ancient constitution of the kingdom. This question could be decided only by reference 10 to the records of preceding reigns. Bracton and Fleta, the Mirror of Justice and the Rolls of Parliament, were ran- sacked to find pretexts for the excesses of the Star Chamber on one side, and of the High Court of Justice on the other. During a long course of years every Whig historian was 15 anxious to prove that the old English government was all but republican, every Tory historian to prove that it was all but despotic. With such feelings, both parties looked into the chronicles of the middle ages. Both readily found what they sought ; 20 and both obstinately refused to see anything but what they sought. The champions of the Stuarts could easily point out instances of oppression exercised on the subject. The defenders of the Roundheads could as easily produce instances of determined and successful resistance offered 25 to the Crown. The Tories quoted, from ancient writings, expressions almost as servile as were heard from the pulpit of Mainwaring. The Whigs discovered expressions as bold and severe as any that resounded from the judgment seat of Bradshaw. One set of writers adduced numerous instances 30 in which Kings had extorted money without the authority of Parliament. Another set cited cases in which the Parliament had assumed to itself the power of inflicting punishment oh Kings. Those who saw only one half of the evidence would have concluded that the Plantagenets were 35 as absolute as the Sultans of Turkey : those who saw only the other half would have concluded that the Plantagenets had as little real power as the Doges of Venice ; and both 26 macaulay's history. conclusions would have been equally remote from the truth. The old English government was one of a class of limited monarchies which sprang up in Western Europe 5 during the middle ages, and which, notwithstanding many diversities, bore to one another a strong family likeness. That there should have been such a likeness is not strange. The countries in which those monarchies arose had been provinces of the same great civilised empire, and had 10 been overrun and conquered, about the same time, by tribes of the same rude and warlike nation. They were members of the same great coalition against Islam. They were in communion with the same superb and ambitious Church. Their polity naturally took the same form. 15 They had institutions derived partly from imperial Rome, partly from papal Rome, partly from the old Germany. All had kings; and in all the kingly office became by degrees strictly hereditary. All had nobles bearing titles which had originally indicated military rank. The dignity 20 of knighthood, the rules of heraldry, were common to all. All had richly endowed ecclesiastical establishments, municipal corporations enjoying large franchises, and senates whose consent was necessary to the validity of some public acts. 25 Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from an early period, justly reputed the best. The preroga- tives of the sovereign were undoubtedly extensive. The spirit of religion and the spirit of chivalry concurred to exalt his dignity. The sacred oil had been poured on 30 his head. It was no disparagement to the bravest and noblest knights to kneel at his feet. His person was inviolable, lie alone was entitled to convoke the Estates of the realm : he could at his pleasure dismiss them ; and his assent was necessary to all their legislative acts. 35 He was the chief of the executive administration, the sole organ of communication with foreign powers, the captain of the military and naval forces of the state, the fountain of justice, of mercy, and of honour. He had large PREROGATIVES OF THE EARLY ENGLISH KINGS. 27 powers for the regulation of trade. It was by him that money was coined, that weights and measures were fixed, that marts and havens were appointed. His ecclesiastical patronage was immense. His hereditary revenues, economi- cally administered, sufficed to meet the ordinary charges 5 of government. His own domains were of vast extent. He was also feudal lord paramount of the whole soil of his kingdom, and, in that capacity, possessed many lucrative and many formidable rights, which enabled him to annoy and depress those who thwarted him, and to enrich and 10 aggrandise, without any cost to himself, those who enjoyed his favour. But his power, though ample, was limited by three great constitutional principles, so ancient that none can say when they began to exist, so potent that their 15 natural development, continued through many generations, has produced the order of things under which we now live. First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his Parliament. Secondly, he could impose no tax without 20 the consent of his Parliament. Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive administration according to the laws of the land, and, if he broke those laws, his advisers and his agents were responsible. No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, five 25 hundred years ago, acquired the authority of fundamental rules. On the other hand, no candid Whig will affirm that they were, till a later period, cleared from all ambiguity, or followed out to all their consequences. A constitution of the middle ages was not, like a constitution of the eighteenth 30 or nineteenth century, created entire by a single act, and fully set forth in a single document. It is only in a refined and speculative age that a polity is constructed on system. In rude societies the progress of government resembles the progress of language and of versification. Eude societies 35 have language, and often copious and energetic language : but they have no scientific grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declensions, moods, tenses, and 28 MACATJLAY S HISTORY. voices. Rude societies have versification, and often versifica- tion of great power and sweetness : but they have no metrical canons : and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would 5 himself be unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before prosody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence long before the limits of legislative, executive, and judicial power have been traced 10 with precision. It was thus in our country. The line which bounded the royal prerogative, though in general sufficiently clear, had not everywhere been drawn with accuracy and distinctness. There was, therefore, near the border some debatable 15 ground on which incursions and reprisals continued to take place, till after ages of strife, plain and durable landmarks were at length set up. It may be instructive to note in what way, and to what extent, our ancient sovereigns were in the habit of violating the three great principles by which 20 the liberties of the nation were protected. Ko English king has ever laid claim to the general legis- lative power. The most violent and imperious Plantagenet never fancied himself competent to enact, without the consent of his great council, that a jury should consist of 25 ten persons instead of twelve, that a widow's dower should be a fourth part instead of a third, that perjury should be a felony, or that the custom of gavelkind should be introduced into Yorkshire. But the king had the power of pardoning offenders ; and there is one point at which the power of 30 pardoning and the power of legislating seem to fade into each other, and may easily, at least in a simple age, be confounded. A penal statute is virtually annulled if the penalties which it imposes are regularly remitted as often as they are incurred. The sovereign was undoubtedly competent to 35 remit penalties without limit. He was therefore competent to annul virtually a penal statute. It might seem that there could be no serious objection to his doing formally what he might do virtually. Thus, with the help of subtle and LIMITATIONS NOT ALWAYS STRICTLY OBSERVED. 29 courtly lawyers, grew up, on the doubtful frontier which separates executive from legislative functions, that great anomaly known as the dispensing power. That the king could not impose taxes without the consent of Parliament is admitted to have been, from time 5 immemorial, a fundamental law of England. It was among the articles which John was compelled by the Barons to sign. Edward the First ventured to break through the rule ; but, able, powerful, and popular as he was, he encountered an opposition to which he found it expedient to 10 yield. He covenanted accordingly in express terms, for himself and his heirs, that they would never again levy any aid without the assent and goodwill of the Estates of the realm. His powerful and victorious grandson attempted to violate this solemn compact : but the attempt was strenuously 15 withstood. At length the Plantagenets gave up the point in despair : but, though they ceased to infringe the law openly, they occasionally contrived, by evading it, to pro- cure an extraordinary supply for a temporary purpose. They were interdicted from taxing ; but they claimed the 20 right of begging and borrowing. They therefore sometimes begged in a tone not easily to be distinguished from that of command, and sometimes borrowed with small thought of repaying. But the fact that they thought it necessary to disguise their exactions under the names of benevolences 25 and loans sufficiently proves that the authority of the great constitutional rule was universally recognised. The principle that the King of England was bound to conduct the administration according to law, and that, if he did anything against law, his advisers and agents were 30 answerable, was established at a very early period, as the severe judgments pronounced and executed on many royal favourites sufficiently prove. It is, however, certain that the rights of individuals were often violated by the Plan- tagenets, and that the injured parties were often unable to 35 obtain redress. According to law no Englishman could be arrested or detained in confinement merely by the mandate of the sovereign. In fact, persons obnoxious to the govern- 30 macaulay's history. ment were frequently imprisoned without any other authority than a royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be inflicted on an English subject. Never- 5 theless, during the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregularities that the English monarchs were, either in theory or in practice, absolute. 10 We live in a highly civilised society, through which intelligence is so rapidly diffused by means of the press and of the post-office that any gross act of oppression committed in any part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed by millions. If the sovereign wefe now to immure a 15 subject in defiance of the writ of Habeas Corpus, or to put a conspirator to the torture, the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news. In the middle ages the state of society was widely different. Rarely and with great difficulty did the wrongs of individuals come to the 20 knowledge of the public. A man might be illegally con- fined during many months in the castle of Carlisle or Norwich ; and no whisper of the transaction might reach London. It is highly probable that the rack had been many years in use before the great majority of the nation 25 had the least suspicion that it was ever employed. Nor were our ancestors by any means so much alive as we are to the importance of maintaining great general rules. We have been taught by long experience that we cannot without danger suffer any breach of the constitution to pass un- 30 noticed. It is therefore now universally held that a govern- ment which unnecessarily exceeds its powers ought to be visited with severe parliamentary censure, and that a government which, under the pressure of a great exigency, and with pure intentions, has exceeded its powers, ought 35 without delay to apply to Parliament for an act of in- demnity. But such were not the feelings of the English- men of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were little disposed to contend for a principle merely as a RESISTANCE AN ORDINARY CHECK ON TYRANNY. 31 principle, or to cry out against an irregularity which was not also felt to be a grievance. As long as the general spirit of the administration was mild and popular, they were willing to allow some latitude to their sovereign. If, for ends generally acknowledged to be good, he exerted a vigour 5 beyond the law, they not only forgave, but applauded him, and, while they enjoyed security and prosperity under his rule, were but too ready to believe that whoever had incurred his displeasure had deserved it. But to this indulgence there was a limit; nor was that king wise who presumed far on 10 the forbearance of the English people. They might some- times allow him to overstep the constitutional line : but they also claimed the privilege of overstepping that line themselves, whenever his encroachments were so serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with occasionally oppressing 15 individuals, he dared to oppress great masses, his subjects promptly appealed to the laws, and that appeal failing, appealed as promptly to the God of battles. Our forefathers might indeed safely tolerate a king in a few excesses ; for they had in reserve a check which 20 soon brought the fiercest and proudest king to reason, the check of physical force. It is difficult for an Englishman of the nineteenth century to image to himself the facility and rapidity with which, four hundred years ago, this check was applied. The people have unlearned the use 25 of arms. The art of war has been carried to a perfection unknown to former ages ; and the knowledge of that art is confined to a particular class. A hundred thou- sand soldiers, well disciplined and commanded, will keep down ten millions of ploughmen and artizans. A few 30 regiments of household troops are sufficient to overawe all the discontented spirits of a large capital. In the meantime the effect of the constant progress of wealth has been to make insurrection far more terrible to thinking men than maladministration. Immense sums 35 have been expended on works which, if a rebellion broke out, might perish in a few hours. The mass of mov- able wealth collected in the shops and warehouses of 32 macatjlay's history. London alone exceeds five hundred-fold that which the whole island contained in the days of the Plantagenets ; and if the government were subverted by physical force, all this movable wealth would be exposed to imminent risk of 5 spoliation and destruction. Still greater would be the risk to public credit, on which thousands of families, directly depend for subsistence, and with which the credit of the whole commercial world is inseparably connected. It is no exaggeration to say that a civil war of a week on English 10 ground would now produce disasters which would be felt from the Hoangho to the Missouri, and of which the traces would be discernible at the distance of a century. In such a state of society resistance must be regarded as a cure more desperate than almost any malady which can afflict the state. 15 In the middle ages, on the contrary, resistance was an ordinary remedy for political distempers, a remedy which was always at hand, and which, though doubtless sharp at the moment, produced no deep or lasting ill effects. If a popular chief raised his standard in a popular cause, an 20 irregular army could be assembled in a day. Regular army there was none. Every man had a slight tincture of soldier-ship, and scarcely any man more than a slight tincture. The national wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest of the year, and in the simple 25 buildings inhabited by the people. All the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be found in the realm was of less value than the property which some single parishes now contain. Manufactures were rude ; credit was almost unknown. Society, therefore, recovered from the 30 shock as soon as the actual conflict was over. The calamities of civil war were confined to the slaughter on the field of battle, and to a few subsequent executions and confiscations. In a week the peasant was driving his team and the esquire flying his hawks over the field of Towton or of Bos worth, 35 as if no extraordinary event had interrrupted the regular course of human life. More than a hundred and sixty years have now elapsed since the English people have by force subverted a govern- merit. During the hundred and sixty years which preceded the union of the Roses, nine kings reigned in England. Six of these nine kings were deposed. Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. It is evident, therefore, that any comparison between our ancient and our modern polity must 5 lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless large allowance be made for the effect of that restraint which resistance and the fear of resistance constantly imposed on the Plantagenets. As our ancestors had against tyranny a most important security which we want, they might safely dispense with 10 some securities to which we justly attach the highest importance. As we cannot, without the risk of evils from which, the imagination recoils, employ physical force as a check on misgovernment, it is evidently our wisdom to keep all the constitutional checks on misgovernment in the 15 highest state of efficiency, to watch with jealousy the first beginnings of encroachment, and never to suffer irregularities, even when harmless in themselves, to pass unchallenged, lest they acquire the force of precedents. Four hundred years ago such minute vigilance might well seem unnecessary. 20 A nation of hardy archers and spearmen might, with small risk to its liberties, connive at some illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general administration was good, and whose throne was not defended by a single company of regular soldiers. 25 Under this system, rude as it may appear when compared with those elaborate constitutions of which the last seventy years have been fruitful, the English long enjoyed a large measure of freedom and happiness. Though, during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth, the state was torn, first by 30 factions, and at length by civil war; though Edward the Fourth was a prince of dissolute and imperious character; though Richard the Third has generally been represented as a monster of depravity ; though the exactions of Henry the Seventh caused great repining ; it is certain that our 35 ancestors, under those kings, were far better governed than the Belgians under Philip, surnamed the Good, or the French under that Lewis who was styled the Father of his people. D 34 macaulay's history. Even while the Wars of the Eoses were actually raging, our country appears to have been in a happier condition than the neighbouring realm during years of profound peace. Comines was one of the most enlightened statesmen of his 5 time. He had seen all the richest and most highly civilised parts of the Continent. He had lived in the opulent towns of Flanders, the Manchesters and Liverpools of the fifteenth century. He had visited Florence, recently adorned by the magnificence of Lorenzo, and Venice, not yet humbled by 10 the confederates of Cambray. This eminent man deliberately pronounced England to be the best governed country of which he had any knowledge. Her constitution he em- phatically designated as a just and holy thing, which, while it protected the people, really strengthened the hands of 15 a prince who respected it. In no other country, he said, were men so effectually secured from wrong. The calamities produced by our intestine wars seemed to him to be confined to the nobles and the fighting men, and to leave no traces such as he had been accustomed to see elsewhere, no ruined 20 dwellings, no depopulated cities. It was not only by the efficiency of the restraints imposed on the royal prerogative that England was ad- vantageously distinguished from most of the neighbouring countries. A peculiarity equally important, though less 25 noticed, was the relation in which the nobility stood here to the commonalty. There was a strong hereditary aris- tocracy : but it was of all aristocracies the least insolent and exclusive. It had none of the invidious character of a caste. It was constantly receiving members from 30 the people, and constantly sending down members to mingle with the people. Any gentleman might become a peer, the younger son of a peer was but a gentle- man. Grandsons of peers yielded precedence to newly made knights. The dignity of knighthood was not beyond 35 the reach of any man who could by diligence and thrift realise a good estate, or who could attract notice by his valour in a battle or a siege. It was regarded as no dis- paragement for the daughter of a duke, nay of a royal duke, to espouse a distinguished commoner. Thus, Sir John Howard married the daughter of Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. Sir Richard Pole married the Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George Duke of Clarence. Good blood was indeed held in high respect ; but between good 5 blood and the privileges of peerage there was, most fortu- nately for our country, no necessary connection. Pedigrees as long, and scutcheons as old, were to be found out of the House of Lords as in it. There were new men who bore the highest titles. There were untitled men well known to 10 be descended from knights who had broken the Saxon ranks at Hastings, and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. There were Bohuns, Mowbrays, De Veres, nay, kinsmen of the House of Plantagenet, with no higher addition than that of Esquire, and with no civil privileges beyond those enjoyed 15 by every farmer and shopkeeper. There was therefore here no line like that which in some other countries divided the patrician from the plebeian. The yeoman was not inclined to murmur at dignities to which his own children might rise. The grandee was not inclined to insult a class into 20 which his own children must descend. After the wars of York and Lancaster, the links which connected the nobility and the commonalty became closer and more numerous than ever. The extent of the destruc- tion which had fallen on the old aristocracy may be inferred 25 from a single circumstance. In the year 1451 Henry the Sixth summoned fifty-three temporal Lords to Parliament. The temporal Lords summoned by Henry the Seventh to the Parliament of 1485 were only twenty-nine, and of these several had recently been elevated to the peerage. During 30 the following century the ranks of the nobility were largely recruited from among the gentry. The constitution of the House of Commons tended greatly to promote the salutary intermixture of classes. The knight of the shire was the connecting link between the baron and the shopkeeper. On 35 the same benches on which sate the goldsmiths, drapers, and grocers, who had been returned to Parliament by the com- mercial towns, sate also members who, in any other country, 36 MAC AUL AY'S HISTORY. . would have been called noblemen, hereditary lords of manors, entitled to hold courts and to bear coat armour, and able to trace back an honourable descent through many generations. Some of them were younger sons and brothers 5 of lords. Others could boast of even royal blood. At length the eldest son of an Earl of Bedford, called in courtesy by the second title of his father, offered himself as candidate for a seat in the House of Commons, and his example was followed by others. Seated in that house, the 10 heirs of the great peers naturally became as zealous for its privileges as any of the humble burgesses with whom they were mingled. Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world; a peculiarity which has lasted 15 down to the present day. and which has produced many important moral and political effects. The government of Henry the Seventh, of his son, and of his grandchildren was, on the whole, more arbi- trary than that of the Plantagenets. Personal character 20 may in some degree explain the difference ; for courage and force of will were common to all the men and women of the House of Tudor. They exercised their power during a period of a hundred and twenty years, always with vigour, often with violence, sometimes with 25 cruelty. They, in imitation of the dynasty which had pre- ceded them, occasionally invaded the rights of the subject, occasionally exacted taxes under the name of loans and gifts, and occasionally dispensed with penal statutes : nay, though they never presumed to enact any permanent law by 30 their own authority, they occasionally took upon themselves, when Parliament was not sitting, to meet temporary exigencies by temporary edicts. It was, however, im- possible for the Tudors to carry oppression beyond a certain point : for they had no armed force, and they were sur- 3:» rounded by an armed people. Their palace was guarded by a few domestics whom the array of a single shire, or of a single ward of London, could with ease have overpowered. These haughty princes were therefore under a restraint GOVERNMENT OF THE TUDORS. 37 stronger than any which mere law can impose, under a restraint which did not, indeed, prevent them from some- times treating an individual in an arbitrary and even in a barbarous manner, but which effectually secured the nation against general and long continued oppression. They might 5 safely be tyrants within the precinct of the court : but it was necessary for them to watch with constant anxiety the temper of the country. Henry the Eighth, for example, encountered no opposition when he wished to send Bucking- ham and Surrey, Anne Boleyn and Lady Salisbury, to the 10 scaffold. But when, without the consent of Parliament, he demanded of his subjects a contribution amounting to one sixth of their goods, he soon found it necessary to retract. The cry of hundreds of thousands was that they were English and not French, freemen and not slaves. In Kent 15 the royal commissioners fled for their lives. In Suffolk four thousand men appeared in arms. The King's lieu- tenants in that country vainly exerted themselves to raise an army. Those who did not join in the insurrection declared that they would not fight against their brethren in 20 such a quarrel. Henry, proud and self-willed as he was, shrank, not without reason, from a conflict with the roused spirit of the nation. He had before his eyes the fate of his predecessors who had perished at Berkeley and Pomfret. He not only cancelled his illegal commissions ; he not only 25 granted a general pardon to all the malecontents ; but he publicly and solemnly apologised for his infraction of the laws. His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the whole policy of his house. The temper of the princes of that 30 line was hot, and their spirit high : but they understood the character of the nation which they governed, and never once, like some of their predecessors, and some of their successors, carried obstinacy to a fatal point. The dis- cretion of the Tudors was such, that their power, though it 35 was often resisted, was never subverted. The reign of everyone of them was disturbed by formidable discontents : but the government was always able either to sooth the 38 macaulay's history. mutineers or to conquer and punish them. Sometimes, by timely concessions, it succeeded in averting civil hos- tilities ; but in general it stood firm, and called for help on the nation. The nation obeyed the call, rallied round 5 the sovereign, and enabled him to quell the disaffected minority. Thus, from the age of Henry the Third to the age of Elizabeth, England grew and flourished under a polity which contained the germ of our present institutions, and 10 which, though not very exactly defined, or very exactly observed, was yet effectually prevented from degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which the governors stood of the spirit and strength of the governed. But such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in 15 the progress of society. The same causes which produce a division of labour in the peaceful arts must at length make war a distinct science and a distinct trade. A time arrives when the use of arms begins to occupy the entire attention of a separate class. It soon appears that peasants and 20 burghers, however brave, are unable to stand their ground against veteran soldiers, whose whole life is a preparation for the day of battle, whose nerves have been braced by long familiarity with danger, and whose movements have all the precision of clockwork. It is found that the defence of 25 nations can no longer be safely entrusted to warriors taken from the plough or the loom for a campaign of forty days. If any state forms a great regular army, the bordering states must imitate the example, or must submit to a foreign yoke. But, where a great regular army exists, limited monarchy, 30 such as it was in the middle ages, can exist no longer. The sovereign is at once emancipated from what had been the chief restraint on his power; and he inevitably becomes absolute, unless he is subjected to checks such as would be superfluous in a society where all are soldiers occasionally, 35 and none permanently. With the danger came also the means of escape. In the monarchies of the middle ages the power of the sword belonged to the prince ; but the power of the purse LIMITED AND ABSOLUTE MONARCHIES. 39 belonged to the nation; and the progress of civilisation, as it made the sword of the prince more and more formid- able to the nation, made the purse of the nation more artd more necessary to the prince. His hereditary revenues would no longer suffice, even for the expenses of civil 5 government. It was utterly impossible that, without a regular and extensive system of taxation, he could keep in constant efficiency a great body of disciplined troops. The policy which the parliamentary assemblies of Europe ought to have adopted was to take their stand firmly on their 10 constitutional right to give or withhold money, and reso- lutely to refuse funds for the support of armies, till ample securities had been provided against despotism. This wise policy was followed in our country alone. In the neighbouring kingdoms great military establishments 15 were formed ; no new safeguards for public liberty were devised; and the consequence was, that the old parlia- mentary institutions everywhere ceased to exist. In France, where they had always been feeble, they languished, and at length died of mere weakness. In Spain, where they had 20 been as strong as in any part of Europe, they struggled fiercely for life, but struggled too late. The mechanics of Toledo and Valladolid vainly defended the privileges of the Castilian Cortes against the veteran battalions of Charles the Fifth. As vainly, in the next generation, 25 did the citizens of Saragossa stand up against Philip the Second, for the old constitution of Aragon. One after another, the great national councils of the conti- nental monarchies, councils once scarcely less proud and powerful than those which sate at Westminster, sank into 30 utter insignificance. If they met, they met merely as our Convocation now meets, to go through some venerable forms. In England events took a different course. This singular felicity she owed chiefly to her insular situation. Before the 35 end of the fifteenth century great military establishments were indispensable to the dignity, and even to the safety, of the French and Castilian monarchies. If either of those two powers 40 macatjlay's history. had disarmed, it would soon have been compelled to submit to the dictation of the other. But England, protected by the sea against invasion, and rarely engaged in warlike opera- tions on the Continent, was not, as yet, under the necessity 5 of employing regular troops. The sixteenth century, the seventeenth century, found her still without a standing army. At the commencement of the seventeenth century political science had made considerable progress. The fate of the Spanish Cortes and of the French States General had given 10 solemn warning to our Parliaments ; and our Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the danger, adopted, in good time, a system of tactics which, after a contest protracted through three generations, was at length successful. 15 Almost every writer who has treated of that contest has been desirous to show that his own party was the party which was struggling to preserve the old constitution unaltered. The truth, however, is that the old constitution could not be preserved unaltered. A law, beyond the 20 control of human wisdom, had decreed that there should no longer be governments of that peculiar class which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had been common throughout Europe. The question, therefore, was not whether our polity should undergo a change, but what the 25 nature of the change should be. The introduction of a new and mighty force had disturbed the Avhole equilibrium, and had turned one limited monarchy after another into an absolute monarchy. What had happened elsewhere would assuredly have happened here, unless the balance had been 30 redressed by a great transfer of power from the crown to the parliament. Our princes were about to have at their command means of coercion such as no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever possessed. They must inevitably have become despots, unless they had been, at the same time, 35 placed under restraints to which no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever been subject. It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but political causes been at work, the seventeenth century would not THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS. 41 have passed away without a fierce conflict between our Kings and their Parliaments. But other causes of per- haps greater potency contributed to produce the same effect. While the government of the Tudors was in its highest vigour an event took place which has coloured 5 the destinies of all Christian nations, and in an especial manner the destinies of England. Twice during the middle ages the mind of Europe had risen up against the domination of Rome. The first insurrection broke out in the south of France. The energy of Innocent 10 the Third, the zeal of the young orders of Francis and Dominic, and the ferocity of the Crusaders whom the priest- hood let loose on an unwarlike population, crushed the Albi- gensian churches. The second reformation had its origin in England, and spread to Bohemia. The Council of Constance, 15 by removing some ecclesiastical disorders which had given scandal to Christendom and the princes of Europe, by un- sparingly using fire and sword against the heretics, succeeded in arresting and turning back the movement. Nor is this much to be lamented. The sympathies of a Protestant, it 20 is true, will naturally be on the side of the Albigensians and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened and temperate Pro- testant will perhaps be disposed to doubt whether the success, either of the Albigensians or of the Lollards, would, on the whole, have promoted the happiness and virtue of 25 mankind. Corrupt as the Church of Pome was, there is reason to believe that, if that Church had been overthrown in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth century, the vacant space would have been occupied by some system more corrupt still. There was then, through the greater part of 30 Europe, very little knowledge; and that little was confined to the clergy. Not one man in five hundred could have spelled his way through a psalm. Books were few and costly. The art of printing was unknown. Copies of the Bible, inferior in beauty and clearness to those which every cottager may 35 now command, sold for prices which many priests could not afford to give. It was obviously impossible that 'the laity should search the Scriptures for themselves. It is probable 42 macatjlay's history. therefore, that, as soon as they had put off one spiritual yoke, they would have put on another, and that the power lately exercised by the clergy of the Church of Rome would have passed to a far worse class of teachers. The sixteenth 5 century was comparatively a time of light. Yet even in the sixteenth century a considerable number of those who quitted the old religion followed the first confident and plausible guide who offered himself, and were soon led into errors far more serious than those which they had re- 10 nounced. Thus Matthias and Kniperdoling, apostles of lust, robbery, and murder, were able for a time to rule great cities. In a darker age such false prophets might have founded empires, and Christianity might have been dis- torted into a cruel and licentious superstition, more noxious, 15 not only than Popery, but even than Islamism. About a hundred years after the rising of the Council of Constance, that great change emphatically called the Re- formation began. The fulness of time was now come. The clergy were no longer the sole or the chief depositories of 20 knowledge. The invention of printing had furnished the assailants of the Church with a mighty weapon which had been wanting to their predecessors. The study of the ancient writers, the rapid development of the powers of the modern languages, the unprecedented activity which was 25 displayed in every department of literature, the political state of Europe, the vices of the Roman court, the exactions of the Roman chancery, the jealousy with which the wealth and privileges of the clergy were naturally regarded by lay- men, the jealousy with which the Italian ascendency was 30 naturally regarded by men born on our side of the Alps, all these things gave to the teachers of the new theology an advantage which they perfectly understood how to use. Those who hold that the influence of the Church of Rome in the dark ages was, on the whole, beneficial to man- 35 kind, may yet with perfect consistency regard the Reforma- tion as an inestimable blessing. The leading strings, which preserve and uphold the infant, would impede the full- grown man. And so the very means by which the human THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS. 43 mind is, in one stage of its progress, supported and propelled, may, in another stage, be mere hindrances. There is a season in the life both of an individual and of a society, at which submission and faith, such as at a later period would be justly called servility and credulity, are useful qualities. 5 The child who teachably and undoubtingly listens to the instructions of his elders is likely to improve rapidly. But the man who should receive with childlike docility every assertion and dogma uttered by another man no wiser than himself would become contemptible. It is the same with 10 communities. The childhood of the European nations was passed under the tutelage of the clergy. The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belongs to intellectual superiority. The priests, with all their faults, were by far the wisest portion of 15 society. It was, therefore, on the whole, good that they should be respected and obeyed. The encroachments of the ecclesiastical power on the province of the civil power pro- duced much more happiness than misery, while the eccle- siastical power was in the hands of the only class that had 20 studied history, philosophy, and public law, and while the civil power was in the hands of savage chiefs, who could not read their own grants and edicts. But a change took place. Knowledge gradually spread among laymen. At the commencement of the sixteenth century many of them 25 were in every intellectual attainment fully equal to the most enlightened of their spiritual pastors. Thenceforward that dominion, which, during the dark ages, had been, in spite of many abuses, a legitimate and salutary guardianship, became an unjust and noxious tyranny. 30 From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Eome had been generally favourable to science, to civilisation, and to good government. But, during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the 35 human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in know- ledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has 44 macaulay's history. been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, 5 while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and states- men, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred 10 years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation, the 15 elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural dis- advantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a 20 Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilisation. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the Roman 25 Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which, even when- mis- 30 directed, have justly entitled them to be called a great people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm the rule ; for in no country that is called Roman Catholic has the Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little authority as in 35 France. The literature of France is justly held in high esteem throughout the world. But if we deduct from that literature all that belongs to four parties which have been, on different grounds, in rebellion against the Papal THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS. 45 domination, all that belongs to the Protestants, all that belongs to the assertors of the Gallican liberties, all that belongs to the Jansenists, and all that belongs to the philosophers, how much will be left? It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the 5 Roman Catholic religion or to the Reformation. For the amalgamation of races and for the abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted to the influence which the priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the laity. For political and intellectual freedom, and for all the blessings which 10 political and intellectual freedom have brought in their train, she is chiefly indebted- to the great rebellion of the laity against the priesthood. The struggle between the old and the new theology in our country was long, and the event sometimes seemed 15 doubtful. There were two extreme parties, prepared to act with violence or to suffer with stubborn resolution. Between them lay, during a considerable time, a middle party, which blended, very illogically, but by no means unnaturally, lessons learned in the nursery with the sermons of the 20 modern evangelists, and, while clinging with fondness to old observances, yet detested abuses with which those observ- ances were closely connected. Men in such a frame of mind were willing to obey, almost with thankfulness, the dictation of an able ruler who spared them the trouble of 25 judging for themselves, and, raising a firm and commanding voice above the uproar of controversy, told them how to worship and what to believe. It is not strange, therefore, that the Tudors should have been able to exercise a great influence on ecclesiastical affairs ; nor is it strange that their 30 influence should, for the most part, have been exercised with a view to their own interest. Henry the Eighth attempted to constitute an Anglican Church differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the supremacy, and on that point alone. His 35 success in this attempt was extraordinary. The force of his character, the singularly favourable situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, the immense wealth 46 macaulay's history. which the spoliation of the abbeys placed at his disposal, and the support of that class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him to bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as heretics those who avowed the tenets 5 of the Reformers, and to hang as traitors those who owned the authority of the Pope. But Henry's system died with him. Had his life been prolonged, he would have found it difficult to maintain a position assailed with equal fury by all who were zealous either for the new or for the old 10 opinions. The ministers who held the royal prerogatives in trust for his infant son could not venture to persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could Elizabeth venture to return to it. It was necessary to make a choice. The government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid of the 15 Protestants. The government and the Protestants had only one thing in common, hatred of the Papal power. The English Reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Anti-christian numerous dogmas and practices to which 20 Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt a strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had formed part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon. Thus Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at Gloucester for his religion, long refused to 25 wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down the ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be administered in the middle of churches, at tables which the Papists irreverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical 30 garb to be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites, and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of consecration. Bishop 35Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the Church of England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 47 abandoned to the Papists, and that the chief officers of the purified church should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense of that party had been followed, 5 the work of reform would have been carried on as un- sparingly in England as in Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was therefore given up on both sides : 10 an union was effected ; and the fruit of that union was the Church of England. To the peculiarities of this great institution, and to the strong passions which it has called forth in the minds both of friends and of enemies, are to be attributed many of the 15 most important events which have, since the Reformation, taken place in our country ; nor can the secular history of England be at all understood by us, unless we study it in constant connection with the history of her ecclesiastical polity. 20 The man who took the chief part in settling the conditions of the alliance which produced the Anglican Church was Archbishop Cranmer. He was the representative of both the parties which, at that time, needed each other's assistance. He was at once a divine and a courtier. In his character of 25 divine he was perfectly ready to go as far in the way of change as any Swiss or Scottish Eeformer. In his character of courtier he was desirous to preserve that or- ganisation which had, during many ages, admirably served the purposes of the Bishops of Rome, and might be expected now 30 to serve equally well the purposes of the English Kings and of their ministers. His temper and his understanding eminently fitted him to act as mediator. Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver in action, 35 a placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was in every way qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition between the religious and the worldly enemies of Popery. 48 macaulay's history. To this day the constitution, the doctrines, and the services of the Church, retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she sprang. She occupies a middle position between the Churches of Rome and 5 Geneva. Her doctrinal confessions and discourses, com- posed by Protestants, set forth principles of theology in which Calvin or Knox would have found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her prayers and thanksgivings, derived from the ancient Breviaries, are very generally such that Cardinal 10 Fisher or Cardinal Pole might have heartily joined in them. A controversialist who puts an Arminian sense on her Articles and Homilies will be pronounced by candid men to be as unreasonable as a controversialist who denies that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration can be discovered in her 15 Liturgy. The Church of Rome held that episcopacy was of divine institution, and that certain supernatural graces of a high order had been transmitted by the imposition of hands through fifty generations, from the Eleven who received 20 their commission on the Galilean mount, to the bishops who met at Trent. A large body of Protestants, on the other hand, regarded prelacy as positively unlawful, and persuaded themselves that they found a very different form of ecclesiastical government prescribed in Scripture. The 25 founders of the Anglican Church took a middle course. They retained episcopacy ; but they did not declare it to be an institution essential to the welfare of a Christian Society, or to the efficacy of the sacraments. Cranmer, indeed, plainly avowed his conviction that, in the primitive times, 30 there was no distinction between bishops and priests, and that the laying on of hands was altogether unnecessary. Among the Presbyterians, the conduct of public worship is, to a great extent, left to the minister. Their prayers, therefore, are not exactly the same in any two assemblies on •35 the same day, or on any two days in the same assembly. In one parish they are fervent, eloquent, and full of meaning. In the next parish they may be languid or absurd. The priests of the Roman Catholic Church, on the HER PECULIAR CHARACTER. 49 other hand, have, during many generations, daily chaunted the same ancient confessions, supplications, and thanks- givings, in India and Lithuania, in Ireland and Peru. The service, being in a dead language, is intelligible only to the learned ; and the great majority of the congregation may be 5 said to assist as spectators rather than as auditors. Here, again, the Church of England took a middle course. She copied the Roman Catholic forms of prayer, but translated them into the vulgar tongue, and invited the illiterate multitude to join its voice to that of the minister. 10 In every part of her system the same policy may be traced. Utterly rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and condemning as idolatrous all adoration paid to the sacra- mental bread and wine, she yet, to the disgust of the Puritan, required her children to receive the memorials of divine 15 love, meekly kneeling upon their knees. Discarding many rich vestments which surrounded the altars of the ancient faith, she yet retained, to the horror of weak minds, a robe of white linen, typical of the purity which belonged to her as the mystical spouse of Christ. Discarding a crowd of 20 pantomimic gestures which, in the Roman Catholic worship, are substituted for intelligible words, she yet shocked many rigid Protestants by marking the infant just sprinkled from the font with the sign of the cross. The Roman Catholic addressed his prayers to a multitude of Saints, 25 among whom were numbered many men of doubtful, and some of hateful, character. The Puritan refused the addition of Saint even to the apostle of the Gentiles, and to the disciple whom Jesus loved. The Church of England, though she asked for the intercession of no created being, 30 still set apart days for the commemoration of some who had done and suffered great things for the faith. She retained confirmation and ordination as edifying rites ; but she degraded them from the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her system. Yet she gently invited the dying 35 penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her ministers to sooth the departing soul by an absolution which breathes the very spirit of the old religion. In general E 50 MAC AUL AY'S HISTORY. it may be said that she appeals more to the understanding, and less to the senses and the imagination, than the Church of Rome, and that she appeals less to the understanding, and more to the senses and imagination, than the Protestant 5 Churches of Scotland, France, and Switzerland. Nothing, however, so strongly distinguished the Church of England from other Churches as the relation in which she stood to the monarchy. The King was her head. The limits of the authority which he possessed, as such, 10 were not traced, and indeed have never yet been traced, with precision. The laws which declared him supreme in ecclesiastical matters were drawn rudely and in general terms. If, for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of those laws, we examine the books and lives of those who 15 founded the English Church, our perplexity will be in- creased. For the founders of the English Church wrote and acted in an age of violent intellectual fermentation, and of constant action and reaction. They therefore often contradicted each other, and sometimes contradicted 20 themselves. That the King was, under Christ, sole head of the Church, was a doctrine which they all with one voice affirmed : but those words had very different signi- fications in different mouths, and in the same mouth at different conjunctures. Sometimes an authority which 25 would have satisfied Hildebrand was ascribed to the sovereign : then it dwindled down to an authority little more than that which had been claimed by many ancient English princes who had been in constant communion with the Church of Rome. What Henry and his favourite 30 counsellors meant, at one time, by the supremacy, was certainly nothing less than the whole power of the keys. The King was to be the Pope of his kingdom, the vicar of God, the expositor of Catholic verity, the channel of sacramental graces. He arrogated to himself the right 35 of deciding dogmatically what was orthodox doctrine and what was heresy, of drawing up and imposing confessions of faith, and of giving religious instruction to his people, lie proclaimed that all jurisdiction, spiritual as well as DELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE CROWN. 51 temporal, was derived from him alone, and that it was in his power to confer episcopal authority, and to take it away. He actually ordered his seal to be put to commissions by which bishops were appointed, who were to exercise their functions as his deputies, and during his pleasure. 5 According to this system, as expounded by Cranmer, the King was the spiritual as well as the temporal chief of the nation. In both capacities His Highness must have lieutenants. As he appointed civil officers to keep his seal, to collect his revenues, and to dispense justice in his name, 10 so he appointed divines of various rank's to preach the gospel, and to administer the sacraments. It was unnecessary that there should be any imposition of hands. The King — such was the opinion of Cranmer given in the plainest words — might, in virtue of authority derived from God, make 15 a priest ; and the priest so made needed no ordination whatever. These opinions the Archbishop, in spite of the opposition of less courtly divines, followed out to every legitimate consequence. He held that his own spiritual functions, like the secular functions of the Chancellor and 20 Treasurer, were at once determined by a demise of the crown. When Henry died, therefore, the Primate and his suffragans took out fresh commissions, empowering them to ordain and to govern the Church till the new sovereign should think fit to order otherwise. When it was objected that a power 25 to bind and to loose, altogether distinct from temporal power, had been given by our Lord to his apostles, some theologians of this school replied that the power to bind and to loose had descended, not to the clergy, but to the whole body of Christian men, and ought to be exercised by the chief 30 magistrate as the representative of the society. When it was objected that Saint Paul had spoken of certain persons whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers and shepherds of the faithful, it was answered that King Henry was the very over- seer, the very shepherd, whom the Holy Ghost had appointed, 35 and to whom the expressions of Saint Paul applied. 1 1 See a very curious paper which Strype believed to be in Gardiner's handwriting. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book I. Chap. xvii. 52 MAC AUL AY'S HISTORY. These high pretensions gave scandal to Protestants as well as to Catholics ; and the scandal was greatly increased when the supremacy, which Mary had resigned back to the Pope, was again annexed to the crown, on the accession of 5 Elizabeth. It seemed monstrous that a woman should be the chief bishop of a Church in which an apostle had forbidden her even to let her voice be heard. The Queen, therefore, found it necessary expressly to disclaim that sacerdotal character which her father had assumed, and which, 10 according to Cranmer, had been inseparably joined, by divine ordinance, to the regal function. When the Anglican confession of faith was revised in her reign, the supremacy was explained in a manner somewhat different from that which had been fashionable at the court of Henry. Cranmer 15 had declared, in emphatic terms, that God had immediately committed to Christian princes the whole cure of all their subjects, as well concerning the administration of God's word for the cure of souls, as concerning the administration of things political. 1 The thirty-seventh article of religion, 20 framed under Elizabeth, declares, in terms as emphatic, that the ministering of God's word does not belong to princes. The Queen, however, still had over the Church a visitatorial power of vast and undefined extent. She was entrusted by Parliament with the office of restraining and punishing 25 heresy and every sort of ecclesiastical abuse, and was permitted to delegate her authority to commissioners. The Bishops were little more than her ministers. Rather than grant to the civil magistrate the absolute power of nominating spiritual pastors, the Church of Rome, in the eleventh 30 century, set all Europe on fire. Rather than grant to the civil magistrate the absolute power of nominating spiritual pastors, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, in our own time, resigned their livings by hundreds. The Church of England had no such scruples. By the royal authority 35 alone her prelates were appointed. By the royal authority alone her Convocations were summoned, regulated, prorogued, 1 These are Cranmer's own words. See the Appendix to Burnet's History of the Reformation, Part I. Book III. No. 21. Question 9. RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE CROWN. 53 and dissolved. Without the royal sanction her canons had no force. One of the articles of her faith was that without the royal consent no ecclesiastical council could lawfully assemble. From all her judicatures an appeal lay, in the last resort, to the sovereign, even when the question was 5 whether an opinion ought to be accounted heretical, or whether the administration of a sacrament had been valid. Nor did the Church grudge this extensive power to our princes. By them she had been called into existence, nursed through a feeble infancy, guarded from Papists on 10 one side and from Puritans on the other, protected against Parliaments which bore her no good will, and avenged on literary assailants whom she found it hard to answer. Thus gratitude, hope, fear, common attachments, common enmities, bound her to the throne. All her traditions, all her tastes, 15 were monarchical. Loyalty became a point of professional honour among her clergy, the peculiar badge which dis- tinguished them at once from Calvinists and from Papists. Both the Calvinists and the Papists, widely as they differed in other respects, regarded with extreme jealousy all 20 encroachments of the temporal power on the domain of the spiritual power. Both .Calvinists and Papists maintained that subjects might justifiably draw the sword against ungodly rulers. In France Calvinists resisted Charles the Ninth : Papists resisted Henry the Fourth : both Papists 25 and Calvinists resisted Henry the Third. In Scotland Calvinists led Mary captive. On the north of the Trent Papists took arms against the English throne. The Church of England meantime condemned both Calvinists and Papists, and loudly boasted that no duty was more constantly 30 or earnestly inculcated by her than that of submission to princes. The advantages which the crown derived from this close alliance with the Established Church were great ; but they were not without serious drawbacks. The compromise 35 arranged by Cranmer had from the first been considered by a large body of Protestants as a scheme for serving two masters, as an attempt to unite the worship of the Lord 54 macaulay's history. with the worship of Baal. In the days of Edward the Sixth the scruples of this party had repeatedly thrown great difficulties in the way of the government. When Elizabeth came to the throne, those difficulties were much 5 increased. Violence naturally engenders violence. The spirit of Protestantism was therefore far fiercer and more intolerant after the cruelties of Mary than before them. Many persons who were warmly attached to the new opinions had, during the evil days, taken refuge in Switzer- 10 land and Germany. They had been hospitably received by their brethren in the faith, had sate at the feet of the great doctors of Strasburg, Zurich, and Geneva, and had been, during some years, accustomed to a more simple worship, and to a more democratical form of church 15 government, than England had yet seen. These men returned to their country, convinced that the reform which had been effected under King Edward had been far less searching and extensive than the interests of pure religion required. But it was in vain that they attempted to obtain 20 any concession from Elizabeth. Indeed her system, wherever it differed from her brother's, seemed to them to differ for the worse. They were little disposed to submit, in matters of faith, to any human authority. They had recently, in reliance on their own interpretation of Scripture, risen up 25 against a Church strong in immemorial antiquity and catholic consent. It was by no common exertion of in- tellectual energy that they had thrown off the yoke of that gorgeous and imperial superstition ; and it was vain to expect that, immediately after such an emancipation, they 30 would patiently submit to a new spiritual tyranny. Long- accustomed, when the priest lifted up the host, to bow down with their faces to the earth, as before a present God, they had learned to treat the mass as an idolatrous mummery. Long accustomed to regard the Pope as the successor of the 35 chief of the apostles, as the bearer of the keys of earth and heaven, they had learned to regard him as the Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin. It was not to be expected that they would immediately transfer to an upstart authority the REPUBLICAN SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS. 55 homage which they had withdrawn from the Vatican ; that they would submit their private judgment to the authority of a Church founded on private judgment alone ; that they would be afraid to dissent from teachers who themselves dissented from what had lately been the universal faith of 5 western Christendom. It is easy to conceive the indignation which must have been felt by bold and inquisitive spirits, glorying in newly acquired freedom, when an institution younger by many years than themselves, an institution which had, under their own eyes, gradually received its 10 form from the passions and interests of a court, began to mimic the lofty style of Rome. Since these men could not be convinced, it was deter- mined that they should be persecuted. Persecution pro- duced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect : 15 it made them a faction. To their hatred of the Church was now added hatred of the Crown. The two sentiments were intermingled ; and each embittered the other. The opinions of the Puritan concerning the relation of ruler and subject were widely different from those which were 20 inculcated in the Homilies. His favourite divines had, both by precept, and by example, encouraged resistance to tyrants and persecutors. His fellow Calvinists in France, in Holland, and in Scotland, were in arms against idolatrous and cruel princes. His notions, too, respecting the govern- 25 ment of the state took a tinge from his notions respecting the government of the Church. Some of the sarcasms which were popularly thrown on episcopacy might, without much difficulty, be turned against royalty; and many of the arguments which were used to prove that spiritual 30 power was best lodged in a synod seemed to lead to the conclusion that temporal power was best lodged in a parliament. Thus, as the priest of the Established Church was, from interest, from principle, and from passion, zealous for the 35 royal prerogatives, the Puritan was, from interest, from principle, and from passion, hostile to them. The power of the discontented sectaries was great. They were found in 56 macaulay's history. every rank ; but they were strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and among the small proprietors in the country. Early in the reign of Elizabeth they began to return a majority of the House of Commons. And doubtless, 5 had our ancestors been then at liberty to fix their attention entirely on domestic questions, the strife between the Crown and the Parliament would instantly have commenced. But that was no season for internal dissensions. It might, indeed well be doubted whether the firmest union among all 10 the orders of the state could avert the common danger by which all were threatened. Roman Catholic Europe and reformed Europe were struggling for death or life. Erance, divided against herself, had, for a time, ceased to be of any account in Christendom. The English government was at 15 the head of the Protestant interest, and, while persecuting Presbyterians at home, extended a powerful protection to Presbyterian Churches abroad. At the head of the opposite party was the mightiest prince of the age, a prince who ruled Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, the East and 20 the West Indies, whose armies repeatedly marched to Paris, and whose fleets kept the coasts of Devonshire and Sussex in alarm. It long seemed probable that Englishmen would have to fight desperately on English ground for their religion and independence. Nor were they ever for a moment free 25 from apprehensions of some great treason at home. For in that age it had become a point of conscience and of honour with many men of generous natures to sacrifice their country to their religion. A succession of dark plots, formed by Roman Catholics against the life of the Queen and the 30 existence of the nation, kept society in constant alarm. Whatever might be the faults of Elizabeth it was plain that, to speak humanly, the fate of the realm and of all reformed Churches was staked on the security of her person and on the success of her administration. To strengthen 35 her hands was, therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant ; and that duty was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that QUESTION OF THE MONOPOLIES. 57 she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been5 hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was still left him, and shouted "God save the Queen!" The sentiment with which these men regarded her has descended to their posterity. The Nonconformists, rigorously as she treated them, have, as a body, always venerated her 10 memory. 1 . During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the Puritans in the House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, felt no disposition to array themselves in systematic opposition to the government. But, when the defeat of the 15 Armada, the successful resistance of the United Provinces to the Spanish power, the firm establishment of Henry the Fourth on the throne of France, and the death of Philip the Second, had secured the State and the Church against all danger from abroad, an obstinate struggle, destined to last 20 during several generations, instantly began at home. It was in the Parliament of 1601 that the opposition which had, during forty years, been silently gathering and husbanding strength, fought its first great battle and won its first victory. The ground was well chosen. The 25 English sovereigns had always been entrusted with the supreme direction of commercial police. It was their undoubted prerogative to regulate coin, weights, and measures, and to appoint fairs, markets, and ports. The 1 The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty with 30 which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes thus : " However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, Queen Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise and politic princess, for delivering her kingdom from the difficulties in which it was involved at her accession, for preserving the Protestant reformation against the potent attempts 35 of the Pope, the Emperor, and King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and her Popish subjects at home. . . . She was the glory of the age in which she lived, and will be the admiration of posterity." — History of the Pur'itans, Part I. Chap. viii. 58 macaulay's history. line which bounded their authority over trade had, as usual, been but loosely drawn. They, therefore, as usual, encroached on the province which rightfully belonged to the legislature. The encroachment was, as usual, patiently 5 borne till it became serious. But at length the Queen took upon herself to grant patents of monopoly by scores. There was scarcely a family in the realm which did not feel itself aggrieved by the oppression and extortion which this abuse naturally caused. Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, salt- 10 petre, lead, starch, yarn, skins, leather, glass, could be bought only at exorbitant prices. The House of Commons met in an angry and determined mood. It was in vain that a courtly minority blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the Queen's Highness to be called in question. The 15 language of the discontented party was high and menacing, and was echoed by the voice of the whole nation. The coach of the chief minister of the crown was surrounded by an indignant populace, who cursed the monopolies, and exclaimed that the prerogative should not be suffered to 20 touch the old liberties of England. There seemed for a moment to be some danger that the long and glorious reign of Elizabeth would have a shameful and disastrous end. She, however, with admirable judgment and temper, declined the contest, put herself at the head of the reforming party, 25 redressed the grievance, thanked the Commons, in touching and dignified language, for their tender care of the general weal, brought back to herself the hearts of the people, and left to her successors a memorable example of the way in which it behoves a ruler to deal with public movements 30 which he has not the means of resisting. In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many accounts, one of the most important epochs in our history. It was then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the same empire with England. Both Scotland and 35 Ireland, indeed, had been subjugated by the Plantagenets ; but neither country had been patient under the yoke. Scotland had, with heroic energy, vindicated her independ- ence, had, from the time of Robert Bruce, been a separate SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 59 kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part of the island in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her national pride. Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the Second, been able to expel the foreign invaders ; but she had struggled against them long and fiercely. During the 5 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the English power in that island was constantly declining, and in the days of Henry the Seventh, sank to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince consisted only of the counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath and Kildare, and of a few 10 seaports scattered along the coast. A large portion even of Leinster was not yet divided into counties. Munster, Ulster, and Connaught were ruled by petty sovereigns, partly Celts, and partly degenerate Normans, who had forgotten their origin and had adopted the Celtic language and manners. 15 But, during the sixteenth century, the English power had made great progress. The half savage chieftains who reigned beyond the pale had submitted one after another to the lieutenants of the Tudors. At length, a few weeks before the death of Elizabeth, the conquest, which had been 20 begun more than four hundred years before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had James the First mounted the English throne when the last O'Donnell and O'Neill who have held the rank of independent princes kissed his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran and 25 his judges held assizps in every part of Ireland ; and the English law superseded the customs which had pievailed among the aboriginal tribes. In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other, and were together nearly equal to England, but were 30 much less thickly peopled than England, and were very far behind England in wealth and civilisation. Scotland had been kept back by the sterility of her soil ; and, in the midst of light, the thick darkness of the middle ages still rested on Ireland. 35 The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic tribes which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the mountainous parts of the northern shires, was 60 macaulay's history. of the same blood with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ from the purest English more than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. In Ireland, on the contrary, the 5 population, with the exception of the small English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still kept the Celtic speech and manners. In natural courage and intelligence both the nations which now became connected with England ranked high. In per- 10 severance, in self-command, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish, on the other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend to make men interesting rather than prosperous. They were an ardent and impetuous race, easily 15 moved to tears or to laughter, to fury or to love. Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had the suscepti- bility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In mental cultivation Scotland had an indisputable 20 superiority. Though that kingdom was then the poorest in Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the most favoured countries. Scotsmen, whose dwell- ings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than 25 the delicacy of Yida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Xapier. The genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endowed, showed itself as yet only in ballads which, wild and ragged as they 30 were, seemed to the judging eye of Spencer to contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry. Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, preserved her dignity. Having, during many generations, courageously withstood the English arms, she was now joined to her stronger neighbour on the 35 most honourable terms. She gave a king instead of receiv- ing one. She retained her own constitution and laws. Her tribunals and parliaments remained entirely independent of the tribunals and parliaments which sate at Westminster. SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 61 The administration of Scotland was in Scottish hands ; for no Englishman had any motive to emigrate northward, and to contend with the shrewdest and most pertinacious of all races for what was to be scraped together in the poorest of all treasuries. Nevertheless Scotland by no means escaped 5 the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources. Though in name an independent kingdom, she was, during more than a century, really treated, in many respects, as a subject province. 10 Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency won by the sword. Her rude national institutions had perished. The English colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother country, without whose support they could not exist, and indemnified themselves by trampling on the people 15 among whom they had settled. The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no law which had not been previously approved by the English Privy Council. The authority of the English legislature extended over Ireland. The executive administration was entrusted to men taken either from 20 England or from the English pale, and, in either case, regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic population. But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made Ireland to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. 25 Scotland was Protestant. In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. The Reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their idolatrous sovereign. They would not endure even such a compromise 30 as had been effected in England. They had established the Calvinistic doctrine, discipline, and worship; and they made little distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the Mass and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, the prince whom she sent to govern a fairer 35 inheritance had been so much annoyed by the pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted against him the privileges of the synod and the pulpit that he hated the 62 macaulay's history. ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly attached as much as it was in his effeminate nature to hate anything, and had no sooner mounted the English throne than he began to show an intolerant zeal for the government and *> ritual of the English Church. The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had remained true to the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed to the circumstance that they were some centuries behind their neighbours in knowledge. But other causes 10 had co-operated. The Reformation had been a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been, not only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but also an insurrection of all the branches of the great German race against an alien domination. It is a most significant circumstance that no 15 large society of which the tongue is not Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a language derived from that of ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails. The patriotism of the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The object of their animosity 20 was not Rome, but England ; and they had especial reason to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of the great schism, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. During the vain struggle which two generations of Milesian princes maintained against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm 25 and national enthusiasm became inseparably blended in the minds of the vanquished race. The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of Saxon and Celt. The English conquerors, meanwhile, neglected all legitimate means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the 30 vanquished nation with instructors capable of making them- selves understood. No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Irish language. The government contented itself with setting up a vast hierarchy of Protestant arch- bishops, bishops, and rectors, who did nothing, and who, for 35 doing nothing, were paid out of the spoils of a Church loved and revered by the great body of the people. There was much in the state both of Scotland and of Ireland which might well excite the painful apprehensions DIMINUTION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLAND. 63 of a farsiglited statesman. As yet, however, there was the appearance of tranquillity. For the first time all the British isles were peaceably united under one sceptre. It should seem that the weight of England among European nations ought, from this epoch, to have greatly 5 increased. The territory which her new King governed was, in extent, nearly double that which Elizabeth had inherited. His empire was the most complete within itself and the most secure from attack that was to be found in the world. The Plantagenets and Tudors had been repeatedly under 10 the necessity of defending themselves against Scotland while they were engaged in continental war. The long conflict in Ireland had been a severe and perpetual drain on their resources. Yet even under such disadvantages those sovereigns had been highly considered throughout 15 Christendom. It might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that England, Scotland, and Ireland combined would form a state second to none that then existed. All such expectations were strangely disappointed. On the day of the accession of James the First England 20 descended from the rank which she had hitherto held, and began to be regarded as a power hardly of the second order. During many years the great British monarchy, under four successive princes of the House of Stuart, was scarcely a more important member of the European system 25 than the little kingdom of Scotland had previously been. This, however, is little to be regretted. Of James the First, as of John, it may be said that, if his administration had been able and splendid, it would probably have been fatal to our country, and that we owe more to his weakness and 30 meanness than to the wisdom and courage of much better sovereigns. He came to the throne at a critical moment. The time was fast approaching when either the King must become absolute, or the Parliament must control the whole executive administration. Had James been, like Henry the 35 Fourth, like Maurice of Nassau, or like Gustavus Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic ruler, had he put himself at the Jiead of the Protestants of Europe, had he gained great 64 macaulay's history. victories over Tilly and Spinola, had lie adorned West- minster with the spoils of Bavarian monasteries and Flemish cathedrals, had he hung Austrian and Castilian banners in St. Paul's, and had he found himself, after great 5 achievements, at the head of fifty thousand troops, brave, well disciplined, and devotedly attached to his person, the English Parliament would soon have been nothing more than a name. Happily he was not a man to play such a part. He began his administration by putting an end to the 10 war which had raged during many years between England and Spain ; and from that time he shunned hostilities with a caution which was proof against the insults of his neighbours and the clamours of his subjects. Not till the last year of his life could the influence of his son, his 15 favourite, his Parliament, and his people combined, induce him to strike one feeble blow in defence of his family and of his religion. It was well for those whom he governed that he in this matter disregarded their wishes. The effect of his pacific policy was that, in his time, no regular troops were 20 needed, and that, while France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Germany swarmed with mercenary soldiers, the defence of our island was still confided to the militia. As the king had no standing army, and did not even attempt to form one, it would have been wise in him 25 to avoid any conflict with his people. But such was his indiscretion that, while he altogether neglected the means which alone could make him really absolute, he constantly put forward, in the most offensive form, claims of which none of his predecessors had ever dreamed. 30 It was at this time that those strange theories which Filmer afterwards formed into a system, and which became the badge of the most violent class of Tories and high churchmen, first emerged into notice. It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary 35 monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RIGHT. 65 human power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could deprive a legitimate prince of his rights; that the authority of such a prince was necessarily always despotic ; that the laws, by which, in England and in other 5 countries, the prerogative was limited, were to be regarded merely as concessions which the sovereign had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; and that any treaty which a king might conclude with his people was merely a declaration of his present intentions, and not a contract 10 of which the performance could be demanded It is evident that this theory, though intended to strengthen the foundations of government, altogether unsettles them. Does the divine and immutable law of primogeniture admit females, or exclude them % On either supposition half the 15 sovereigns of Europe must be usurpers, reigning in defiance of the law of God, and liable to be dispossessed by the rightful heirs. The doctrine that kingly government is peculiarly favoured by Heaven receives no countenance from the Old Testament ; for in the Old Testament we read 20 that the chosen people were blamed and punished for desiring a king, and that they were afterwards commanded to withdraw their allegiance from him. Their whole history, far from countenancing the notion that succession in order of primogeniture is of divine institution, would rather seem 25 to indicate that younger brothers are under the especial protection of heaven. Isaac was not the eldest son of Abraham, nor Jacob of Isaac, nor Judah of Jacob, nor David of Jesse, nor Solomon of David. Nor does the system of Filmer receive any countenance from those 30 passages of the New Testament which describe government as an ordinance of God : for the government under which the writers of the New Testament lived was not a hereditary monarchy. The Roman Emperors were republican magistrates named by the senate. None of them pretended to rule by -35 right of birth ; and, in fact, both Tiberius, to whom Christ commanded that tribute should be given, and Nero, whom Paul directed the Romans to obey, were, according to the F 66 macaulay's history. patriarchal theory of government, usurpers. In the middle ages the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right would have been regarded as heretical : for it was altogether incompatible with the high pretensions of the Church of 5 Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the Church of England. The Homily on Wilful Rebellion had strongly, and indeed too strongly, inculcated submission to constituted authority, but had made no distinction between hereditary and elective monarchies, or between 10 monarchies and republics. Indeed most of the predecessors of James would, from personal motives, have regarded the patriarchal theory of government with aversion. William Rufus, Henry the First, Stephen, John, Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, 15 and Henry the Seventh, had all reigned in defiance of the strict rule of descent. A grave doubt hung over the legitimacy both of Mary and of Elizabeth. It was impossible that both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn could have been lawfully married to Henry the Eighth; and the highest 20 authority in the realm had pronounced that neither was so. The Tudors, far from considering the law of succession as a divine and unchangeable institution, were constantly tampering with it. Henry the Eighth obtained an act of Parliament, giving him power to leave the crown by will, 25 and actually made a will to the prejudice of the royal family of Scotland. Edward the Sixth, unauthorised by Parliament, assumed a similar power, with the full approbation of the most eminent Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her own title was open to grave objection, and unwilling to 30 admit even a reversionary right in her rival and enemy the Queen of Scots, induced the Parliament to pass a law, enacting that whoever should deny the competency of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the Estates of the realm, to alter the succession, should suffer death as a traitor. 35 But the situation of James was widely ditferent from that of Elizabeth. Far inferior to her in abilities and in popularity, regarded by the English as an alien, and excluded from the throne by the testament of Henry the Eighth, the King of DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RIGHT. 67 . Scots was yet the undoubted heir of William the Conqueror and of Egbert. He had, therefore, an obvious interest in inculcating the superstitious notion that birth confers rights anterior to law, and unalterable by law. It was a notion, moreover, well suited to his intellect and temper. It soon 5 found many advocates among those who aspired to his favour, and made rapid progress among the clergy of the Established Church. Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to manifest itself strongly in the Parliament and 10 in the country, the claims of the monarch took a monstrous form which would have disgusted the proudest and most arbitrary of those who had preceded him on the throne. James was always boasting of his skill in what he called 15 kingcraft ; and yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a course more directly opposed to all the rules of kingcraft than that which he followed. The policy of wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts under popular forms. It was thus that Augustus and Napoleon established absolute 20 monarchies, while the public regarded them merely as eminent citizens invested with temporary magistracies. The policy of James was the direct reverse of theirs. He enraged and alarmed his Parliament by constantly telling them that they held their privileges merely during his 25 pleasure, and that they had no more business to inquire what he might lawfully do than what the Deity might lawfully do. Yet he quailed before them, abandoned minister after minister to their vengeance, and suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest 30 inclinations. Thus the indignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His cowardice, his child- 35 ishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person and manners, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even in his virtues and accomplishments there was some- 68 macaulay's history. thing eminently unkingly. Throughout the whole course of his reign, all the venerable associations by which the throne had long been fenced were gradually losing their strength. During two hundred years all the sovereigns who had ruled 5 England, with the single exception of the unfortunate Henry the Sixth, had been strongminded, highspirited, courageous, and of princely bearing. Almost all had possessed abilities above the ordinary level. It was no light thing that, on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our Kings 10 and their Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in a style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue. In the mean time the religious dissensions, by which, 15 from the days of Edward the Sixth, the Protestant body had been distracted, had become more formidable than ever. The interval which had separated the first generation of Puritans from Cranmer and Jewel was small indeed when compared with the interval which separated the 20 third generation of Puritans from Laud and Hammond. While the recollection of Mary's cruelties was still fresh, while the power of the Roman Catholic Party still inspired apprehension, while Spain still retained ascendency and aspired to universal dominion, all the Reformed sects knew 25 that they had a strong common interest and a deadly common enemy. The animosity which they felt towards each other was languid when compared with the animosity which they all felt towards Rome. Conformists and Non- conformists had heartily joined in enacting penal laws 30 of extreme severity against the Papists. But when more than half a century of undisturbed possession had given confidence to the Established Church, when nine tenths of the nation had become heartily Protestant, when England was at peace with all the world, when there was no danger 35 that Popery would be forced by foreign arms on the nation, when the last confessors who had stood before Bonner had passed away, a change took place in the feeling of the Anglican clergy. Their hostility to the THE CHURCH AND PURITANS. 69 Roman Catholic doctrine and discipline was considerably mitigated. Their dislike of the Puritans, on the other hand, increased daily. The controversies which had from the beginning divided the Protestant party took such a form as made reconciliation hopeless ; and new contro- 5 versies of still greater importance were added to the old subjects of dispute. The founders of the Anglican Church had retained episcopacy as an ancient, a decent, and a convenient eccle- siastical polity, but had not declared that form of Church 10 government to be of divine institution. We have already seen how low an estimate Cranmer had formed of the office of a bishop. In the reign of Elizabeth, Jewel, Cooper, Whitgift, and other eminent doctors defended prelacy, as innocent, as useful, as what the state might lawfully 15 establish, as what, when established by the state, was entitled to the respect of every citizen. But they never denied that a Christian community without a bishop might be a pure Church. On the contrary, they regarded the Protestants of the Continent as of the same household 20 of faith with themselves. Englishmen in England were indeed bound to acknowledge the authority of the bishop, as they were bound to acknowledge the authority of the sheriff and the coroner : but the obligation was purely local. An English churchman, nay even an English prelate, 25 if he went to Holland, conformed without scruple to the established religion of Holland. Abroad the ambassadors of Elizabeth and James went in state to the very worship which Elizabeth and James persecuted at home, and care- fully abstained from decorating their private chapels after 30 the Anglican fashion, lest scandal should be given to weaker brethren. It was even held that Presbyterian ministers were entitled to place and voice in oecumenical councils. When the States General of the United Provinces convoked at Dort a synod of doctors not episcopally ordained an English 35 bishop and an English dean, commissioned by the head of the English Church, sate with those doctors, preached to them, and voted with them on the gravest questions 70 macaulay's history. of theology. 1 Nay, many English benefices were held by divines who had been admitted to the ministry in the Calvinistic form used on the Continent ; nor was reordin- ation by a bishop in such cases then thought necessary, or 5 even lawful. But a new race of divines was already rising in the Church of England. In their view the episcopal office was essential to the welfare of a Christian society .and to the efficacy of the most solemn ordinances of religion. To that 10 office belonged certain high and sacred privileges, which no human power could give or take away. A Church might as well be without the doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine of the Incarnation, as without the apostolical orders; and the Church of Rome, which, in the midst of 15 all her corruptions, had retained the apostolical orders, was nearer to primitive purity than those Reformed societies which had rashly set up, in opposition to the divine model, a system invented by men. In the days of Edward the Sixth and of Elizabeth, the 20 defenders of the Anglican ritual had generally contented themselves with saying that it might be used without sin, and that, therefore, none but a perverse and undutiful subject would refuse to use it when enjoined to do so by the magistrate. Now, however, that rising party which claimed 25 for the polity of the Church a celestial origin began to ascribe to her services a new dignity and importance. It was hinted that, if the established worship had any fault, that fault was extreme simplicity, and that the Reformers had, in the heat of their quarrel with Rome, abolished 30 many ancient ceremonies which might with advantage have been retained. Days and places were again held in mysterious veneration. Some practices which had long been disused, and which were commonly regarded as super- 1 Joseph Hall, then dean of "Worcester, and afterwards hishop of 35 Norwich, was one of the commissioners. In his life of himself, he says: "My unworthiness "was named for one of the assistants of that honourable, grave, and reverend meeting." To high church- men this humility will seem not a little out of place. THE CHURCH AND PURITANS. 71 stitious mummeries, were revived. Paintings and carvings, which had escaped the fury of the first generation of Pro- testants, became the objects of a respect such as to many seemed idolatrous. No part of the system of the old Church had been more 5 detested by the Reformers than the honour paid to celibacy. They held that the doctrine of Rome on this subject had been prophetically condemned by the apostle Paul, as a doctrine of devils ; and they dwelt much on the crimes and scandals which seemed to prove the justice of this awful 10 denunciation. Luther had evinced his own opinion in the clearest manner, by espousing a nun. Some of the most illustrious bishops and priests who had died by fire during the reign of Mary had left wives and children. Now, however, it began to be rumoured that the old monastic 15 spirit had reappeared in the Church of England ; that there was in high quarters a prejudice against married priests ; that even laymen, who called themselves Protestants, had made resolutions of celibacy which almost amounted to vows ; nay, that a minister of the established religion had 20 set up a nunnery, in which the psalms were chaunted at midnight, by a company of virgins dedicated to God. l Nor was this all. A class of questions, as to which the founders of the Anglican Church and the first generation of Puritans had differed little or not at all, began to furnish 25 matter for fierce disputes. The controversies which had divided the Protestant body in its infancy had related almost exclusively to Church government and to ceremonies. There had been no serious quarrel between the contending parties on points of metaphysical theology. The doctrines 30 held by the chiefs of the hierarchy touching original sin, faith, grace, predestination, and election, were those which are popularly called Calvinistic. Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, her favourite prelate, Archbishop Whitgift, drew up, in concert with the Bishop of London and other 35 1 Peckard's Life of Ferrar ; The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief Description of the late erected monastical Place called the Arminian Nunnery, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, 1641. 72 macaulay's history. theologians, the celebrated instrument known by the name of the Lambeth Articles. In that instrument the most startling of the Calvinistic doctrines are affirmed with a distinctness which would shock many who, in our age, are 5 reputed Calvinists. One clergyman, who took the opposite side, and spoke harshly of Calvin, was arraigned for his presumption by the University of Cambridge, and escaped punishment only by expressing his firm belief in the tenets of reprobation and final perseverance, and his sorrow for 10 the offence which he had given to pious men by reflecting on the great French reformer. The school of divinity of which Hooker was the chief occupies a middle place between the school of Cranmer and the school of Laud ; and Hooker has, in modern times, been claimed by the Arminians 15 as an ally. Yet Hooker pronounced Calvin to have been a man superior in wisdom to any other divine that France had produced, a man to whom thousands were indebted for the knowledge of divine truth, but who was himself indebted to God alone. When the Arminian controversy 20 arose in Holland, the English government and the English Church lent strong support to the Calvinistic party ; nor is the English name altogether free from the stain which has been left on that party by the imprisonment of Grotius and the judicial murder of Earneveldt. 25 But, even before the meeting of the Dutch synod, that part of the Anglican clergy which was peculiarly hostile to the Calvinistic Church government and to the Calvinistic warship had begun to regard with dislike the Calvinistic metaphysics ; and this feeling was very naturally 30 strengthened by the gross injustice, insolence, and cruelty of the party which was prevalent at Dort. The Arminian doctrine, a doctrine less austerely logical than that of the early Reformers, but more agreeable to the popular notions of the divine justice and benevolence, spread fast and wide. 35 The infection soon reached the court. Opinions which, at the time of the accession of James, no clergyman could have avowed without imminent risk of being stripped of his gown, were now the best title to preferment A divine THE CHURCH AND PURITANS. 73 of that age, who was asked by a simple country gentleman what the Arminians held, answered, with as much truth as wit, that they held all the best bishoprics and deaneries in England. While a section of the Anglican clergy quitted, in one 5 direction, the position which they had originally occupied, a section of the Puritan body departed, in a direction diametrically opposite, from the principles and practices of their fathers. The persecution which the separatists had undergone had been severe enough to irritate, but not 10 severe enough to destroy. They had been, not tamed into submission, but baited into savageness and stubbornness. After the fashion of oppressed sects, they mistook their own vindictive feelings for emotions of piety, encouraged in themselves by reading and meditation a disposition to brood 15 over their wrongs, and, when they had worked themselves up into hating their enemies, imagined that they were only hating the enemies of heaven. In the New Testament there was little indeed which, even when perverted by the most disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance 20 the indulgence of malevolent passions. But the Old Testament contained the history of a race selected by God to be witnesses of his unity and ministers of his vengeance, and specially commanded by him to do many things which, if done without his special command, would have been 2d atrocious crimes. In such a history it was not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much that might be dis- torted to suit their wishes. The extreme Puritans therefore began to feel for the Old Testament a preference, which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow even to themselves ; 30 but which showed itself in all their sentiments and habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they refused to that tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and the epistles of Paul have come down to us. They baptized their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of 35 Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. In defiance of the express and reiterated declarations of Luther and Calvin, they turned the weekly festival by which the Church had, from 74 macaulay's history. the primitive times, commemorated the resurrection of her Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath. They sought for principles of jurisprudence in the Mosaic law, and for precedents to guide their ordinary conduct in the books of Judges and 5 Kings. Their thoughts and discourse ran much on acts which were assuredly not recorded as examples for our imitation. The prophet who hewed in pieces a captive- king, the rebel general who gave the blood of a queen to the dogs, the matron who, in defiance of plighted faith, and 10 of the laws of eastern hospitality, drove the nail into the brain of the fugitive ally who had just fed at her board, and who was sleeping under the shadow of her tent, were proposed as models to Christians suffering under the tyranny of princes and prelates. Morals and manners were 15 subjected to a code resembling that of the synagogue when the synagogue was in its worst state. The dress, the deportment, the language, the studies, the amusements of the rigid sect were regulated on principles not unlike those of the Pharisees who, proud of their washed hands and 20 1 »road phylacteries, taunted the Redeemer as a sabbath-breaker and a winebibber. It was a sin to hang garlands on a May- pole, to drink a friend's health, to fly a hawk, to hunt a stag, to play at chess, to wear lovelocks, to put starch into a ruff, to touch the virginals, to read the Fairy Queen. 25 Rules such as these, rules which would have appeared insupportable to the free and joyous spirit of Luther, and contemptible to the serene and philosophical intellect of Zwingle, threw over all life a more than monastic gloom. The learning and eloquence by which the great Reformers 30 had been eminently distinguished, and to which they had been, in no small measure, indebted for their success, were regarded by the new school of Protestants with suspicion, if not with aversion. Some precisians had scruples about teaching the Latin grammar, because the names of Mars, 35 Bacchus, and Apollo occurred in it. The fine arts were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the organ was super- stitious. The light music of Ben Jonson's masques was dissolute. Half the fine paintings in England were THE CHURCH AND PURITANS. 75 idolatrous, and the other half indecent. The extreme Puritan was at once known from other men by his gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke, and, above all, by his peculiar dialect. He employed, 5 on every occasion, the imagery and style of Scripture. Hebraisms violently introduced into the English language, and metaphors borrowed from the boldest lyric poetry of a remote age and country, and applied to the common concerns of English life, were the most striking peculiarities of this 10 cant, which moved, not without cause, the derision both of prelatists and libertines. Thus the political and religious schism which had originated in the sixteenth century was, during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, constantly widening. 15 Theories tending to Turkish despotism were in fashion at Whitehall. Theories tending to republicanism were in favour with a large portion of the House of Commons. The violent prelatists who were, to a man, zealous for prerogative, and the violent Puritans who were, to a man, 20 zealous for the privileges of Parliament, regarded each other with animosity more intense than that which, in the pre- ceding generation, had existed between Catholics and Protestants. While the minds of men were in this state, the country, 25 after a peace of many years, at length engaged in a war which required strenuous exertions. This war hastened the approach of the great constitutional crisis. It was necessary that the King should have a large military force. He could not have such a force without money. He could not legally 30 raise the money without the consent of Parliament. It fol- lowed, therefore, that he either must administer the govern- ment in conformity with the sense of the House of Commons, or must venture on such a violation of the fundamental laws of the land as had been unknown during several centuries. 35 The Plantagenets and the Tudors had, it is true, occasionally supplied a deficiency in their revenue by a benevolence or a forced loan : but these expedients were always of a tempo- 76 macaulay's history. rary nature. To meet the regular charge of a long war by regular taxation, imposed without the consent of the Estates of the realm, was a course which Henry the Eighth himself would not have dared to take. It seemed, therefore, that 5 the decisive hour was approaching, and that the English Parliament would soon either share the fate of the senates of the Continent, or obtain supreme ascendency in the state. Just at this conjuncture James died. Charles the First succeeded to the throne. He had received from nature a far 10 better understanding, a far stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his father's. He had inherited his father's political theories, and was much more disposed than his father to carry them into practice. He was, like his father, a zealous episcopalian. He was, moreover, what his father 15 had never been, a zealous Arminian, and, though no Papist, liked a Papist much better than a Puritan. It would be unjust to deny that Charles had some of the qualities of a good, and even of a great prince. He wrote and spoke, not, like his father, with the exactness of a professor, but after °,0 the fashion of intelligent and well educated gentlemen. His taste in literature and art was excellent, his manner dignified, though not gracious, his domestic life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, 25 impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from 30 constitution and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to have learned from the theologians whom he most esteemed that between him and his subjects there could be nothing of the nature of mutual contract; that he could not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic 35 authority ; and that, in every promise which he made, there was an implied reservation that such promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole judge. OPPOSITION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 77 And now began that hazardous game on which were staked the destinies of the English people. It was played on the side of the House of Commons with keenness, but with admirable dexterity, coolness, and perseverance. Great statesmen who looked far behind them and far before them were at the head 5 of that assembly. They were resolved to place the King in such a situation that he must either conduct the adminis- tration in conformity with the wishes of his Parliament, or make outrageous attacks on the most sacred principles of the constitution. They accordingly doled out supplies to 10 him very sparingly. He found that he must govern either in harmony with the House of Commons, or in defiance of all law. His choice was soon made. He dissolved his first Parliament, and levied taxes by his own authority. He convoked a second Parliament, and found it more intract- 15 able than the first. He again resorted to the expedient of dissolution, raised fresh taxes without any show of legal right, and threw the chiefs of the opposition into prison. At the same time a new grievance, which the peculiar feelings and habits of the English nation made insupportably 20 painful, and which seemed to all discerning men to be of fearful augury, excited general discontent and alarm. Companies of soldiers were billeted on the people; and martial law was, in some places, substituted for the ancient jurisprudence of the realm. 25 The King called a third Parliament, and soon perceived that the opposition was stronger and fiercer than ever. He now determined on a change of tactics. Instead of opposing an inflexible resistance to the demands of the Commons, he, after much altercation and many evasions, agreed to a com- 30 promise which, if he had faithfully adhered to it, would have averted a long series of calamities. The Parliament granted an ample supply. The King ratified, in the most solemn manner, that celebrated law, which is known by the name of the Petition of Right, and which is the second 35 Great Charter of the liberties of England. By ratifying that law he bound himself never again to raise money without the consent of the Houses, never again to imprison 78 any person, except in due course of law, and never again to subject his people to the jurisdiction of courts martial. The day on which the royal sanction was, after many delays, solemnly given to this great Act, was a day of joy 5 and hope. The Commons, who crowded the bar of the House of Lords, broke forth into loud acclamations as soon as the clerk had pronounced the ancient form of words by which our princes have, during many ages, signified their assent to the wishes of the Estates of the realm. Those 10 acclamations were reechoed by the voice of the capital and of the nation ; but within three weeks it became manifest that Charles had no intention of observing the compact into which he had entered. The supply given by the repre- sentatives of the nation was collected. The promise by 15 which that supply had been obtained was broken. A violent contest followed. The Parliament was dissolved with every mark of royal displeasure. Some of the most distinguished members were imprisoned ; and one of them, Sir John Eliot, after years of suffering, died in 20 confinement. Charles, however, could not venture to raise, by his own authority, taxes sufficient for carrying on war. He accordingly hastened to make peace with his neighbours, and hence- forth gave his whole mind to British politics. 25 Now commenced a new era. Many English Kings had occasionally committed unconstitutional acts : but none had ever systematically attempted to make himself a despot, and to reduce the Parliament to a nullity. Such was the end which Charles distinctly proposed to himself. From March 30 1629 to April 1640, the Houses were not convoked. Never in our history had there been an interval of eleven years between Parliament and Parliament. Only once had there been an interval of even half that length. This fact alone is sufficient to refute those who represent Charles as having 35 merely trodden in the footsteps of the Plantagenets and Tudors. It is proved, by the testimony of the King's most strenuous siiDporters, that, during this part of his reign, SIR THOMAS WENT WORTH. 79 the provisions of the Petition of Right were violated by him, not occasionally, but constantly, and on system ; that a large part of the revenue was raised without any legal authority ; and that persons obnoxious to the government languished for years in prison, without being ever called 5 upon to plead before any tribunal. For these things history must hold the King himself chiefly responsible. From the time of his third Parliament he was his own prime minister. Several persons, however, Avhose temper and talents were suited to his purposes, were 10 at the head of different departments of the administration. Thomas Wentworth, successively created Lord Went- worth and Earl of Strafford, a man of great abilities, eloquence, and courage, but of a cruel and imperious nature, was the counsellor most trusted in political and 15 military affairs. He had been one of the most distin- guished members of the opposition, and felt towards those whom he had deserted that peculiar malignity which has, in all ages, been characteristic of apostates. He perfectly understood the feelings, the resources, and the policy of 20 the party to which he had lately belonged, and had formed a vast and deeply meditated scheme which very nearly confounded even the able tactics of the statesmen by whom the House of Commons had been directed. To this scheme, in his confidential correspondence, he gave 25 the expressive name of Thorough. His object was to do in Engh-nd all, and more than all, that Richelieu was doing in France; to make Charles a monarch as absolute as any on the Continent; to put the estates and the personal liberty of the whole people at the disposal of 30 the crown ; to deprive the courts of law of all independent authority, even in ordinary questions of civil right between man and man ; and to punish with merciless rigour all who murmured at the acts of the government, or who applied, even in the most decent and regular manner, to any tribunal 35 for relief against those acts. 1 1 The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear out what I have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages which 80 macaulay's -history. This was his end ; and he distinctly saw in what manner alone this end could be attained. There was, in truth, about all his notions a clearness, a coherence, a precision, which, if he had not been pursuing an object pernicious to 5 his country and to his kind, would have justly entitled him to high admiration. He saw that there was one instrument, and only one, by which his vast and daring projects could be carried into execution. That instrument was a standing army. To the forming of such an army, therefore, he 10 directed all the energy of his strong mind. In Ireland, where he was viceroy, he actually succeeded in establishing a military despotism, not only over the aboriginal popula- tion, but also over the English colonists, and was able to boast that, in that island, the King was as absolute as any 15 prince in the whole world could be. 1 The ecclesiastical administration was, in the meantime, principally directed by William Laud, archbishop of Canter- bury. Of all the prelates of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed farthest from the principles of the Refor- 20 mation, and had drawn nearest to Rome. His theology was more remote that even that of the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays, vigils, and sacred places, his ill concealed dislike of the marriage of eccle- 25 siastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal with which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the Puritans, even if he had used only legal and gentle means for the attainment of his ends. But his 30 understanding was narrow, and his commerce with the world had been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, have led me to the conclusion at which I have arrived, would be impossible ; nor would it be easy to make a better selection than has already been made by Mr. Hallam. I may, however, direct the 35 attention of the reader particularly to the very able paper which Wentworth drew up respecting the affairs of the Palatinate. The date is March 31, 1637. 1 These are Wentworth's own words. See his letter to Laud, dated Dec. 16, 1634 STAR CHAMBER AND HIGH COMMISSION. 81 quick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathise with the sufferings of others, and prone to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a 5 constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigour inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in innumerable 10 bosoms, was generally disguised under an outward show of conformity. On the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself and to his order, the bishops of several extensive dioceses were able to report to him that not a single dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction. 1 15 The tribunals afforded no protection to the subject against the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period. The judges of the common law, holding their situations during the pleasure of the King, were scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, they were less ready and less 20 efficient instruments of arbitrary power than a class of courts, the memory of which is still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among these courts in power and in infamy were the Star Chamber and the High Commission, the former 25 a political, the latter a religious inquisition. Neither was a part of the old constitution of England. The Star Chamber had been remodelled, and the High Commission created, by the Tudors. The power which these boards had possessed before the accession of Charles had been 30 extensive and formidable, but had been small indeed when compared with that which they now usurped. Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of the primate, and freed from the control of Parliament, they displayed a rapacity, a violence, a malignant energy, which had been unknown 35 to any former age. The government was able, through their instrumentality, to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate 1 See his report to Charles for the year 1639. Q 82 macaulay's history. without restraint. A separate council, which sate at York, under the presidency of Wentworth, was armed, in defiance of laAV, by a pure act of prerogative, with almost boundless power over the northern counties. All these tribunals 5 insulted and defied the authority of Westminster Hall, and daily committed excesses which the most distinguished Eoyalists have warmly condemned. We are informed by Clarendon that there was hardly a man of note in the realm who had not personal experience of the harshness 10 and greediness of the Star Chamber, that the High Com- mission had so conducted itself that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom, and that the tyranny of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a dead letter on the north of the Trent. 15 The government of England was now, in all points but one, as despotic as that of France. But that one point was all important. There was still no standing army. There was, therefore, no security that the whole fabric of tyranny might not be subverted in a single day ; and, if taxes were 20 imposed by the royal authority for the support of an army, it was probable that there would be an immediate and irresistible explosion. This was the difficulty which more than any other perplexed Wentworth. The Lord Keeper Finch, in concert with other lawyers who were employed by 25 the government, recommended an expedient which was eagerly adopted. The ancient princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the counties near Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of the border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish 80 ships for the defence of the coast. In the room of ships money had sometimes been accepted. This old practice it was now determined, after a long interval, not only to revive but to extend. Former princes had raised ship- money only in time of war : it was now exacted in a 35 time of profound peace. Former princes, even in the most perilous wars, had raised shipmoney only along the coasts : it was now exacted from the inland shires. Former princes had raised shipmoney only for the maritime defence SHIPMONEY. 83 of the country : it was now exacted by the admission of the Eoyalists themselves, with the object, not of main- taining a navy, but of furnishing the King with supplies which might be increased at his discretion to any amount, and expended at his discretion for any purpose. 5 The whole nation was alarmed and incensed. John Hampden, an opulent and well-born gentleman of Bucking- hamshire, highly considered in his own neighbourhood, but as yet little known to the kingdom generally, had the courage to step forward, to confront the whole power of the govern- 10 nient, and take on himself the cost and the risk of disputing the prerogative to which the King laid claim. The case was argued before the judges in the Exchequer Chamber. So strong were the arguments against the pretensions of the crown that, dependent and servile as the judges were, the 15 majority against Hampden was the smallest possible. Still there was a majority. The interpreters of the law had pro- nounced that one great and productive tax might be imposed by the royal authority. "Wentworth justly observed that it was impossible to vindicate their judgment except by reasons 20 directly leading to a conclusion which they had not ventured to draw. If money might legally be raised without the con- sent of Parliament for the support of a fleet, it was not easy to deny that money might, without consent of Parliament, be legally raised for the support of an army. 25 The decision of the judges increased the irritation of the people. A century earlier, irritation less serious would have produced a general rising. But discontent did not now so readily as in an earlier age take the form of rebellion. The nation had been long steadily advancing in wealth and in 30 civilisation. Since the great northern Earls took up arms against Elizabeth seventy years had elapsed, and during those seventy years there had been no civil war. Never, during the whole existence of the English nation, had so long a period passed without intestine hostilities Men had become 35 accustomed to the pursuits of peaceful industry, and exasper- ated as they were, hesitated long before they drew the sword. This was the conjuncture at which the liberties of the 84 macaulay's history. nation were in the greatest peril. The opponents of the government began to despair of the destiny of their country ; and many looked to the American wilderness as the only asylum in which they could enjoy civil and spiritual freedom. 5 There a few resolute Puritans, who, in the cause of their re- ligion, feared neither the rage of the ocean nor the hardships of uncivilised life, neither the fangs of the savage beasts nor the tomahawks of savage men, had built, amidst the primeval forest, villages which are now great and opulent cities, but 10 which have, through every change, retained some trace of the character derived from their founders. The government re- garded these infant colonies with aversion, and attempted violently to stop the stream of emigration, but could not pre- vent the population of New England from being largely re- 15 cruited by stouthearted and Godfearing men from every part of the old England. And now Wentworth exulted in the near prospect of Thorough. A few years might probably suffice for the execution of his great design If strict economy were observed, if {ill collision with foreign powers 29 were carefully avoided, the debts of the crown would be cleared off: there would be funds available for the support of a large military force ; and that force would soon break the refractory spirit of the nation. At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed 25 the whole face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would have pursued a cautious and soothing- policy towards Scotland till he was master in the South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms that in which there was the greatest risk that a spark might produce 30 a flame, and that a flame might become a conflagration. Constitutional opposition, indeed, such as he had en- countered at Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh. The Parliament of his northern kingdom was a very different body from that which bore the same name in 35 England. It was ill constituted ; it was little considered ; and it had never imposed any serious restraint on any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house. The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as RESISTANCE TO THE LITURGY IN SCOTLAND. 85 retainers of the great nobles. No act could be introduced till it had been approved by the Lords of Articles, a committee which was really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. But, though the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had always been singularly 5 turbulent and ungovernable. They had butchered their first James in his bedchamber : they had repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second: they had slain James the Third on the field of battle : their dis- obedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth : they 10 had deposed and imprisoned Mary : they had led her son captive ; and their temper was still as intractable as ever. Their habits were rude and martial. All along the southern border, and all along the line between the highlands and the lowlands, raged an incessant predatory war. In every part 15 of the country men were accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand. Whatever loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled during their long absence. The supreme influence over the public mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords of 20 the soil and the preachers; lords animated by the same spirit which had often impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the royal house, and preachers who had inherited the republican opinions and the unconquerable spirit of Knox. Both the national and religious feelings of the popu- 25 lation had been wounded. All orders of men complained that their country, that country which had, with so much glory, defended her independence against the ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality of her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a province of 30 England. In no part of Europe had the Calvinistic doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on the public mind. The Church of Rome was regarded by the great body of the people with a hatred which might justly be called ferocious ; and the Church of England, winch seemed to be every day 35 becoming more and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely less aversion. The government had long wished to extend the Anglican 86 macaulay's history. system over the whole island, and had already, with this view, made several changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation, however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly cognisable by the senses of the common 5 people, had not yet been attempted. The public worship of God was still conducted in the manner acceptable to the nation. Now, however, Charles and Laud determined to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a liturgy which, wherever it differed from that of England, differed, 10 in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the worse. To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in criminal ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling, our country owes her freedom. The first performance of the foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly 15 became a revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland : but a large part of the English people sympathised with the religious 20 feelings of the insurgents ; and many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a Parliament necessary. 25 Eor the senseless freak which had produced these effects Wentworth is not responsible. l It had, in fact, thrown all his plans into confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in his nature. An attempt was made to put down the insurrection by the sword: but the King's military 30 means and military talents were unequal to the task. To impose fresh taxes on England in defiance of law would, at this conjuncture, have been madness. No resource was left but a Parliament; and in the spring of 1640 a Parliament was convoked. 85 The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of seeing constitutional government restored, and 1 See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July 30 t 1633. A PARLIAMENT CALLED AND DISSOLVED. 87 grievances redressed. The new House of Commons was more temperate and more respectful to the throne than any which had sate since the death of Elizabeth. The moderation of this assembly has been highly extolled by the most distinguished Royalists, and seems to have 5 caused no small vexation and disappointment to the chiefs of the opposition : but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all compliance with the desires of his people, till those desires were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons 10 showed a disposition to take into consideration the grievances under which the country had suffered during eleven years, the King dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure. Between the dissolution of this short-lived assembly and 15 the meeting of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long Parliament, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was pressed down more severely than ever on the nation, while the spirit of the nation rose up more angrily than ever against the yoke. Members of 20 the House of Commons were questioned by the Privy Council touching their parliamentary conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was levied with increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were threatened with imprisonment for remissness 25 in collecting the payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money for their support was exacted from their counties. Torture, which had always been illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the 30 month of May, 1640. Everything now depended on the event of the King's military operations against the Scots. Among his troops there was little of that feeling which separates professional soldiers from the mass of a nation, and attaches them to 35 their leaders. His army, composed for the most part of recruits, who regretted the plough from which they had been violently taken, and who were imbued with the 88 macaulay's history. religious and political sentiments then prevalent throughout the country, was more formidable to himself than to the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English opposition, and feebly resisted by the English forces, 5 marched across the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders of Yorkshire. And now the murmurs of discontent swelled into an uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed. But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough ; and he, even in this extremity, showed a nature 10 so cruel and despotic, that his own pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces. There was yet one last expedient which, as the King nattered himself, might save him from the misery of facing another House of Commons. To the House of Lords he was 15 less averse. The bishops were devoted to him ; and, though the temporal peers were generally dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a class, so deeply interested in the maintenance of order, and in the stability of ancient institutions, that they were not likely to call for extensive 20 reforms. Departing from the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he called a Great Council consisting of Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them. Without money, without credit, without authority 25 even in his own camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were convoked; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had made fearful progress. 30 In November 1640 met that renowned Parliament which, in spite of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world, enjoy the blessings of constitutional government. During the year which followed, no very important division 35 of opinion appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesi- astical administration had, through a period of near twelve years, been so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of which the inclinations are generally on the THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 89 side of order and authority were eager to promote popular reforms, and to bring the instruments of tyranny to justice. It was enacted that no interval of more than three years should ever elapse between Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great Seal were not issued 5 at the proper time, the returning officers should, without such writs, call the constituent bodies together for the choice of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York were swept away. Men who, after suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote 10 dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers of the crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. The Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieuten- ant were impeached. Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower. Strafford was put to death by act 15 of attainder. On the day on which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the existing Parliament without its own consent. After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in 20 September 1641, adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of 25 God. The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our history. From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which 30 have ever since alternately governed the country. In one sense, indeed, the distinction which then became obvious had always existed, and always must exist. For it has its origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and of interest, which are found in all societies, and which will be 35 found till the human mind ceases to be drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit and by the charm of novelty. Not only in politics, but in literature, in art, in science, in 90 MACAULAY'S HISTORY. surgery and mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even in mathematics, we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by overpowering 5 reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hoj3e, bold in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and 10 inconveniences which attend improvements, and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement. In the sentiments of both classes there is something to approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the common frontier. The extreme section of one class 15 consists of bigoted dotards : the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and reckless empirics. There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might have been discerned a body of members anxious to preserve, and a body eager to reform. But, while the sessions 20 of the legislature were short, these bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array themselves under recognised leaders, or assume distinguishing names, badges, and war cries. During the first months of the Long Parliament, the indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression was 25 so strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one man. Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the numerical 30 superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to antedate the separation between themselves and their opponents, and to attribute the Act 35 which restrained the King from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made war on the King. But no artifice could be APPEARANCE OF THE TWO ENGLISH PARTIES. 91 more disingenuous. Every one of those strong measures was actively promoted by the men who were afterwards foremost among the Cavaliers. No republican spoke of the long mis- government of Charles more severely than Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill was 5 made by Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law attainting Stratford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion become visible. 10 Even against that law, a law which nothing but extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the House of Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the majority, but spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few who 15 entertained a scruple about inflicting death by a retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration. But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and when, in October 1641, the Parliament reassembled after 20 a short recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under different names, have ever since con- tended, and are still contending, for the direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. During some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They 25 were subsequently called Tories and Whigs ; nor does it seem that these appellations are likely soon to become obsolete. It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or a panegyric on either of these renowned factions. For no man 30 not utterly destitute of judgment and candour will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state. The truth 35 is that, though both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages arising ^from innovation 92 macaulay's history. and the advantages arising from prescription, have been com- bined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen, a confederacy 5 zealous for authority and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for liberty and progress. It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great sections of English politicians has always been a difference rather of degree than of principle. There wore 10 certain limits on the right and on the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of our Kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a 15 republic. But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse to despotism ; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy. Twice, in the course of the seventeenth century, the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength in 20 a common cause. Their first coalition restored hereditary monarchy. Their second coalition rescued constitutional freedom. It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the whole nation, nay, that they have never, taken 25 together, made up a majority of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has not steadfastly adhered to either, wdiich has sometimes remained inertly neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has more than once passed in a few years from 30 one extreme to the other, and back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had been disappointed. But, whenever it has leaned 3"j with its whole weight in either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible. When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed to be not unequally matched. On the side of APPEARANCE OF THE TWO ENGLISH PARTIES. 0.°, the government was a large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. These, with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small power in the state. On the same side were 5 the great body of the clergy, both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less decorous than themselves. The Puritan austerity 10 drove to the King's faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry, splendour of dress, or taste in the lighter arts. With these went all who live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic poet, down to the ropedancer and the merry andrew. For these 15 artists well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism, but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. The Queen, a daughter of France, was of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly 20 attached to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion with no ill will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the 25 opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the sanguinary laws enacted against Papists, in the reign of Elizabeth, would be severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in general acted 30 with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice and lukewarmness : but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve, they consulted the King's interest as well as their own. It was not for his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends. 35 The main strength of the opposition lay among the small freeholders in the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns. But these were headed by a 94 macaulay's history. formidable minority of the aristocracy, a minority which included the rich and powerful Earls of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and several other lords of great wealth and influence. In the same ranks 5 was found the whole body of Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy. The municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the 10 same side. In the House of Commons the opposition pre- ponderated, but not very decidedly. Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which it was disposed to take. The reasonings of the most enlightened Royalists may be summed up thus : — " It is 15 true that great abuses have existed ; but they have been re- dressed. It is true that precious rights have been invaded ; but they have been vindicated and surrounded with new securities. The sittings of the Estates of the realm have been, in defiance of all precedent and of the spirit of the 20 constitution, intermitted during eleven years ; but it has now been provided that henceforth three years shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York, oppressed and plundered us; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. 25 The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military des- potism ; but he has answered for his treason with his head. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites, and punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers. The 80 Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown ; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated their crimes. The victims of tyranny have 35 been compensated for their sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of THE IRISH REBELLION. 95 abuses. It is time to take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over despotism as to run into anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those institu- 5 tions have fallen we must hasten to prop the edifice which it was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed the 10 sovereign." Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side with not less force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the liberties of the 15 English people enjoyed was rather apparent than real, and that the arbitrary projects of the court would be resumed as soon as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. True it was — such was the reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden — that many good laws had been passed : but, if 20 good laws had been sufficient to restrain the King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his administration. The recent statutes were surely not of more authority than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter, hallowed by the 25 veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable con- sideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of opposition were 30 suffered to slumber, all the securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the royal word ; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience that the royal word could not be trusted. The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious 35 hostility, and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which inflamed the passions and confirmed thp opinions of both. The great chieftains of Ulster, who, a; 96 MAC AULA Y'S HISTORY. the time of the accession of James, had, after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority, had not long brooked the humiliation of dependence. They had con- spired against the English government, and had been 5 attainted of treason. Their immense domains had been for- feited to the crown, and soon had been peopled by thousands of English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers were, in civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population, and sometimes abused their superiority. The 10 animosity produced by difference of race was increased by difference of religion. Under the iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard : but, when that strong- pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the ex- ample of successful resistance, when England was distracted 15 by internal quarrels, the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists. A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring 20 provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post brought to London exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any exaggeration, were sufficient to move pity and horror. These evil tidings roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which 25 were marshalled against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant, at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the or position it seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for thwarting 30 and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trustworthy magistrate : but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great army had always been the 35 King's first object. A great army must now be raised. It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against the liberties of England. JSTor was THE REMONSTRANCE. 97 this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic : the King was not regarded by the Puritans, whom he had mercilessly per- secuted, as a sincere Protestant ; and so notorious was his 5 duplicity, that there was no treachery of which his subjects might not, with some show of reason, believe him capable. It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at Whitehall. 10 After soon weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict between the parties, which have ever since con- tended, and are still contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the twenty-second of November 1641. It was moved by the opposition, that the House of lo Commons should present to the King a remonstrance, enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of his accession, and expressing the distrust with which his policy was still regarded by his people. That assembly, which a few months before had been unanimous in calling 20 for the reform of abuses, was now divided into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal strength. After a hot debate of many hours, the remonstrance was carried by only eleven votes. The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the 25 conservative party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscretion could prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in the Lower House. The Upper House was already their own. Nothing was wanting to ensure their success, but that the King should, in all his conduct, 30 show respect for the laws and scrupulous good faith towards his subjects. His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last discovered that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made up his mind to what could no longer 3o be avoided. He declared his determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons 98 MAC AULA Y'S HISTORY. might place confidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had taken in reforming abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to become the con- 5 fidential advisers of the Crown, and were solemnly assured by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the Lower House of Parliament without their privity. Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which was already in progress would very soon 10 have become quite as strong as the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Already the violent members of the opposition had begun to despair of the fortunes of their party, to tremble for their own safety, and to talk of selling their estates and emigrating to America. That the fair 15 prospects which had begun to open before the King were suddenly overcast, that his life was darkened by adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be attributed to his own faithlessness and contempt of law. The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties 20 into which the House of Commons was divided : nor is this strange ; for in both those parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him to call round him were by no means men after his own heart. 25 They had joined in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal way his strictly legal prerogative ; but they would have recoiled with horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth's projects of 30 Thorough. They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors, who differed only in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden. He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the constitutional Royalists that no step of import- 35 ance should be taken without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and executed it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dismay. IMPEACHMENT OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 99 He sent the Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of the House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords. Not content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person, 5 accompanied by armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of Parliament. The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a short time before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion of feeling, both in the Parliament and in 10 the country, followed. The most favourable view that has ever been taken of the King's conduct on this occasion by his most partial advocates is that he had weakly suffered himself to be hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly 15 charged him with far deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a long estrangement produced by his maladministration, were returning to him with feelings of confidence and affection, he had aimed a deadly blow at all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the 20 very principle of trial by jury. He had shown that he con- sidered opposition to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people, but with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen 25 accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and their necks, were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were engaged. The 30 flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived in an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the whole city of London was in arms. In a few hours the roads leading to the capital were covered with multitudes of yeomen spurring hard to Westminster with the badges of 35 the parliamentary cause in their hats. In the House of Commons the opposition became at once irresistible, and earned, by more than two votes to one ? resolutions of 100 MAC AULA Y'S HISTORY. unprecedented violence. Strong bodies of the trainbands, regularly relieved, mounted guard round Westminster Hall. The gates of the King's palace were daily besieged by a furious multitude whose taunts and execrations were heard 5 even in the presence chamber, and who could scarcely be kept out of the royal apartments by the gentlemen of the household. Had Charles remained much longer in his stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have found a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a 10 state prisoner. He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and memorable reckoning had arrived. A negotiation began which occupied many months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between the 15 contending parties. All accommodation had become im- possible. The sure punishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now pawned his royal word, and invoked heaven to witness the sincerity of his professions. The 20 distrust with which his adversaries regarded him was not to be removed by oaths or treaties. They were convinced that they could be safe only when he was utterly helpless. Their demand, therefore, was, that he should surrender, not only those prerogatives which he had usurped in violation of 25 ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but also other prerogatives which the English Kings had always possessed, and continue to possess at the present day. No minister must be appointed, no peer created, without the consent of the Houses. Above all, the sovereign must resign that 30 supreme military authority which, from time beyond all memory, had appertained to the regal office. That Charles would comply with such demands while he had any means of resistance was not to be expected. Yet it will be difficult to show that the Houses could safely 35 have exacted less. They were truly in a most embarrassing position. The great majority of the nation was firmly attached to hereditary monarchy. Those who held republican opinions were as yet few, and did not venture to speak out. It DEMANDS OF THE COMMONS. 101 was therefore impossible to abolish kingly government. Yet it was plain that no confidence could be placed in the King. It would have been absurd in those who knew, by recent proof, that he was bent on destroying them, to content them- selves with presenting to hi in another Petition of Right, and 5 receiving from him fresh promises similar to those which he had repeatedly made and broken. Nothing but the want of an army had prevented him from entirely subverting the old constitution of the realm. It was now necessary to levy a great regular army for the conquest of Ireland j and it would 10 therefore have been mere insanity to leave him in possession of that plenitude of military authority which his ancestors had enjoyed. When a country is in the situation in which England then was, when the kingly office is regarded with love and 15 veneration, but the person who fills that office is hated and distrusted, it should seem that the course which ought to be taken is obvious. The dignity of the office should be pre- served : the person should be discarded. Thus our ancestors acted in 1399 and in 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any 20 man occupying a position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster occupied at the time of the deposition of Richard the Second, and which William of Orange occupied at the time of the deposition of James the Second, it is probable that the Houses would have changed the dynasty, and would 25 have made no formal change in the constitution. The new king, called to the throne by their choice, and dependent on their support, would have been under the necessity of governing in conformity with their wishes and opinions. But there was no prince of the blood royal in the parliamentary 30 party ; and, though that party contained many men of high rank and many men of eminent ability, there was none who towered so conspicuously above the rest that he could be proposed as a candidate for the crown. As there was to be a king, and as no new king could be found, it was necessary 35 to leave- the regal title to Charles. Only one course, therefore, was left : and that was to disjoin the regal title from the regal prerogatives. 102 macaulay's history. The change which the Houses proposed to make in our institutions, though it seems exorbitant, when distinctly set forth and digested into articles of capitulation, really amounts to little more than the change which, in the next generation, 5 was effected by the Revolution. It is true that, at the Revolution, the sovereign was not deprived by law of the power of naming his ministers : but it is equally true that, since the Revolution, no minister has been able to retain office six months in opposition to the sense of the House of 10 Commons. It is true that the sovereign still possesses the power of creating peers, and the more important power of the sword : but it is equally true that in the exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever since the Revolution, been guided by advisers who possess the confidence of the 15 representatives of the nation. In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead party in 1642, and the statesmen who, about half a century later, effected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in view. That object w T as to terminate the contest between the Crown and the Parliament, by giving 20 to the Parliament a supreme control over the executive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected this indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1642, being unable to change the dynasty, were compelled to take a direct course towards their end. 25 We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of the opposition, importing as they did a complete and formal transfer to the Parliament of powers which had always belonged to the Crown, should have shocked that great party of which the characteristics are respect for constituted 30 authority and dread of violent innovation. That party had recently been in hopes of obtaining by peaceable means the ascendency in the House of Commons ; but every such hope had been blighted. The duplicity of Charles had made his old enemies irreconcileable, had driven back into the ranks 35 of the disaffected a crowd of moderate men who were in the very act of coming over to his side, and had so cruelly mortified his best friends that they had for a time stood a J oof in silent shame and resentment. Now, however, the COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL AVAR. 103 constitutional Royalists were forced to make their choice between two dangers ; and they thought it their duty rather to rally round a prince whose past conduct they condemned, and whose word inspired them with little confidence, than to suffer the regal office to be degraded, and the polity of 5 the realm to be entirely remodelled. With such feelings, many men whose virtues and abilities would have done honour to any cause ranged themselves on the side of the King. In August 1642 the sword was at length drawn; and 10 soon, in almost every shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions appeared in arms against each other. It is not easy to say which of the contending parties was at first the more formidable. The Houses commanded London and the counties round London, the fleet, the navigation of the 15 Thames, and most of the large towns and seaports. They had at their disposal almost all the military stores of the kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on goods imported from foreign countries, and on some important products of domestic industry. The King was ill provided 20 with artillery and ammunition. The taxes which he laid on the rural districts occupied by his troops produced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which the Parliament drew from the city of London alone. He relied, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid, on the munificence of his opulent 25 adherents. Many of these mortgaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up their silver chargers and christen- ing bowls, in order to assist him. But experience has fully proved that the voluntary liberality of individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor financial resource 30 when compared with severe and methodical taxation, which presses on the willing and unwilling alike. Charles, however, had one advantage, which, if he had used it well, would have more than compensated for the want of stores and money, and which, notwithstanding his 35 mismanagement, gave him, during some months, a superi- ority in the war. His troops at first fought much better than those of the Parliament. Both armies, it is true, were 104 MAC AUL AY'S HISTORY. almost entirely composed of men who had never seen a field of battle. Nevertheless, the difference was great. The parliamentary ranks were filled with hirelings whom want and idleness had induced to inlist. Hampden's regiment 5 was regarded as one of the best ; and even Hampden's regiment was described by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters and serving men out of place. The royal army, on the other hand, consisted in great part of gentlemen, high spirited, ardent, accustomed to consider dishonour as more 10 terrible than death, accustomed to fencing, to the use of fire anus, to bold riding, and to manly and perilous sport, which has been well called the image of war. Such gentlemen, mounted on their favourite horses, and commanding little bands, composed of their younger brothers, grooms, game- 15 keepers, and huntsmen, were, from the very first day on which they took the field, qualified to play their part with credit in a skirmish. The steadiness, the prompt obedience, the mechanical precision of movement, which are character- istic of the regular soldier, these gallant volunteers never 20 attained. But they were at first opposed to enemies as undisciplined as themselves, and far less active, athletic, and daring. For a time, therefore, the Cavaliers were successful in almost every encounter. The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice of a 25 general. The rank and wealth of the Earl of Essex made him one of the most important members of the parliamentary party. He had borne arms on the Continent with credit, and, when the war began, had as high a military reputation as any man in the country. But it soon appeared that he SO was unfit for the post of Commander in Chief. He had little energy and no originality. The methodical tactics which he had learned in the war of the Palatinate did not save him from the disgrace of being surprised and baffled by such a captain as Rupert, who could claim no higher fame than 85 that of an enterprising partisan. Nor were the officers who held the chief commissions under Essex qualified to supply what was wanting in him. For this, indeed, the Houses are scarcely to be blamed. In SUCCESSES OF THE EOYALISTS. 105 a country which had not, within the memory of the oldest person living, made war on a great scale by land, generals of tried skill and valour were not to be found. It was necessary, therefore, in the first instance, to trust untried men; and the preference was naturally given to men distinguished either 5 by their station, or by the abilities which they had displayed in Parliament. In scarcely a single instance, however, was the selection fortunate. Neither the grandees nor the orators proved good soldiers. The Earl of Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of England, was routed by the Royalists at 10 Stratton. Nathaniel Eiennes, inferior to none of his con- temporaries in talents for civil business, disgraced himself by the pusillanimous surrender of Bristol. Indeed, of all the statesmen who at this juncture accepted high military commands, Hampden alone appears to have carried into the 15 camp the capacity and strength of mind which had made him eminent in politics. When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern counties. They had 20 wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads adversity had begun to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept in alarm, some- 25 times by plots, and sometimes by riots. It was thought necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizens at their own doors. Several of the most distinguished peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford ; nor 30 can it be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall. But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away ; 35 and it never returned. In August 1643 he sate down before the city of Gloucester. That city was defended by the inha- bitants and by the garrison, with a determination such as 106 macaulay's history. had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The trainbands of the city volunteered to march wherever their services might be required. A great 5 force was speedily collected, and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised : the Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened : the spirit of the parliamentary party revived ; and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back 10 from Oxford to Westminster. And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which the majority of that 15 party would have shrunk with horror. These men were, in religion, Independents. They conceived that every Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things spiritual ; that appeals to provincial and national synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to the Court of 20 Arches, or to the Vatican ; and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apos- tasy. In politics the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root and branch men, or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, radicals. Not content with limiting 25 the power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old English polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction 30 in the country. Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by death ; and others had forfeited the public confidence. Pym had been borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets. Hampden had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavouring, by his heroic 35 example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northumberland was known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigour and ability in the RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS. 107 conduct of military operations. At such a conjuncture it was that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncom- promising, began to raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons. The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to 5 peaceful occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a commission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive. He saw precisely 10 where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the array of the Parliament. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, 15 than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character, fearing God and zealous for public liberty. With such men he filled his own regiment, and, while he subjected 20 them to a discipline more rigid than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their intellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency. The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his abilities. In the south, where Essex held the 25 command, the parliamentary forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters ; but in the north the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost elsewhere. That victory was not a more serious blow to the Royalists than to the party which had hitherto been 30 dominant at Westminster ; for it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presbyterians, had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour of the warriors whom he had trained. These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance and the 35 new model of the army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and most of those who had held high posts under him were removed ; and the conduct 108 macaulaYs history. of the war was entrusted to very different hands. Fairfax, a brave soldier, but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the nominal Lord General of the forces; but Cromwell was their real head. 5 Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same principles on which he had organised his own regiment. As soon as this process was complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cavaliers had now to encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthusiasm stronger than 10 their own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them. It soon became a proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were men of a different breed from the soldiers of Essex. At Naseby took place the first great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of the 15 Houses. The victory of the Roundheads was complete and decisive. It was followed by other triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months the authority of the Parliament was fully established over the whole kingdom. Charles fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which did 20 not much exalt their national character, delivered up to his English subjects. While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their authority, the use of the Liturgy, and 25 had required all men to subscribe that renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League and Covenant. Covenanting work, as it was called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands affixed their names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up towards heaven, swore to endeavour, without 30 respect of persons, the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, and to bring to public trial and condign punishment all who should hinder the reformation of religion. When the struggle was over, the work of in- novation and revenge was pushed on with increased ardour. 35 The ecclesiastical polity of the kingdom was remodelled. Most of the old clergy were ejected from their benefices. Fines, of 'en of ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists, already impoverished by large aids furnished to the King. DOMINATION AND CHARACTER OF THE ARMY. 109 Many estates were confiscated. Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put 5 up to auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was insecure, and as the awe inspired by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices were often merely 10 nominal. Thus many old and honourable families dis- appeared and were heard of no more ; and many new men rose rapidly to affluence. But, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly passed out of their hands. It had been 15 obtained by calling into existence a power which could not be controlled. In the summer of 1647, about twelve months after the last fortress of the Cavaliers had sub- mitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled to submit to its own soldiers. 20 Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various names and forms, really governed by the sword. Never before that time, or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to military dictation. The army which now became supreme in the state w r as an 25 army very different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. 30 The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England, that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour 35 of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised for home, service. The pay of the private soldier was much above the wages earned by the great body of the 110 macatjlay's history. people ; and, if he distinguished himself by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high commands. The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and education to the multitude. These persons, sober, 5 moral, diligent, and accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the pressure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the 10 soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no janissaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and 15 religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved. A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to 20 any other troops, would have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all control, would cease to form an army, and would become 25 the worst and most dangerous of mobs. 'Nov would it be safe, in our time, to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But such was the intelligence, the 30 gravity, and the selfcommand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organi- sation and a religious organisation could exist without destroying military organisation. The same men, who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and field preachers, were 35 distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt obedience on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle. In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn DOMINATION AND CHAEACTER OF THE ARMY. Ill courage characteristic of the English people was, l>y the system of Cromwell, at once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained order as strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent. But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company 5 with the fiercest enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders. From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on the Continent, 10 an enemy who could stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them. 15 They at length came to regard the day of battle as the day of certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies advanced to the combat, and expressed the 20 delight of a true soldier, when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy ; and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, 25 drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France. But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Crom- 30 well from other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Roy lists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property 35 of the peaceable citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from those of which a victorious army 112 macaulay's history. is generally guilty. No servant girl complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and Child were 5 painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to restrain his musqueteers and dragoons from invading by main force the pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of 10 that time, were not savoury ; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred with which those stern spirits regarded every vestige of Popery. To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No sooner was the first pressure of military 15 tyranny felt, than the nation, unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been the most submissive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, 20 and was desirous to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the troops. In Scotland, at the same time, a coalition was formed between the Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians w r ho regarded the doctrines of the Independents with detestation. At length 25 the storm burst. There were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the Thames suddenly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern coast. A great Scottish force crossed the frontier and advanced into Lancashire. It might well be suspected 30 that these movements were contemplated with secret com- placency by a majority both of the Lords and of the Commons. But the yoke of the army was not to be shaken off. While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood 35 of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies. The PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE KING. 113 Scottish army was utterly destroyed. A change in the Scottish government followed. An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers, returned in triumph to London. 5 And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to take a distinct form. The austere warriors who ruled the 10 nation had, during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King. When and how the scheme originated ; whether it spread from the general to the ranks, or from the ranks to the general; whether it is to be ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism 15 bearing down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence. It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was really forced to follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great occasion a few years 20 later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own inclina- tions to the wishes of the army. For the power which he had called into existence was a power which even he could not always control ; and, that he might ordinarily command, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey. He 25 publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first steps had been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the Parliament to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to the force of cir- cumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes of 30 Providence. It has been the fashion to consider these pro- fessions as instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a fool. They are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve 35 by secretly stimulating the army to take that course which he did not venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd to suppose that he, who was never by his respectable enemies 114 macaulay's history. represented as wantonly cruel or implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his life under the influence of mere malevolence. He was far too wise a man not to know, when he consented to shed that august blood, 5 that he was doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the grief and horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine tenths of those who had stood by the Par- liament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he was assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique 10 pattern, nor of the millennial reign of the saints. If he already aspired to be himself the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles the First was a less formidable competitor than Charles the Second would be. At the moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty of 15 every Cavalier would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles the Second. Charles the First was a captive : Charles the Second would be at liberty. Charles the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large proportion of those who yet .shuddered at the thought of slaying him : Charles 20 the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that considerations so obvious, and so important, escaped the most profound politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had, at one time, meant to mediate between the 25 throne and the Parliament, and to reorganise the distracted State by the power of the sword, under the sanction of the royal name. In this design he persisted till he was com- pelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, and by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in 30 the camp began to clamour for the head of the traitor, who was treating with Agag. Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered. A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and 35 kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in the highest degree difficult and perilous to contend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe, and as the foe of their God. At PKOCEEDINGS AGAINST THE KING. 115 the same time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince 5 therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and false- 10 hoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition null. He publicly dis- claimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against his 15 people : he privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Loraine. He publicly denied that he employed Papists : at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge 20 that he never would even connive at Popery : he privately assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England ; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense. 25 Glamorgan received, in the royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to 30 each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations : but 35 never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell. Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to 116 macaulay's history. hazard the attachment of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay his own life, in an attempt, which would probably have been vain, to save a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles 5 and misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with his blood. 10 He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in no danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not midnight stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to heaven and 15 earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on effecting a 20 complete political and social revolution. In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed a vote tending to 25 accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed. No court, known to the law, would take on itself the office of judging the fountain of 30 justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders before thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace. 35 In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not only a crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his people chiefly by EXECUTION OF THE KING. 117 shis faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great theatre, fbefore the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities -which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of man- Ikind, the high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience &nd meekness of a penitent Christian. Nay, they had so 5 •contrived their revenge that the very man whose life had Ibeen a series of attacks on the liberties of England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No •demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity 10 ;all his regal dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of 15 Commons had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers that he was defending not only his own cause, but theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His memory was, in 20 the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated with those free institutions which he had, during many years, laboured to destroy : for those free institutions had perished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended by his 2o voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy and of the exiled house, a reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been set up in all its old dignity. At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have 30 derived new energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves closely together, and separated themselves for ever from the great body of their countrymen. England was declared a commonwealth. The House of Commons, reduced to a small number of members, was 35 nominally the supreme power in the state. In fact, the army and its great chief governed everything. Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, 118 macaulay's histoky. and had broken with almost every other class of his fellow citizens. Beyond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely be said to have a party. Those elements of force which, when the civil war broke out, had appeared 5 arrayed against each other, were combined against him ; all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such was his genius and resolution that h«k was able to overpower 10 and crush everything that crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his country than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his country more dreaded and respected than she had been during many generations under the rule of her legitimate Kings. 15 England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other kingdoms which had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new republic. The Independent party was equally odious to the Roman Catholics of Ireland and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those countries, lately 20 in rebellion against Charles the First, now acknowledged the authority of Charles the Second. But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In a few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been subjugated during the five centuries 25 of slaughter which had elapsed since the landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an end to that conflict of races and religions which had so long distracted the island, by making the English and Protestant population decidedly predominant. For this end he gave the rein to the 30 fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged war resembling that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote the idolators with the edge of the sword, so that great cities were left without inhabitants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped off many thousands to the West Indies, and supplied 35 the void thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, of Saxon blood and of Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that iron rule, the conquered country began to wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts, which had recently EXPULSION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 119 been as wild as those where the first white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the red men, were in a few years transformed into the likeness of Kent and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and plantations were everywhere seen. The rent of estates rose fast ; and soon the English 5 landowners began to complain that they were met in every market by the products of Ireland, and to clamour for 2^rotecting laws. From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had long been in reality, Lord General of the armies of 10 the Commonwealth, turned to Scotland. The young King was there. He had consented to profess himself a Presby- terian, and to subscribe the Covenant; and, in return for these concessions, the austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh had permitted him to assume the crown, and to 15 hold, under their inspection and control, a solemn and melancholy court. This mock royalty was of short duration. In two great battles Cromwell annihilated the military force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The ancient 20 kingdom of the Stuarts was reduced, for the first time, to profound submission. Of that independence, so man- fully defended against the mightiest and ablest of the Plantagenets, no vestige was left. The English Parliament made laws for Scotland. English judges held assizes in 25 Scotland. Even that stubborn Church, which has held its own against so many governments, scarce dared to utter an audible murmur. Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony between the warriors who had subjugated Ireland and 30 Scotland and the politicians who sate at Westminster : but the alliance which had been cemented by danger was dissolved by victory. The Parliament forgot that it was but the creature of the army. The army was less disposed than ever to submit to the dictation of the Parliament. 35 Indeed the few members who made up what was con- temptuously called the Rump of the House of Commons had no more claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the 120 macaulay's history. representatives of the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell filled the House with armed men. The speaker was pulled out of his chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door 5 locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties, but which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity and resolution of the General, looked on with patience, if not with complacency. King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been 10 vanquished and destroyed ; and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very army to which he owed his immense authority. That singular body of men was, for the most part, composed of zealous republicans. In 15 the act of enslaving their country, they had deceived them- selves into the belief that they were emancipating her. The book which they most venerated furnished them with a precedent which was frequently in their mouths. It was true that the ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured 20 against its deliverers. Even so had another chosen nation murmured against the leader who brought it, by painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had that leader rescued his brethren in spite of themselves ; nor had he shrunk from 25 making terrible examples of those who contemned the proffered freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the task- masters, and the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and pious commonwealth. Eor that end they were 30 ready to employ, without scruple, any means, however violent and lawless. It was not impossible, therefore, to establish by their aid a dictatorship such as no King had ever exercised : but it was probable that their aid would be at once withdrawn from a ruler who, even under strict consti- 35 tutional restraints, should venture to assume the kingly name and dignity. The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had been ; nor would it be just to consider EXPULSION OF THE LONG PAKLIAMENT. 121 the change which his views had undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. He had, when he came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him from his rural retreat little knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a temper galled by the long tyranny of the 5 government and of the hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen years which followed, gone through a political education of no common kind. He had been a chief actor in a succession of revolutions. He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of a party. He had commanded armies, 10 won battles, negotiated treaties, subdued, pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange indeed if his notions had been still the same as in the days when his mind was principally occupied by his fields and his religion, and when the greatest events which diversified the course of 15 his life were a cattle fair or a prayer meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes of innovation for which he had once been zealous, whether good or bad in themselves, were opposed to the general feeling of the country, and that, if he persevered in those schemes, he had nothing before him but 20 constant troubles, which must be suppressed by the constant use of the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, that ancient constitution which the majority of the people had always loved, and for which they now pined. The course afterwards taken by Monk was not open to 25 Cromwell. The memory of one terrible day separated the great regicide for ever from the House of Stuart. What remained was that he should mount the ancient English throne, and reign according to the ancient English polity. If he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds of the 30 lacerated State would heal fast. Great numbers of honest and quiet men would speedily rally around him. Those Royalists whose attachment was rather to institutions than to persons, to the kingly office than to King Charles the First or King Charles the Second, would soon kiss the hand 35 of King Oliver. The peers, who now remained sullenly at their country houses, and refused to take any part in public affairs, would, when summoned to their house by the writ of 122 macatjlay's history. a king in possession, gladly resume their ancient functions. Northumberland and Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke, would be proud to bear the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the restorer of aristocracy. A sen- 5 timent of loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new dynasty ; and, on the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the royal dignity might descend with general acquiescence to his posterity. The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were 10 correct, and that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judgment, the exiled line would never have been restored. But his plan was directly opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared not offend. The name of king was hateful to the soldiers. Some of them were indeed 15 unwilling to see the administration in the hands of any single person. The great majority, however, were disposed to support their general, as elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, against all factions which might resist his authority : but they would not consent that he should 20 assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward of his personal merit, should be declared here- ditary in his family. All that was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitution as like the constitution of the old monarchy as the army would bear. That his elevation 25 to power might not seem to be merely his own act, he convoked a council, composed partly of persons on whose support he could depend, and partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy. This assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace nicknamed, 30 from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebone's Parliament, after exposing itself during a short time to the public contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers which it had received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of government. 35 His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old English constitution : but, in a few years, ■ he thought it safe to proceed further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system under new names and THE PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 123 forms. The title of king was not revived : but the kingly prerogatives were entrusted to a Lord High Protector. The sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He was not crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was solemnly enthroned, girt with a sword of state, 5 clad in a robe of purple, and presented with a rich Bible, in Westminster Hall. His office was not declared hereditary : but he was permitted to name his successor; and none could doubt that he would name his son. A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new 10 polity. In constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public spirit which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The vices of the old representative system, though by no means so serious as they afterwards became, had already been remarked by farsighted men. 15 Cromwell reformed that system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred and thirty years later, attempted to reform it, and on which it was at length reformed in our own times. Small boroughs were disfranchised even more unsparingly than in 1832 ; and the number of county 20 members was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns had yet grown into importance. Of those towns the most considerable were Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. Representatives were given to all three. An addition was made to the number of the members for the capital. The 2d elective franchise was placed on such a footing that every man of substance, whether possessed of freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for the county in which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English colonists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was to 30 legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the British isles. To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does not require the support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood without that support. But a 35 patrician order is the work of time. Oliver found already existing a nobility, opulent, . highly considered, and as popular with the commonalty as any nobility has ever been. 124 macatjlay's history. Had he, as King of England, commanded the peers to meet him in Parliament according to the old usage of the realm, many of them would undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he could not do; and it was to no purpose that he offered 5 to the chiefs of illustrious families seats in his new senate. They conceived that they could not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly without renouncing their birthright and betraying their order. The Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of filling his Upper House with new men who, 10 during the late stirring times, had made themselves con- spicuous. This was the least happy of his contrivances, and displeased all parties. The Levellers were angry with him for instituting a privileged class. The multitude, which felt respect and fondness for the great historical names of 15 the land, laughed without restraint at a House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers were seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and from which almost all those old nobles who were invited turned disdainfully away. 20 How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, however, was practically of little moment : for he possessed the means of conducting the administration without their support, and in defiance of their opposition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of 25 the laws for that of the sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by being absolute. The first House of Commons which the people elected by his command, questioned his authority, and was dissolved without having 30 passed a single act. His second House of Commons, though it recognised him as Protector, and would gladly have made him King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new Lords. He had no course left but to dissolve the Parlia- ment. " God," he exclaimed, at parting, " be judge between 35 you and me !" Yet was the energy of the Protector's administration in nowise relaxed by these dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume the kingly title stood by THE PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 125 him when he ventured on acts of power, as high as any English king has ever attempted. The government, there- fore, though in form a republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sobriety, and the magnanimity of the despot. The country was divided into 5 military districts. Those districts were placed under the command of Major Generals. Every insurrectionary move- ment was promptly put down and punished. The fear inspired by the power of the sword, in so strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both of Cavaliers and 10 Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were still as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success : but to rush, at the head of their serving men and tenants, on the pikes of brigades victorious in a hundred battles and 15 sieges, would be a frantic waste of innocent and honourable blood. Both Eoyalists and Republicans, having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of assassina- tion : but the Protector's intelligence was good : his vigil- ance was unremitting ; and, whenever he moved beyond the 20 walls of his palace, the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty bodyguards encompassed him thick on every side. Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might have found courage in despair, and might have made a convulsive effort to free itself from military domina- 25 tion. But the grievances which the country suffered, though such as excited serious discontent, were by no means such as impel great masses of men to stake their lives, their fortunes, and the welfare of their families against fearful odds. The taxation, though heavier than it had been under 30 the Stuarts, was not heavy when compared with that of the neighbouring states and with the resources of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier who refrained from giving disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil troubles had left him. The laws 35 were violated only in cases where the safety of the Protector's person and government was concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an exactness 126 macaulay's histoey. and purity not before known. Under no English govern- ment since the Eeformation had there been so little religious persecution. The unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held to be scarcely within the pale of Christian 5 charity. But the clergy of the fallen Anglican Church were suffered to celebrate their worship on condition that they would abstain from preaching about politics. Even the Jews, whose public worship had, ever since the thirteenth century, been interdicted, were, in spite of the strong oppo- 10 sition of jealous traders and fanatical theologians, permitted to build a synagogue in London. The Protector's foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely refrain from wishing 15 that one who had done so much to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate King ; and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After 20 half a century during which England had been of scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the pirates of 25 Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian Islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the Protestant interest. All the reformed 30 Churches scattered over Roman Catholic kingdoms acknow- ledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots of Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps, professed a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression by the mere terror of that great 35 name. The pope himself was forced to preach humanity and moderation to popish princes. For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favour were shown to the people of God, the English guns should OLIVER SUCCEEDED BY RICHARD. 127 be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war in Europe. In .such a war he must have been the captain of the Protestant armies. The heart of England 5 would have been with him. His victories would have been hailed with an unanimous enthusiasm unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Un- 10 happily for him he had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents, except against the inhabitants of the British Isles. While he lived his power stood firm, an object of mingled aversion, admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few 15 indeed loved his government ; but those who hated it most hated it less than they feared it. Had it been a worse government, it might perhaps have been overthrown in spite of all its strength. Had it been a weaker govern- ment, it would certainly have been overthrown in spite of 20 all its merits. But it had moderation enough to abstain from those oppressions which drive men mad ; and it had a force and energy which none but men driven mad by oppression would venture to encounter. It has often been affirmed, but with little reason, that 25 Oliver died at a time fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been prolonged, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters. It is certain that he was, to the last, honoured by his soldiers, obeyed by the whole population of the British islands, and dreaded by all 30 foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sovereigns of England with funeral pomp such as London had never before seen, and that he was succeeded by his son Richard as quietly as any King had ever been succeeded by any Prince of Wales. 35 During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell went on so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly established on the chair of 128 MACAULAY'S HISTORY. state. In truth his situation was in some respects much more advantageous than that of his father. The young man had made no enemy. His hands were unstained by civil blood. The Cavaliers themselves allowed him to be 5 an honest, good-natured gentleman. The Presbyterian party, powerful both in numbers and in wealth, had been at deadly feud with the late Protector, but was disposed to regard the present Protector with favour. That party had always been desirous to see the old civil polity of the 10 realm restored with some clearer definitions and some stronger safeguards for public liberty, but had many reasons for dreading the restoration of the old family. Eichard was the very man for politicians of this description. His humanity, ingenuousness, and modesty, the mediocrity 15 of his abilities, and the docility with which he submitted to the guidance of persons wiser than himself, admirably qualified him to be the head of a limited monarchy. For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, under the direction of able advisers, effect what his father 20 had attempted in vain. A Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised regained their lost privilege : Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased to return members; and the county of York was again 25 limited to two knights. It may seem strange to a genera- tion which has been excited almost to madness by the question of parliamentary reform that great shires and towns should have submitted with patience, and even with complacency, to this change : but though speculative men 30 might, even in that age, discern the vices of the old repre- sentative system, and predict that those vices would, sooner or later, produce serious practical evil, the practical evil had not yet been felt. Oliver's representative system, on the other hand, though constructed on sound principles, was 35 not popular. Both the events in which it originated, and the effects which it had produced, prejudiced men against it. It had sprung from military violence. It had been fruitful of nothing but disputes. The whole nation wag OLIVER SUCCEEDED BY RICHARD. 129 sick of government by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were in strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed by the sword, gave general satisfaction. 5 Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, con- sisting partly of avowed Republicans, and partly of con- cealed Royalists : but a large and steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving the old civil con- stitution under a new dynasty. Richard was solemnly 10 recognised as first magistrate. The Commons not only consented to transact business with Oliver's Lords, but passed a vote acknowledging the right of those nobles who had, in the late troubles, taken the side of public liberty, to sit in the Upper House of Parliament without any new 15 creation. Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been successful. Almost all the parts of. the govern- ment were now constituted as they had been constituted at the commencement of the civil war. Had the Protector 20 and the Parliament been suffered to proceed undisturbed, there can be little doubt than an order of things similar to that which was afterwards established under the House of Hanover would have been established under the House of Cromwell. But there was in the state a power more than 25 sufficient to deal with Protector and Parliament together. Over the soldiers Richard had no authority except that which he derived from the great name which he had inherited. He had never led them to victory. He had never even borne arms. All his tastes and habits were 30 pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects approved by the military saints. That he was a good man he evinced, by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful 35 resignation under cruel wrong and misfortunes : but the cant then common in every guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not always the prudence to conceal. The officers K 130 macaulay's histoey. who had the principal influence among the troops stationed near London were not his friends. They were men distin- guished by valour and conduct in the field, but destitute of the wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous 5 in their deceased leader. Some of them were honest, but fanatical, Independents and Eepublicans. Of this class Fleetwood .was the representative. Others were impatient to be what Oliver had been. His rapid elevation, his prosperity and glory, his inauguration in the Hall, and his 10 gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had inflamed their imagination. They were as well born as he, and as well educated : they could not understand why they were not as worthy to wear the purple robe, and to wield the sword of state ; and they pursued the objects of their wild ambition, 15 not, like him, with patience, vigilance, sagacity, and determination, but with the restlessness and irresolution characteristic of aspiring mediocrity. Among these feeble copies of a great original the most conspicuous was Lambert. 20 On the very day of Richard's accession the officers began to conspire against their new master. The good under- standing which existed between him and his Parliament hastened the crisis. Alarm and resentment spread through the camp. Both the religious and the professional feelings 25 of the army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the Independents were to be subjected to the Presbyterians, and that the men of the sword were to be subjected to the men of the gown. A coalition was formed between the military malecontents and the Republican minority of the House of 30 Commons. It may well be doubted whether Richard could have triumphed over that coalition, even if he had inherited his father's clear judgment and iron courage. It is certain that simplicity and meekness like his were not the qualities which the conjuncture required. He fell ingloriously and 35 without a struggle. He was used by the army as an instrument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament, and was then contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified their republican allies by declaring that the SECOND EXPULSION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 131 expulsion of the Ramp had been illegal, and by inviting that assembly to resume its functions. The old Speaker and a quorum of the old members came together, and were proclaimed, amidst the scarcely stifled derision and execra- tion of the whole nation, the supreme power in the common- 5 wealth. It was at the same time expressly declared that there should be no first magistrate and no House of Lords. But this state of things could not last. On the day on which the Long Parliament revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. Again the Rump forgot that it 10 owed its existence to the pleasure of the soldiers, and began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the House of Commons were closed by military violence; and a pro- visional government, named by the officers, assumed the direction of affairs. 15 Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong apprehension of still greater evils close at hand, had at length produced an alliance between the Cavaliers and the Presbyterians. Some Presbyterians had, indeed, been dis- posed to such an alliance even before the death of Charles 20 the First : but it was not till after the fall of Richard Cromwell that the whole party became eager for the restoration of the royal house. There was no longer any reasonable hope that the old constitution could be re- established under a new dynasty. One choice only was 25 left, the Stuarts or the army. The banished family had committed great faults ; but it had dearly expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it might be hoped, a salutary training in the school of adversity. It was pro- bable that Charles the Second would take warning by the 30 fate of Charles the First. But, be this as it might, the dangers which threatened the country were such that, in in order to avert them, some opinions might well be compromised, and some risks might well be incurred. It seemed but too likely that England would fall under the 35 most odious and degrading of all kinds of government, under a government uniting all the evils of despotism to all the evils of anarchy. Any thing was preferable to the 132 macaulay's history. yoke of a succession of incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised to power, like the Deys of Barbary, by military revolutions recurring at short intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of these rulers ; but within a year 5 Lambert might give place to Desborough, and Desborough to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was transferred from one feeble hand to another, the nation would be pillaged for the purpose of bestowing a fresh donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians obstinately stood aloof 10 from the Royalists, the state was lost ; and men might well doubt whether, by the combined exertions of Presbyterians and Royalists, it could be saved. For the dread of that invincible army was on all the inhabitants of the island : and the Cavaliers, taught by a hundred disastrous fields 15 how little numbers can effect against discipline, were even more completely cowed than the Roundheads. While the soldiers remained united, all the plots and risings of the malecontents were ineffectual. But a few days after the second expulsion of the Rump, came tidings which gladdened 20 the hearts of all who were attached either to monarchy or to liberty. That mighty force which had, during many years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting, had been found irresistible, was at length divided against itself. The army of Scotland had done good service to the Com- 25 monwealth, and was in the highest state of efficiency. It had borne no part in the late revolutions, and had seen them with indignation resembling the indignation which the Roman legions posted on the Danube and the Euphrates felt, when they learned that the empire had been put up to 30 sale by the Praetorian Guards. It was intolerable that certain regiments should, merely because they happened to be quartered near Westminster, take on themselves to make and unmake several governments in the course of half a year. If it were fit that the state should be regulated 35 by the soldiers, those soldiers who upheld the English ascendency on the north of the Tweed were as well entitled to a voice as those who garrisoned the Tower of London. There appears to have been lesg fanaticism among the troops THE ARMY OF SCOTLAND INVADES ENGLAND. 133 stationed in Scotland than in any other part of the army ; and their General, George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot. He had, at the commencement of the civil war, borne arms for the King, had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted a commission from 5 the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions to saint- ship, had raised himself to high commands by his courage and professional skill. He had been an useful servant- to both the Protectors, had quietly acquiesced when the officers at Westminster pulled down Richard and restored the 10 Long Parliament, and would perhaps have acquiesced as quietly in the second expulsion of the Long Parliament, if the provisional government had abstained from giving him cause of offence and apprehension. For his nature was cautious and somewhat sluggish ; nor was he at all disposed to hazard 15 sure and moderate advantages for the chance of obtaining even the most splendid success. He seems to have been impelled to attack the new rulers of the Commonwealth less by the hope that, if he overthrew them, he should become great, than by the fear that, if he submitted to them, 20 he should not even be secure. Whatever were his motives, he declared himself the champion of the oppressed civil power, refused to acknowledge the usurped authority of the provisional government, and, at the head of seven thousand veterans, marched into England. 25 This step was the signal for a general explosion. The people everywhere refused to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled by thousands and clamoured for a free Parliament. The fleet sailed up the Thames, and declared against the tyranny of the soldiers. The soldiers, no longer 30 under the control of one commanding mind, separated into factions. Every regiment, afraid lest it should be left alone a mark for the vengeance of the oppressed nation, hastened to make a separate peace. Lambert, who had hastened northward to encounter the army of Scotland, was abandoned 35 by his troops, and became a prisoner. During thirteen years the civil power had, in every conflict, been compelled to yield to the military power. The military power now 134 macaulay's history. humbled itself before the civil power. The Rump, generally hated and despised, but still the only body in the country which had any show of legal authority, returned again to the house from which it had been twice ignominiously expelled. 5 In the mean time Monk was advancing towards London. Wherever he came, the gentry flocked round him, imploring him to use his power for the purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted nation. The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no polity and for no religion, maintained 10 an impenetrable reserve. What were at this time his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be doubted. His great object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long as possible, free to choose between several lines of action. Such, indeed, is commonly the policy of men who are, like 15 him, distinguished rather by wariness than by farsightedness. It was probably not till he had been some days in the capital that he had made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a Free Parliament ; and there could be no doubt that a Parliament really free would instantly restore the exiled 20 family. The Rump and the soldiers were still hostile to the House of Stuart. But the Rump was universally detested and despised. The power of the soldiers was indeed still formidable, but had been greatly diminished by discord. They had no head. They had recently been, in many parts 25 of the country, arrayed against each other. On the very day before Monk reached London, there was a fight in the Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An united army had long kept down a divided nation : but the nation was now united, and the army was divided. 30 During a short time, the dissimulation or irresolution of Monk kept all parties in a state of painful suspense. At length he broke silence, and declared for a Free Parliament. As soon as his declaration was known, the whole nation 35 was wild with delight. Wherever he appeared thousands thronged round him, shouting and blessing his name. The bells of all England rang j oy ously : the gutters ran with ale; and, night after night, the sky five miles round London was GENERAL ELECTION OF 1660. 135 reddened by innumerable bonfires. Those Presbyterian members of the House of Commons who had many years before been expelled by the army, returned to their seats, and were hailed with acclamations by great multitudes, which filled Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The 5 Independent leaders no longer dared to show their faces in the streets, and were scarcely safe within their own dwellings. Temporary provision was made for the government : writs were issued for a general election ; and then that memorable Parliament, which had, in the course of twenty eventful 10 years, experienced every variety of fortune, which had triumphed over its sovereign, which had been enslaved and degraded by its servants, which had been twice ejected and twice restored, solemnly decreed its own dissolution. The result of the elections was such as might have been 15 expected from the temper of the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The Presbyterians formed the majority. That there would be a restoration now seemed almost 20 certain ; but whether there would be a peaceable restoration was matter of painful doubt. The soldiers were in a gloomy and savage mood. They hated the title of King. They hated the name of Stuart. They hated Presbyterianism much, and Prelacy more. They saw with bitter indignation 25 that the close of their long domination was approaching, and that a life of inglorious toil and penury was before them. They attributed their ill fortune to the weakness of some generals, and to the treason of others. One hour of their beloved Oliver might even now restore the glory which had 30 departed. Betrayed, disunited, and left without any chief in whom they could confide, they were yet to be dreaded. It was no light thing to encounter the rage and despair of fifty thousand fighting men, whose backs no enemy had ever seen. Monk, and those with whom he acted, were well 35 aware that the crisis was most perilous. They employed every art to sooth and divide the discontented warriors. At the same time vigorous preparation was made for a conflict. 136 macaulay's histoey. The army of Scotland, now quartered in London, was kept in good humour by bribes, praises, and promises. The wealthy citizens grudged nothing to a red coat, and were indeed so liberal of their best wine, that warlike saints were 5 sometimes seen in a condition not very honourable either to their religious or to their military character. Some re- fractory regiments Monk ventured to disband. In the meantime the greatest exertions were made by the provisional government, with the strenuous aid of the whole body of 10 the gentry and magistracy, to organise the militia. In every county the trainbands were held ready to march ; and this force cannot be estimated at less than a hundred and twenty thousand men. In Hyde Park twenty thousand citizens, well armed and accoutred, passed in review, and showed 15 a spirit which justified the hope that, in case of need, they would fight manfully for their shops and firesides. The fleet was heartily with the nation. It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety, yet of hope. The prevailing opinion was that England would be delivered, but not without a desperate 20 and bloody struggle, and that the class which had so long ruled by the sword would perish by the sword. Happily the dangers of a conflict were averted. There was indeed one moment of extreme peril. Lambert escaped from his confinement, and called his comrades to arms. The 25 flame of civil war was actually rekindled ; but by prompt and vigorous exertion it was trodden out before it had time to spread. The luckless imitator of Cromwell was again a prisoner. The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers, and they sullenly resigned themselves 30 to their fate. The new Parliament, which, having been called without the royal writ, is more accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster. The Lords repaired to the hall, from which they had, during more than eleven years, been 35 excluded by force. Both Houses instantly invited the King to return to his country. He was proclaimed with pomp never before known. A gallant fleet convoyed him from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he landed, the cliffs of THE RESTORATION. 137 Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely one could be found who was not weeping with delight. The journey to London was a continued triumph. The whole road from Rochester was bordered by booths and tents, and looked like an interminable fair. Everywhere 5 flags were flying, bells and music sounding, wine and ale flowing in rivers to the health of him whose return was the return of peace, of law, and of freedom. But in the midst of the general joy, one spot presented a dark and threatening aspect. On Blackheath the army was drawn up to welcome 10 the sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to the lips of the colonels and majors. But all his courtesy was vain. The countenances of the soldiers were sad and lowering ; and, had they given way to their feelings, the festive pageant of which they reluctantly made 15 a part would have had a mournful and bloody end. But there was no concert among them. Discord and defection had left them no confidence in their chiefs or in each other. The whole array of the City of London was under arms. Numerous companies of militia had assembled from various 20 parts of the realm, under the command of loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to welcome the King. That great day closed in peace, and the restored wanderer reposed safe in the palace of his ancestors. NOTES Page 2. 3 ' Cortes ' conquered Mexico 1 520- 1 ; ' Pizarro ' conquered Peru 1532-5. See Prescott's Histories. 3. 29 'Tyrian mariners.' "It remains uncertain whether Phoe- nician or Carthaginian traders actually visited Cornwall, or whether they obtained their supplies of tin through Gaul." (Encycl. Brit., sub Cornwall.) 4. 17 ' Alaric,' king of the Visigoths (West Goths), captured Rome in 410 ; his successors ruled in Spain and southern Gaul. ' Theodoric,' king of the Ostrogoths (East Goths) from 474 to 526, conquered Italy and reigned nominally as representative of the Emperor, really as an independent king. See Hodgkin's Theodoric the Goth. 18 ' Clovis,' 481-5 1 1 king of the Salian Franks, ruled over northern Gaul and central Germany. ' Alboin ' founded the Lombard Dominion in Italy 568 ; it lasted till 774, when it was finally overthrown by Charlemagne. (The Lombards were previously settled in Pannonia.) 19 ' Ida,' first king of Bernicia, reigned from 547 to 559. ' Cerdic' founded the kingdom of the West Saxons 519; died 534. 22 'Paris,' capital of the Merovingians, successors of Clovis. ' Toledo,' capital of the Visigoths from 507 till its capture by the Arabs in 711. 1 Aries,' residence of the Gothic king Euric (d. 485), though it is possible that Macaulay had in his mind the kingdom of Aries (Burgundy), founded in 888. ' Ravenna,' capital of Odoacer (476- 493) and Theoderic (493-526). 27 ' Zernebock,' a Slav, not Teutonic, deity ; later editions read Thor and Woden. 35 ' Polycletus,' of Argos, contemporary of Phidias, fl. B.C. 452-412. 'Apelles,' most famous painter of ancient times, fl. c. B.C. 330; friend of Alexander the Great. 5. 4 ' Scylla,' Odyssey, Book xii. 'Lsestrygonian,' ibid. x. 80-132. 140 macaulay's history. Page 5. 6 ' Procopius,' born at Caesarea, in Palestine ; historian of the Wars of Belisarius and the Age of Justinian. Died c. 565. See Procopius' De Bello Gothico, Lib. iv., cap. 20. (Dinclorfs edition, vol. ii., pp. 565-9.) He expressly refuses to vouch for the truth of the story. 15 'Belisarius,' the general of Justinian, put an end to the Vandal dominion in Africa (533), subdued the Goths in Italy in 539, and waged a less successful war with them in 546-8. ' Simplicius,' the last of the Athenian philosophers, fl. 530 ; some of his works are still extant. Gibbon, vii. 150-2. (Ed. 1790.) 16 'Tribonian' (fl. 527-546) was Justinian's principal agent in the codification of the Roman law; "his genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all the business and knowledge of the age." Gibbon, viii. 34. 17 ' founder of Constantinople. ' Constantine was hailed as Emperor by the army in Britain on his father's death (A.D. 306). 21 ' Odoacer,' general of the barbarian mercenaries, extinguished the Western Empire 476, and ruled at Ravenna as vicar of the Eastern Em- peror with the title and power of king. Bryce, Holy Roman E??ipire. 22 ' Totila,' king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, resisted Belisarius, and was defeated and slain by Narses, 552. Gibbon, viii. 355-389. 'Euric' See above, p. 4, 1. 22, note. * Thrasimund,' king of the Vandals in Africa, 496-523. ' Fredegonda and Brunechild ' were wives respectively of the Merovingian brothers, Chilperic and Sigibert (who divided the Frank kingdom of Clovis between them in 561), and famous for their crimes. 23 ' Hengist ' = horse ; * Horsa ' — mare. The Anglo - Saxon Chronicle (anno 449) says : " Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, king of the Britons, landed in Britain." Probably they are historical persons ; Vortigern is mentioned as ' Gurthrigern ' by the British historian Gildas, who wrote about A.D. 550. (But cf. Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 97.) The story of Vortigern marrying ' Rowena,' Hengist's daughter, is found, not in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but in the Historia Britonum (Book vi., chap. 12), of Geoffrey of Monmouth (died c. 1 1 54), which is a collection of romantic legends. (Trans- lation in Bonn's Six Old English Chronicles.) 24 'Arthur' is noticed by Nennius (wrote c. 850) ; and the legends about him are to be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth, who also gives an account of his nephew 'Mo(r)dred.' Probably there was a British {i.e. Welsh) prince of this name who resisted the English in the early part of the sixth century ; but he is not mentioned by Gildas, who was a Briton and living at the same time. See also York Powell, History of England, L 165. 30 ' conversion,' begun by Augustine in 597, and carried on by Aidan and the Irish monks from Iona in 635. See Bede, Hist. Eccles. NOTES. 141 Page 6. 16 'Dunstan,' chief adviser of Eadgar (959-975). and Archbishop of Canterbury, died 988; he was the first ecclesiastical statesman who governed England. 'Penda,' king of the Mercians 626-655, is usually represented as a bitter persecutor of Christians ; but Bede says, " King Penda did not forbid the preaching of the gospel even among his own people, the Mercians ; but hated and despised those who, while professing Christianity, did not perform the works of faith, saying that they were contemptible and wretched who did not obey their God in whom they believed." Hist. Ecclesiast. iii. 21. 23 'tyrants,' etc. Ethelred, son of Penda, king of the Mercians 675-704, became a monk ; his successor, Kenred, resigned the crown and went to Rome in 709. Ceadwalla, king of the West Saxons, resigned his crown and went to Rome in 688 ; his successor, the wise King Ine, did likewise in 726. Ceolwulf (737) and Eadbert (757), kings of the Northumbrians, became monks. See the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Freeman's Old English History. 29 'some writers.' This is probably aimed especially at Hume and Voltaire. 7. 3 'contempt with which,' etc. See especially Gibbon's Decline and Fall. 20 'overwhelmed by the Mahometan power.' It is very doubtful whether the Crusades permanently checked the growth of the Mahometan power. See Hallam, Middle Ages, chapter vi. (vol. i., p. 488, ed. 1841), and Pears' Fall of Constantinople, p. 399. 29 ' Analytics of Aristotle,' works on logic. 8. 10 ' Olympian chariot course,' etc. See Grote, Hist, of Greece, part ii., ch. ii. The Pythian oracle at Delphi was not exclusively Hellenic, but was consulted by other peoples. 13 'Latin communion,' as distinguished from the Greek church. 29 ' Dome of Agrippa,' now called the Pantheon, or church of S. Maria Rotonda. 30 ' Mausoleum of Adrian,' now the castle of S. Angelo. 31 'Flavian amphitheatre,' the Coliseum. Byron makes use of the story in his stanzas on the Coliseum. Childe Harold, iv. 145. 9. 4 'Alcuin' of York (735-804) was the friend of Charles the Great, and his coadjutor in his great educational reforms. 5 John Scotus Erigena, realist philosopher, fl. 870 ; Macaulay omits him in later editions, probably as being an Irishman. The stories of his connection with Oxford are nonsense. 25 'six generations.' The first plundering raid of the Northmen was in 787 ; in 851 or 855 they wintered for the first time in England J in ic 13 Swegen was acknowledged as king ; and the Danish wars were ended by the accession of Cnut in 1017. 142 macaulay's history. Page 10. 8 Maestricht burned by the Northmen in 882 ; Paris pillaged in 865. 'one of the feeble heirs.' Charles the Simple gave the North- men a legal title to the Duchy of Normandy (which they already occupied) by the Treaty of St. Clair-sur-Epte, 911. 27 'a barbarous jargon.' This is not borne out by the remains of French poetry, scanty enough however, which date from a time previous to the settlement of the Normans. 28 'they employed it in legislation.' The laws of William the Conqueror, written in the language of Northern France, are preserved in the History of Crowland, attributed to Ingulphus (Abbot in 1091) ; this, however, is a spurious work written in the thirteenth century. See Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts, ii. 58-64. The chronicle is printed in Gale, Reriim Anglic. Scriptores, i. pp. I -107. 'in poetry.' The earliest epic in the French language, the "Chanson de Roland," which was possibly that chanted by Taillefer before the battle of Hastings, and was certainly written before 1 100, was composed by Turoldus or Theroulde, probably a Norman. Martin, Histoire de France, iii. 344 ; see also Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 496. 'in romance,' i.e. , the romances of Arthur and the Round Table in prose and verse in the twelfth century ; especially the remarkable poems on Enid, Lancelot, and Perceval, written (probably between 1 165 and 1 1 80) by Chrestien de Troyes, the greatest poet of the time. 32 'drunkenness.' The Normans said: " Angli sua solumnodo rura colunt, conviviis et potationibus non praeliis intendunt." Orderic Vital, lib. iv., cap. 13; cf. Carlyle's description of the "gluttonous race of Jutes and Angles . . . lumbering about in pot-bellied equanimity." Frederick the Great, Book iv., ch. iii. (Libr. Ed., vol. i. p. 423.) 11. 8 ' one of their historians ' : Malaterra ; his history is printed in Muratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, vol. v. 13 'one Norman knight,' Richard de Clare (Strongbow), Earl of Pembroke, invaded Ireland 1 168; his chief opponent was Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught. 14 'another founded,' etc. Robert Guiscard, 1020-1085 ; he had not the title of king, nor was the conquest of Sicily (the island), though begun in 1060, finished till after his death. He put to flight the Emperor Alexius at Durazzo in 1081, and compelled Henry IV. to raise the siege of Rome in 1084. 17 'a third,' Bohemund, son of Robert Guiscard. It is strange that Macaulay does not mention the Principalities founded at Novgorod and Kief from 862 to 879. 20 Tasso, born 1544, died 1595; the Gerusalemme liberata is the poem referred to. 25 ' English princes,' Edward (the Confessor) and Alfred (murdered in 1036), sons of ^ithelred and Emma. NOTES. 143 26 'English sees,' Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury 1050 ; Ulf, Bishop of Dorchester 1049. See Freeman, Old- English Hist., 258. Page 12. 7 'oldest ballads.' The earliest extant ballads date from the thirteenth century, and relate to Robin Hood ; there no doubt were ballads about Hereward the Wake. 26 Ireland conquered 1 169-71. Among other Scottish kings, Malcolm Canmore and William the Lion did homage to William I. and Henry II. On this complicated question see Stubbs' Const. Hist. i. 595-8. 28 ' matrimonial alliances,' especially marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor of Aquitaine, divorced wife of Louis VII. of France. 3r 'Arabian chroniclers.' See (in Michaud's Bibliotheque des Croisades, Part iv., §§ 58-60) Boha-eddin's account of these events in 1 191 and 1 192. 33 ' victorious ' is a strange epithet to apply to the march to Ascalon. See Boha-eddin (§ 60) and It in. Regis Ricardi, ed. Stubbs, p. 31 1-2. 13. 8 Hayti (San Domingo) ; part ceded to France 1697, the rest being left in the hands of Spain. 18 'one of the ablest,' Henry I., married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scots, and Margaret, a princess of the old West- Saxon House. The Norman barons called King Henry and his queen Godric and Godgifu. Stubbs' Const. Hist. i. 331. 14. 22 'a trifler and a coward.' For a different view of John's character see Green's Short History. 15. 15 'when John became king,' etc. The author of the Dialogns de Scaccario, however, writing in the time of Henry II. says : " Sic permixtae sunt nationes, ut vix discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis Anglicus quis Normannus sit genere." Stubbs, Select Charters, 201-2. Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 692. 18 'the ordinary imprecation.' Giraldus Cambrensis (a.d. 1147- 1222), in his Vita Galfredi{lVorks, vol. iv., p. 424) charges William of Longchamp and his followers with insulting the English, and saying, "Anglicus fiam si hoc fecero. Pejor sim Anglico si illud admiserim." Longchamp came from beyond sea, and cannot be considered typical of men who, though of Norman extraction, had been settled in England for generations. Cf. Freeman, Norman Conq. , v. 825-839. 29 ' sterile and obscure ' — singularly inappropriate epithets. No century in the Middle Ages was so prolific of great historical writers as the thirteenth century. See the works of Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, William Rishanger, written during this century in the monastery of St. Albans, besides many others. 16. 12 'Cinque Ports,' Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, Hastings. King John was the first to develope the fleet. Macau lay perhaps is referring to the sea-fight in 1293. York Powell, 197 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 637, ii. 298. 144 macattlay's history. Page 16. 20 'literature.' For an account of the English literature of the thirteenth century see York Powell, Hist, of England, i. 166-170. The most notable work was Layamon's Brut, partly translated from Wace's poem on the same subject, and written during the reign of John. 17. 14 'knights of Gascony and Guienne.' See The Chronycle of Froissart, vol. ii. p. 121. (Berners' translation, ed. 1812.) 35 Sir John Chandos was "always at the right hand of the Black Prince" in the great battles, and was his chief military adviser. Killed in 1370. Froissart gives a striking description of him, vol. i. p. 404. 36 Du Guesclin, Constable of France, and commander of the French army. See Hallam, i. 59. 18. 2 'on the south of the Ebro/ The battle of Navarete, won by the Black Prince 1367, was followed by the restoration of Pedro the Cruel to the throne of Castile. 22 ' entered Valladolid ' after the battle of Navarete. 28 ' Derby', Henry of the Wryneck, son of Henry, Earl of Lancaster, became first Duke of Lancester ; his daughter married John of Gaunt. He was one of the English captains, and overran Guienne in 1345. Hawkwood, the leader of the White Company, one of the bands of freebooters which infested Italy in the fourteenth century, is called by Hallam "the first real general of modern times." During his later years he was in the service of Florence, where he is buried (d. 1394). 19. 2 'at last aroused,' by Joan of Arc, 1429. 30 'Comines,' Memoirs, bk. i., ch. vii. 20. 3 'a line of bastards.' This refers to the Beauforts, descendants of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford ; they had been legitimated. Edmund, Duke of Somerset, the last of the male descendants, was executed after the battle of Tewkesbury, 147 1. Margaret Beaufort was mother of Henry VII. 4 'a succession of impostors,' Lambert, Simnel, and Perkin Warbeck. 15 'slavery' and 'villenage' are used by Macaulay as interchange- able terms. This is misleading ; the two classes are expressly dis- tinguished in Domesday Book. The villain was free against everybody except his lord. The criminal law made no distinction between free men and villains ; the lord was liable to punishment in the royal courts for mutilating or killing his villain. The villain had even some political rights. Legal theorists in the thirteenth century describe villains as slaves ; the Mirror of Justice (end of thirteenth century) says, " The villain is no serf in any sense of the word : he is a free man, his tenure is a free tenure." See Vinogradoff's Villainage in England, NOTES. 145 Page 21. 30 'refused to accept mitres.' This refers to Guitmund, the disciple of Lanfranc. See Lingard, Hist, of England, vol. ii. ch. i. p. 37 (fourth edition). 22. 1 'transports of delight ' (Adrian iv., pope 1154-1159). The expression was suggested by a sentence in Lingard : " In England the intelligence was hailed with transport." Lingard's authority seems to have been the congratulatory letter of Henry II. to the new pope (Baronius, Ann. Ecdes. vol. xix. p. 79), and not the work of any member of the "despised race." The elevation of Adrian, however, clearly possessed a great interest for the people of England. See William of Newburgh, Hist. Rerwn Anglic, (ed. Howlett), p. 109- 112. 7 'a Norman or a Saxon.' Becket was the son of Gilbert, a merchant, and Maud of Rouen. Gilbert's nationality is still uncertain. 12 'a successor,' Stephen Langton. 17 Sir Thomas Smith, The Commonwealth of England, book iii. ch. x. He died in 1597 ; his evidence cannot be regarded as altogether conclusive on the subject. Charters of manumission seem to have been usually sold by the lord for money. Madox, Formulare, 416 et sea. The decay of villenage was due rather to economic causes. The church was mainly instrumental in putting down personal slavery, but did not use its influence consistently or energetically against the institution of villenage. The ecclesiastics were as determined as the barons and knights in opposition to the demand for general emancipa- tion made by the peasants in the revolt of 138 1. (Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 479 ; Walsingham, Gesla Abbatum, iii. 285-359, and Hist. Anglicana, sub anno 1381.) On the other hand, the clergy favoured the manu- mission of individuals, sometimes even on their own estates ; thus the Bishop of Chichester, in liberating a serf, writes, in 1536, "Whereas at the beginning nature brought forth all men free, and afterwards the law of nations placed certain of them under the yoke of servitude, we believe that it is pious and meritorious towards God to manumit them, and to restore them to the benefit of pristine liberty." Stubbs, iii. 605. 23. 5 'regarded by the English,' etc. See Fortescue {temp. Henry VI.), De Laudibus legum Anglia, and On the Monarchy of England. 6 'enlightened men of neighbouring nations,' Ph. de Comines Memoirs, bks. iv. i., v. xix. Comines was born 1447, died 1511. 24. 17 'when King George the Third,' in 1788. Erskine May, i. 175 seq. 25. 11 Bracton (died 1268), judge and author of a great treatise De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Anglia, edited by Sir Travers Twiss, six vols., 1878-1883. L 146 macaulay's history. Page 25. n 'Fleta,' the name of a Latin text-book of English law, written about 1 290 ; according to the preface the book was written " in Fleta," i.e., probably in the Fleet prison. 12 ' Mirror of Justice,' written or edited by Andrew Horn, Chamber- lain of London (died 1328). 28 Mainwaring preached the omnipotence of kings in 1627 ; he was impeached by the Commons, and made Bishop of St. David's by the king. 26. 33 ' Estates of the realm,' i.e., Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal, Commons. 28. 27 'gavelkind,' a form of land tenure customary in Kent, according to which the land descended not to the eldest son, but to all the sons equally. The word is usually derived from Anglo-Saxon gafol, rent ; perhaps more correctly from Celtic gabhail, tenure. 29. 13 'any aid.' Macaulay here follows the unauthentic Latin version of the charter De tallagio non concedendo, A.D. 1 297, instead of the authentic French version, which is less sweeping and excepts " the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed." Stubbs, Select Charters, 494-8. Edward I. intended by this exception to retain the right to tax the towns, etc., on his demesne land. Edward III. reasserted this right in 1332. It was finally given up in 1340. Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 545-6. 32. 34 Towton, defeat of the Lancastrians, March 29, 1461. Bosworth, defeat and death of Richard III., August 22, 1485. 33. 3 'six of these nine,' Edward II., Richard II., Hemy VI., Edward IV. (1470), Edward V., Richard III. ; all except Edward IV. lost their lives. 37 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1419-1467), inherited Flanders, and acquired the other provinces of the Netherlands. 38 Lewis XII. Martin, Hist, de France, vii. 430. 34. 10 ' confederates of Cambray.' In 1508 Ferdinand of Aragon, Lewis of France, Pope Julius II., and Maximilian, Emperor-elect, joined together in a league called the League of Cambray, to despoil the Venetian Republic. 35. 2 ' Sir John Howard married,' etc. A mistake. Margaret, daughter of Th. Mowbray, was the mother of John Howard, and wife of Sir Rob. Howard. 3 'Sir Richard Pole (d. 1525) married' Margaret, Countess of Salisbury (executed 1541). 36. 6 'eldest son of an Earl of Bedford.' John, Lord Russell, eldest son of Francis, Earl of Bedford, sat for Bridport in 14 Elizabeth (A.D. 1572). NOTES. 147 Page 37. 9 Buckingham, Edw. Stafford, Duke of, executed 1521 ; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, executed 1547. 12 'a contribution amounting to one-sixth,' in 1525. Hallam, Const. Hist. p. 28-9 ; Brewer, Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. vol. iv. p. lxvii. sea. 24 Berkeley (Glouc), Edward II. ; Pomfret (or Pontefract), Richard II. 27 'solemnly apologised.' The expression is too strong; the authority appears to be Hall's Chron. p. 700 ; Brewer, Letters and Papers, vol. iv. p. Ixxxiv. 38. 26 'forty days.' This was the term for which a feudal army was bound to serve. 39. 22 'the mechanics,' etc. Charles V. reduced the Castilian Cortes to impotence in 1538-9. Philip II. turned the Cortes of Aragon into a body of royal nominees in 1590. Lodge, Modern Europe, 76, 103. 41. 9 'the first insurrection.' For the Albigensian Crusade (1203- 1 229) see Martin, Hist, de France, vol. iv. ; or Mil man, Lat. Christianity, bk. ix. ch. viii. ; or Hallam, Middle Ages, i. 24 6. 14 ' the second reformation,' Wiclif and Hus. See R. L. Poole's Wyclijfe and Movements for Reform, or Milman's Lat. Chr. 15 'Council of Constance,' 1414-1418, condemned Hus. 42. 10 Matthias, a baker, was an Anabaptist who ruled Munster and was killed in 1534. Though a wild fanatic, he does not seem to have been an "apostle of lust." This description might be given to his successor, John of Leyden. Kniperdoling was a citizen of Munster, and prominent disciple of Matthias. Robertson's Charles V. p. 251- 255 (bk. v.). 44. 11 'country round Rome.' See Macaulay's description of the Papal administration in 1838, Life and Letters, ii. 34-5. 45. 3 ' Jansenists,' so-called from Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres (d. 1638) ; they were opponents of the Jesuits, and approached the Calvinists in some of their doctrines, though they acknowledged the pope as head of the church. The most famous writer among them was Pascal. 46. 23 Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester 1550, burnt 1555 ; Ridley, Bishop of Rochester 1547, of London 1550, burnt 1555 ; Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury 1560-71 ; Grindal, Archbishop of York 1570, of Canter- bury 1576-83 ; Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich 1560-75 ; Ponet, Bishop of Rochester 1550, of Winchester 1551-3. See Burnet's Reformation, Strype's Grindal, Neal's Hist, of the Puritans. 148 macaulay's history. Page4!8. 28 'Cranmer, indeed,' *'.