MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 91-80325 MICROFILMED 1991 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK i« as part of the Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library a».«.sJd^aafe3af?a COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States ~ Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: BISSET, ANDREW TITLE: OMITTED CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF ... PLACE: LONDON DA TE : 1864 Restrictions on Use: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT * BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARCFT Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record B54 loTU 942.Q£jgis>c^g4 A^c^ rgwV)l RQ^^ OmiHed ch si [London 15G4. 0.-_vJ iers of +he his dea+h of +0 +he baHle of Dunbar. miTtea cnap pland fron^ +he TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: U_ FILM SIZE:_^5'_X^_^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (© IB IIB DATE FILMED:JJ_-_iJl.iJ37 INITIALSj;V>l^_6^_ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT BIBLIOGRAPHIC IRREGULARITIES MAIN . ENTRY: DJSseh nv^'ieuD Bibliographic Irregularities in the Original Document List volumes and pages affected; include name of institution if filming borrowed text. Page(s) missing/ not available: .Volimies(s) missing/not available:. Illegible and/or damaged page(s):_ .Page(s) or volinnes(s) misnumbered:. Bound out of sequence: .Page(s) or illustration(s) filmed from copy borrowed from: U01>J P R E F A C E In the course of a somewhat minute investigation, con- tinued for a good many years, of the records of English history during the 1 7th century, I found when I reached the period immediately succeeding the death of Charles I., that, while the printed sources of information were scanty, there existed in the State Paper Office a vast number of MSS. relating to the period of English history called, in the State Paper Office classification, "The Interregnum/' Among others are the MS. volumes which contain the original minutes of all the proceedings of the Council of State as long as the government called the Commonwealth lasted. On a careful perusal of some of the volumes, and a more cursory examination of others, I resolved to attempt to write, by their aid, a history of England during the period extending from the death of Charles I. to the restoration of Charles II. Of this history I now offer to the public the first volume, bringing the narrative down to the battle of Dunbar towards the end of the 2nd year of the Interregnum, or of the -Commonwealth, accordino- to the prevalent, and, in my opinion, inaccurate designa- tion of the government of England after the death of Charles I. Library of David King. Leavitt & Co. May 21 1884 'I i' CONTENTS. 1! CHAPTER I. Political condition of England on the deatli of Kins Charles State of the peerage at the time of the opening of ihe Long Parliament.' Effect of the government of the Stuarts in degi-ading the English nobility Composition of the House of Commons at the beginning of the Lon.. Par- liament • . . , o ■^'^^ The English lawyers did not, like the French, constitut^ a nobility'of the gown inferior to the nobility of the sword The union in early times of the civil with the militaiy' character amon^ the JSormans exemplified in the office of Senescallus An-lise Efi-ectof the modern military despotisms in destroying that union and also in changing ''suzerain " into »' sovereign " The English nobility, at the beginning of the 17th centurv, 'though new and humble in their origin, displayed the insolence of' a conquering Great change in their demeanour between 1604 and 1649 The Commons vote the aboUtion of the House of Peers and of the office of king Causes of their dislike of nobility and kingship .' '. Reasons in favour of a limited monarchy Errors committed by the Long Parliament . . .' . Number of members composing the Parliament in 1649-1653 Council of State A new Great Seal The Parliament call the government a Commonwealth Their reasons for not dissolving the Parliament The writing drawn up by the officers of the army intituled -An Agree ment of the People of England " ... Treatment of, by the Parliament • • • . Form of Government Not a Commonwealth in the sense of republic PAGE 1 2 3 4,5 6,7 8-12 7,8 13 14 15 16-18 19 20-22 23 24 25 25 26 b 2 27-30 31, 32 33 34, 35 itan«4'fri^iafy..<».-..j»-W8n- Bt^j.-'a Vlll CONTENTS. Council of State .... • •••••• Cromwell appointed commander in chief in Ireland Difference between "Horse" and "Dragoons" .... Milton appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State Affairs of the navy . . . . . ■ , Pressing of seamen ......... Land forces ..... Pressure of taxation—Taxes levied by parties of horse . Errors in political economy of the Council of State New regiments raised for the ser\dce of Ireland .... Free quarter and billeting— conduct of the Council of State . Conduct of the government of Charles I. and of subsequent governments Proportion of musketeers to pLkemen ...... of flintlocks to matchlocks .... PAGE 36-43 44 44-46 47 49-52 53-59 60 61 62 63, 64 64 64-66 66, 67 68 CHAPTER II. Tyranny of the Parliament and Council of State . . . . Lt.-Col. John Lilbume committed to the Tower upon suspicion of high treason, for being the author of a book intituled "England's New Chains Discovered " State of the parliamentary army Antinomians and Fifth Monarchy men Fanaticism of Cromwell and Vane . Influence of pamphlets on the soldiers of the parliamentary army Petition in behalf of Lilbume, &c. , gave offence to the House The Levellers, origin of the term The Levellers' war crushed Component parts of the parliamentary army Assassination of Dorislaus Relations with Spain .... Holland .... Pressing of Dutch ships for the transport of troops to Ireland The government not strictly parliamentary government The expedition to Ireland hastened . The soldiers' arrears of pay .... Arms and ammunition ..... CromweU sets out for Ireland .... Cromwell's pay as General in Ireland Reduction of garrisons and demolition of castles Business of the Council of State, their secretaries and clerks 69, 70 71,72 73-76 77-80 81, 82 83, 84 85-88 89 90-94 95,96 97 99 101, 102 103 105, 106 107 108, 109 111 113 114 115 116, 117 ^■i^h^iadbHau CONTENTS. IX PAGE 118-122 123 CHAPTER III. Irish affairs . The amy of Omond defeated by Michael Jones The Irish massacre of 1641 Storm of Drogheda Storm of Wexford . • • • Death of Lieut. -Gen. Michael Jones Preparations for John Lilbunie's trial New law of treason • . . , Clarendon's inaccurate account of Lilbume ''"l^il^- ^'•^^' ^""-^ -' »' ^■-'-th/the Wife of John" Petition for a new parliament . . ' ' ' * John Lilburne's letter to the Si)eaker ' * * ' ' '''"Ti::'cZ.f; *™ -' "'^ '^-" "^ «-*e and that of Busine^^of the Council of State in .«a.d to .ohhe., thieves, and ■«». * • • The late king's plate converted into coin, &c. The government their own news writer ' ' ' ' * Lodgings in Whitehall for membei^ of the Council of State Amount of the excise for the three years last passed Estimate of the charge of the fleet for 1650 Grant of lands by the Parliament to Cromwell Style with foreign powers "The Parliament of England " • • , Election of Council of State for 1650 Puritan Legislation, consequences of Twofold character of the Puritan rebellion Reinforcements for Ireland I^ton appoinWd Cron^weU's successor in I.eUnd with the iitie of L„.^ ' • , the Commonwealth of 124 125 126-132 135-138 139 140 141, 142 143, 144 144, 145 116,147 148-153 154, 155 156-158 159-162 163 164-168 169 170 171 173 175 176 177 178, 179 180-182 183, 184 185-188 189 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE TRIAL OF LIEUT.-COL. JOUN LILBURNE. Lilburne, in his opening speech, says that he was one of those who first drew their swords against the king's party, and relates how he was taken prisoner at Brentford ...... • exposes the inconsistency of Bradshaw .... charges Haseh-ig with taking his estate without law . objects to the commission, and asks to be allowed counsel, a copy of the indictment, and reasonable time to consult with his counsel ........... Lilburne's argument in regard to being allowed counsel, &c. plea to the indictment ....... Question of the '' Agreement of the People " . . . . . Passages from Lilburne's writings ....... Lilburne's exception to Col. Purefoy as a witness .... Lilburne contends that there were not two witnesses to any one fact against him The Court refuses the prisoner time ...... Lilburne contends that the juiy are not only judges of fact but of law Subsequent settlement of that question ...... Lilburne's defence .......... The attorney -general's misstatements of law and fact The presiding Judge Keble's misstatement of the law Acquittal of Lilburne received by the people with extraordinary accla- mations ........... PAGE 191, 192 193, 194 195 196-202 203-208 209 211, 212 213-220 221, 222 223 224, 225 227-230 231-233 234, 235 236-243 244-246 247-251 CHAPTER V. State of affairs in Scotland ........ The Scottish oligarchy's sale of their king to the English Parliament . The Scottish Parliament . ....... The |>ower of the nobility in Scotland was the cause of the poverty and democratical form of the Scottish Presbyterian church . Difference between the English and Scottish feudal aristocracies . The nobility seized the whole of the Church property in Scotland Three classes of the Scottish Presbyterians, the nobility, the clergy, and the people The Scottish Presbjrterian clergy Distinction between the Presbyterians and Independents as regarded military efficiency 252, 253 254-256 258 259-262 263, 264 265 266, 267 268-271 273 CONTENTS. Honest fanatics are not necessarily honest men Characteristics of the democratical and of the oligarchical Scottish Presbyterians • • • . . The Marquis of Montrose ' ■ • • • State of parties in Scotland . • • • • . Prince Charles is proclaimed at Edinburgh King of Scotland The Scots commissioners are sent home by land Montrose's last expedition His defeat and capture . His cruelties at Aberdeen in 1644 His character His sentence and execution His lenity in 1639 Cause of his desertion of the Covenanters, the rivalry of Argyle Arrival of Charles in Scotland, June, 1650 Assa^ination of Ascham, the English Pariiament's agent in Spain CHAPTER VI. The English Parliament prepares for war with Scotland Fairfax resigns his command and Cromwell is appointed commander-' in-chief The Scottish levies— how raised and how composed Language of the Presbyterians and Independents to each other . Cromwell and Monk ■ Cromwell's array pa^es through Berwick and marches across the border Cromwell's proclamation to his soldiers against plundering, and his severity towards those who disobeyed The Pass called Cockburn's Path - mistakes respecting it, and the road by which Cromwell's army marched Scottish villages .... The command of the Scottish army was held by David Leslie, but he was controlled by the Committee of Estates Leslie's prudent generalship Cromwell's attempts in vain to bring on a battle on advantageous ground .... Retreat of the English army to Dunbar Its weak condition Cromwell's character as a general XI I'AGE 274, 275 276, 277 278-280 281, 282 283 285-288 290, 291 292 293, 294 295-299 300-306 307 308 310 311, 312 313 314-318 319-323 324, 325 326, 327 328 329, 330 331-337 339-341 342 343, 344 345, 346 347-349 350 351, 352 / xu CONTENTS. PAGE 353 Down Hill, near Dunbar ..... Broxburn ......•• Relative situation of Broxburn and Down Hill Battle of Dunbar .....•• Treatment of the prisoners Surrender of Edinburgh Castle .... State of parties in Scotland ..... Explanation of the great disproportion between the loss of the con- quered and that of the conquerors at Dunbar and at Bannock- burn 389-392 354 355, 356 356-377 378-384 385 387 ERRATA. / V HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. The political condition of England upon the death of King Charles presented a phenomenon at once anonnlous and co.plieat.d. It conse,ueatly presented to thoT til were to carry on the English government a practical pro- blem proportionally difficult of solution. In order to furnish even an approximation to an accurate view of the dements that entered into that problem, it will he necessa^ to place before us the p^-incipal elements of the English Government in the early part of the 1 7th century The power of the ancient English kings had been hm,ted not merely by the parchment provisions of l" barns a It' ''' '' ^'^ '''-'' '' "'^ ^^^'^^^ thousand barbed horses ; many a baron five or six h.mL barbed horses; whereas now (at the beginning of e 17th century) very few of them can furnish Wenty fi ^ serve the ting. The force, therefore, by wIS^^u In the hst of the Peers summoned to the Long Parlialt 1 -TV. . . ' ' r>iich's edition of RaleigL'. Work.s, vol. i. p. 206. li HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. may be observed, indeed, a few names of families which had levied war against the Plantagenets. But the names are but shadows — nominum umhrce. Besides these, there were titles in that list that sounded like those which had once formed the Norman war-cry ; but they were only mock titles ; bought by money, or earned by baseness and indelible infamy, from those who had debased both nobility and knighthood in England. A glance at the state of the peerage at the time of the meeting of the Long Parliament is nearly as suggestive of the effect of the government of the Stuarts upon the ancient institutions of England, as the cruellest acts of oppression they had exercised upon the humblest and poorest of their subjects. The list of the peers consists of 1 duke, 1 marquis, 63 earls, 5 viscounts, and 54 barons; in all 124. Now, the list of peers summoned to the first Parliament of James, consists of 1 marquis, 1 9 earls, 1 viscount, and 21 barons ; in all 42. And the list of all the peers summoned to the first Parhament of Charles the First, consists of 1 duke, 1 marquis, 37 earls, 11 viscounts, and 47 barons ; in all 97. And the Ust of all the peers at the opening of the fifth Parliament of Charles, the Long Parliament, consisting of 124 ; while the number of peers created or advanced in peerage, between the opening of the Long Parliament in 1 640, and the battle of Naseby in 1645, amounted to 43 ; it appears that James more than doubled the number of peers during his reign of some twenty years ; and that Charles in the space of twenty years, again nearly doubled them.^ Of the peers made by James, It may be said with truth, in the words of Mrs. Hutchinson, " the nobility of the land was utterly debased I state of the Peerage, in Pari. Hist., Leeds Journals, Dugdale's Baronage, vol. ii. pp. 591-597, extracted from the and other authorities. 1640.J STATE OF THE PEERAGE. by setting honours to public sale, and confemng them on persons that had neither blood nor merit fit to wear, nor estates to bear up their titles, but were fain to invent projects to pillage the people, and pick their purses for the maintenance of vice and lewdness.'' ^ Even the peerage of Francis Bacon was conferred, not for his merits, but for his demerits, for acts of servile baseness to that hideous court that have left behind them a stain as immortal as his name. " My seat,'' said Queen Elizabeth on her deathbed, « is the seat of kings, and I would have none but a king fill it after me." If the spirit of the great queen could have beheld what these Stuarts had been doing in that royal seat of hers for the last forty years, the spectacle would have provoked no ordinary amount of indignation, as well as astonishment— the spectacle of that ancient monarchy, which, for 600 years, had been, on the whole, supported with so much wisdom and valour, fallen into such a depth of decrepitude and dishonour. In all history there could hardly be found a contrast more striking than that between Queen Elizabeth and her immediate successors. Of the English peerage at the opening of the Long Par- liament in 1640, since two- thirds could not date their nobility farther back than the accession of James, that is, thirty-seven years ; and, of the remaining third, hardly one- half could date their nobility as far back as the time of the Plantagenets, the English nobility must certainly be con- » Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, p. 78, they say it is the most noble and mag- Bohn's edition, London, 1854. This nanimous assembly that ever these statement is borne out fully by other walls contained. And I heard a lord contemporary evidence. Thus, in a intimate they were able to buy the letter dated March 21, 1628, in the Upper House (his Majesty only ex- Sloan MSS., and cited in Mr. Forster's cepted) thrice over, notwithstanding Life of Sir John Eliot, p. 57, note, the there be of lords temporal to the num- writer says :-" The House of Com- ber of 118. And what lord in England mons was, both yesterday and to-day, would be followed by so many free- as full as one could sit by another ; and holders as some of these are 1 " B 2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. /I I sidered to have been at that time a new nobility. But there was a class in England, known by the name of "gentry," and composing a considerable portion of the House of Commons, wliich, from the great length of time that many of their members had held their lands, by free and military tenure, must be considered not new, but ancient in lineage, as well as in rank and position. This class, besides many who had never belonged to the great barons or peerage, but had held their lands, if not so long as the heralds assert, still, a very long time, comprehended also many of the younger branches of the great Norman families, the elder branches of which had become extinct. And yet, it is not unimportant to remark that while many members of this class might represent counties in the House of Commons, and were, in that character, denomi- nated knights of the shire, others might represent boroughs, and were, in that capacity, denominated burgesses ; though strictly, the burgess for any town was understood to be one of the burgesses or burghers of that town, sent by them as their representative in the House of Commons. And not unfrequently they really were so, being men who were, or had been engaged in trade in that town. Such men might still be connected with, or descended from, the class of gentry as Oliver Cromwell, the burgess for Huntingdon, was. There were, also, undoubtedly many men of humble birth, and who had been of humble occupa- tion, among the eminent officers of the Parliament. Denzil, Lord Holies, describes them as being "all of them from the general (Sir Thomas Fairfax), except what he may have in expectation after his father's death, to the meanest sen- tinel, not able to make a thousand pound a-year lands, most of the colonels and officers mean tradesmen, brewers, tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers and the like; a notable >aaa;4.i 1640.] ENGLISH GENTRY. dunghill, if one would rake into it to find out their several pedigrees/' * I have not the least wish to prove that these men were not what Denzil Holies and other Presbyterian and royalist writers have represented them as being ; but I wish to ascertain the truth, if possible, whatever it may be ; and it is well known to any one who has studied this period of English history, that to find out the truth in these matters is extremely difficult, if not altogether impos- sible, since writers that have been cited by some modern historians as good or sufficient authorities, such as Walker, Bates, Noble, and the author or authors of " The Mystery of the Good Old Cause," are all violent royalist or Pres- byterian partizans. And I believe that the pedigi-ees of many of the Ironsides, even the humblest born of them, would bear " raking into " quite as well as those of the Stuart peers. The pedigree of Oliver Cromwell, whom Lord Holies classes among " mean tradesmen,'' because he was a brewer, was at least better, though OHver cared little for such things, than that of Lord Holies, whose father's nobility went no farther back than James's reign of infamy. It is, however, beyond a doubt, that in the earlier stages of the struggle between the King and the Parlia- ment, it was to members of the class of gentry, such as Hampden and Fairfax,^ that the nation looked with con- fidence, as the men best fitted to lead her councils and command her armies. Such men, with the ancient lineage, > HoUes's Memoirs, p. 149. Lon- Yorkshire ; ajs Lucius Carey, Viscount don, 1699. Falkland, also a Scotch peer, sat for the 2 The fact of Sir Thomas Fairfax's borough of Newport— sat, therefore, in father having, in 1627, been created a Parliament as a burgess, and in that Scotch peer can hardly be considered as character was strictly included in the taking the Fairfaxes out of the class designation * 'Goodman Burgess, " which of gentry to which they had belonged the doorkeeper of the House of Lords, for so many ages. Indeed, Ferdinando, to be mentioned presently, probably, Lord Fairfax, the father of Sir Thomas however, meant to apply to the whole Fairfax, sat in the Long Tarliament for House of Commons. 6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. 1640.] ENGLISH LAWYERS. inherited also a large portion of the territorial wealth, the military character, and the high spirit of that old Norman aristocracy, which had so often resisted the encroachments of their kings, and had once filled Europe and Asia with their victories and their renown. In looking over the list of the House of Commons, at the opening of the Long Par- liament, we are struck with many indications, from the names of the members in connection with the counties or places they represent, of the ancient establishment of this class in England, and even of its continuance down to our own times — for some of the places are represented in 1860 by men bearing the same names as those who sat for them in 1 G40. There are the ancient names of Hampden, of Godolphin, of Trevanion, of Percy, of Montague, of Basset, of Glanville, of Grenville, associated with places which had known them for twenty generations. To the class of gentry also belonged the lawyers, at least the members of the Inns of Court ; who, in Eng- land, did not, as in France, constitute a nobility of the gown, distinct from, and inferior to, the nobility of the sword, but were, upon all fitting occasions, able and ready to prove themselves men of the sword as well as men of the gown ; and furnished, indeed, almost all the best officers of the Parliamentary armies. Ireton, Lambert, Ludlow, Michael Jones, ^ were members of the Inns of Court ; and though Oliver Cromwell's name is certainly not to be found now in the books of Lincoln's Inn, it appears to be beyond a doubt that he was sent up to London for the purpose of being entered as a member ; and that whether or not his name was ever actually entered on the books of that society, he occupied chambers * Whitelock's speech in favour of liament, in Pari. Hist., vol. iii.p.l341. lawyers being elected members of Par- in Lincoln's Inn for some time.' The insolence of the modern military despotisms, which have, throughout Europe, risen up on the ruins of the feudal system, changing their old title, " suzerain,'' into " sovereign," and to establish a despotism similar to which in England was the aim of the Stuarts,^ has attempted to affix a word of contempt on all men who are not soldiers by profession, that is, soldati, and with that object they have used the word robin, and more recently pequin. Among nations who have not been trampled under the heel of a despot, the greatest men are those who graft the character of a man of the sword upon that of a man of the gown. Such men w^ere the gi-eatest Koman generals, including Julius Caesar him- self; and such men were Cromwell and his best officers. Among the earlier Norman lawyers and judges we find the * It is possible that even contempo- rary writers may have been mistaken; but it appears impossible that the oflBi- cial inscription over the bed of state after his death should have described him as ' ' educated in Cambridge, after- wards of Lincoln's Inn," if he had not actually lived in Lincoln's Inn, although he had not entered his name on the books : since there were many persons living at the time, to whom the fact was distinctly known, and who would have had the inscription corrected if it was inaccurate in that particular. The steward of Lincoln's Inn, in showing me the entry of Richard Cromwell on the books of the Inn, observed that if at that time it was customary, as it is now, to describe a member as the son of a member, provided the father had been a member, the absence of such de- scription in the case of Richard Crom- well, who is only described as "filius et heres apparens, Oliv. Cromwell de Ely de insula Ely in com. Cantab. Ar.," would prove that Oliver Cromwell had not been a member of the society. But we found that this proved nothing, as the same omission occurs in the case of the entry of the son of Thurloe, Crom- well's secretary, who was undoubtedly a member of Lincoln's Inn. 2 Every one who knows anything of the constitutional laws of England knows that the word *' sovereign " can- not be constitutionally or correctly ap- plied to the king or queen of England. In the debates in Parliament on the Petition of Right, Lord Chief Justice Coke used these memorable words : — "Magna Chartas is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign." (Rush- worth, vol. i. p. 568. Pari. Hist. vol. ii. p. 357.) Those persons who mislead constitutional princes by teaching them to use words that are at once inaccurate and dangerous are their enemies. The "sovereign" of England consists at present of the queen, lords, and com- mons. Each of these separately forms only a limb of the .^sovereignty. 8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. LChap. I. 1640.] ENGLISH LA)\TERS. 9 names of the most warlike and powerful feudal families. And the union in early times of the civil with the military character in the highest judicial functionary is particularly observable among the Normans and Auglo-Normans. It is to be borne in mind that the Chief Justiciary was an officer whose functions by no means corresponded with those of the modern Chief Justice. In order to com- prehend the functions of the Chief Justiciary, it is necessary to know those of the grand seneschall, or Senescallus Anglian ; in modern language the Lord High Steward. This officer was the highest in the State, after the King ; executing all the chief offices of the kingdom, as the king's representative ; and being thus chief ad- ministrator of justice, and leader of the armies in war. This is proved to have been the case in France, by Ducange and other high authorities, as well as by the pubHc records of the kingdom ; ^ and in England by the Blalogus de Seaccavio, written in the time of Henry II., and published by Madox, from the black and red books of the Exchequer,^ and likewise by certain MSS. preserved in Sir Eobert Cotton's collection in the * Ducange, Gloss, ad voc. Dapifer et Senescallus. See also the Grand Coustumier de Normandie, c. X. " So- lebat autem antiquitus quidam justi- ciarius prsedictis superior per Nor- maniam discurrere qui senescallus prin- cipis vocabatur." ^ Madox, Hist. Exchequer. See Co. Litt. 61a, for some account of the judi- cial i)art of the office of seneschal or steward, and some attempt at the ety- mology of the word, not much more successful than such attempts usually are. Madox is in error when he says (Hist. Excheq. p. 28) that, in the reign of William I., William Fitz Osbern was the King's constable, be- cause he is called mcujister m'dilam ; whereas in the very same passage (of Orderius Yitalis) he is called Norman- nice Dapifer, in virtue of which office he would be magister militum as well as capitalis justiciarus. The con- stable was not originally mar/ister mi' litum, but was an officer subordinate to the senescallus, or dapifer. The feudal system was the same in its ap- plication to a manor and to a kingdom. The steward of every manor held the lord of the manor's court, and, in his absence, led his vassals to battle, as Scott has accurately described it, in "Marraion :" — *' There fight thine own retainers too, Beneath De Burg, thy steward true." British Museum, particularly an old MS. intituled " Quis sit Senescallus Angliae, et quid ejus efficium.'^^ All these concur in the extensive and paramount nature of the authority originally wielded by the Lord High Steward, but none of them explain the anomaly of the co-existence of such an officer as the High or Chief Justiciary. I will shortly state here the substance of an explanation of this, which I had occasion to give elsewhere. By the nature of the feudal system everything had a tendency to be given in fief Among other tilings the office of seneschal was given in fief, too, and became hereditary among the Franks, Normans, and Anglo- Normans. In France, under the Merovingian dynasty, the office was in the family of diaries Martel, from"^ whom sprung the Carlovingian dynasty. Afterwards the Plan- tagenets. Counts of Anjou were hereditary seneschals of France.' In England this high office was granted by William the Conqueror to' the Grantmesnils, and thence came by marriage to the Earls of Leicester. After the attainder of the family of Montfort, Earls of Leicester, the office was given to Edmund, the second son of Kinc/ Henry III. It then remained in the royal family till its abolition ; Thomas Plantagenet, second son of Kino- Henry lY., being the last permanent high steward,^ and the office being conferred afterwards only pro unicd vice. 1 Cotton MSS., Vespasian, b. vii. fo. 99b. It will also be found in the Harl. MSS 305, fo. 48, transcribed in a mo- dem hand by D'Ewes, who supposed it to be of the age of Edwaixi II. See also Cotton MSS., Titus C. xtassim. There is also ^ tract intituled " Sum- mus Angliae Senescallus," in Somei-s' Tracts, vol. viii. Barrington says (Ob- servations on the Statutes, i^. 28b*, note b, 5th edition, Loudon, 1706}, *' Mr. Tetyt hath copied a treatise upon the office of the High Steward of Eng- land from a manuscript in the Cotton Library (Vespasian, b. vii. fo. 99b), which he says is ^ danyerous to he printed.' '' Pet. MSS. vol. xix. p. 293. 2 The eldest son of Henry II. is said to have actually performed the duties of the office to the French king. 3 For a list of the High Stewards, see Harl. MSS. 2194. 10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. In France, when the office became hereditary in the family of the Counts of Anjou, it became necessary to have another seneschal or dapifer besides the hereditary one ; and this officer, as the representative of the heredi- tary seneschal, still took precedence — as appears from the charters of the French kings — of all the other great officers of state. In England, also, something of the same kind took place, but with this difference : that the various functions of the original grand seneschal, or senescallics An^lice, were divided into two parts, and committed to two distinct officers as his representatives ; the judicial functions being committed to an officer styled the chief justiciary ; the administrative functions to an officer styled, not the seneschallus or dapifer Anglice, but the seneschallus or dapifer regis. This view of the subject would, if it needed it, be corroborated by the high powers of the officer created in later times, pro hdc vice, to preside in the House of Lords at state trials, which officer is not styled " high justiciary," but " lord high steward," that is, seneschallus Anglice. This explanation also removes the difficulty of accounting for the extraordinary powers of the lord high steward's court, which some English lawyers have attempted to get over by assuming that the lord high steward suc- ceeded to some of the powers of the high or chief justiciary, whereas he merely exercises powers which had been dele- gated to the high justiciary.* The chief justiciary, even in those times when a special * Mr. Amos, in a disquisition on the office of Lord High Steward in Phil- lips's State Trials, Appendix, vol. ii., falls into the usual error of supposing that the judicial authority of the Lord High Steward grew out of that which appertained to the chief justiciary at the period when the latter office was abolished. Madox, whom Blackstone and others, both lawyers and historians, follow on this subject, has fallen into strange confusion, although even the documentary evidence contained in his own book furnished the means of ex- tricating himself. 1640.] ENGLISH LAWYERS. 11 education was not considered absolutely necessary to fit a man for the judicial office, was usually a person who had given particular attention to the study of jurisprudence. As the representative of the judicial portion of the grand seneschal's powers, his authority extended over every court m the kingdom, except the court of the lord steward of the king's household. What Blackstone says^ of the court of the marshalsea, that is, the court of the lord steward of the king's household, having never been subject to the jurisdiction of the chief justiciary, and no writ of error lying from it to the King's Bench, confirms what has been said, and merely amounts to this : that the court of the steward was, in fact, originally the court of the lord high steward, and in that court that one of his representatives, who was caUed the lord steward, pre- sided. That the functions of the senescallus, or dapifer regis, as the representative of the administrative portion of the grand seneschal's authority, were political, and not merely, hke those of the present lord steward of the household, confined to matters connected with the king's household, is proved by the constant appearance of his name in the charters and other important public documents of the time. His relative position with regard to the earl marshal appears from the following passage of Britton — ';We ordain also that the Earl of Norfolk (marshal) shall, either by himself or his deputy (being a knight), be atten- dant upon us and our steward, to execute our commands and the attachments and executions of our judgments, and those of our steward throughout the verge of our palace so long as he shall hold his office of marshal." ' The chief justiciary not only presided in the king's court and the exchequer, but was, by virtue of his office, regent » 3 Bl. Com. 76. 2 Britton, fo. 1. b. 12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. of the kingdom during the king's absence ; and, at those times, writs ran in his name and were tested by him.^ In this light the chief justiciary is regarded as having been the greatest subject ui England. One of the most dis- tinguished of those who held this high office was Ranulph de Glanville, who is usually regarded as the author of the " Tradatus de Legibus et Gomuetudlnihus AnglicBj' the oldest book extant on English law.^ The last who held the office and bore the title of cap [talis just Itiarlus A ^iglice was Philip Basset, the third of his family who held that high office — a family of which there were at one time six barons in England ; and the first who held the office of capitalis justiciarlus ad placita coram rege tenenda^ i. 6. chief justice of the King*s Bench, was Eobert de Bruis, appointed in the fifty-second year of Henry III.^ Sir Edward Coke was fond of indulging his vanity by bestowing the same title, " chief justice of England," upon himself whom a court insect such as Buckingham, the minion of James I., could crush ; and on the grand justiciary, the capitalis justitiarius Anglice, the principal representative of the high functionary who had been at once chief administrator, supreme judge, and leader of the armies of England and Normandy. This proceeding on the part of Coke was noticed by Lord Chancellor Ellesmere in his address to Sir Henry Montague, Coke's successor, upon his being sworn chief justice, in these words : — " Instead of containing himself within the words of the writ to be the chief justice, as the king called him ' ad placita coram nobis tenenda/ " * Madox, Hist, of the Exchequer, p. 17. 2 Madox, p. 35. Beames's Glan- ville, Introd. p. 12. The two oflices of Chief Justiciary and Dapifer seem to have been sometimes filled by the same person ; Ranulph de Glanville seems to have been at the same time Chief Justi- ciary and Dapifer. » Dugd. Orig. 38. ft«Miira»a<8Kjf-vi!rT.i«iiiai;ff.^ 1604.] ENGLISH NOBILITY. 13 I will here add an observation which will make apparent the vast power anciently attached to this high office of seneschal, dapifer, or steward. To two of the most illus- trious royal lines of modern Europe, the Carlovingians and Plantagenets, it served as a stepping-stone to the throne. It was for fear of its again doing the same thing to the house of Montfort, earls of Leicester, that the office was first taken into the royal family, and afterwards abohshed in England. The very name of the House of Stuart came from their holding the office of steward of Scotland. The English nobility of that time (as distinguished from the class called gentry), though, as we have seen, tlius new and thus humble in their origin, to use no stronger word, had displayed, instead of humility, all the insolence of a conquering caste in their demeanour towards their fellow-subjects. Many examples might be given of this insolence ; but one which rests on unimpeachable authority will be sufficient. One day, in March, IGOf,^ Sir Her- bert Croft, and some other members of tlie House of Commons, ofiering to enter the House of Lords, a yeoman of His Majesty's guard, keeping one of the doors of the Upper House, repulsed them, and shut the door in their faces with these w^ords, " Goodman burgess, you come not here.''2 The demeanour of the doorkeeper may be assumed to be a measure by no means inaccurate of the estimate formed by those within the Upper House of the power and dignity of those without it. But between March 160^ and February, I64f, a change had come over the scene. " Goodman Burgess " had shown by unmistakeable sio-ns that he could do now what the " Upper House " could do ^ It is necessary to bear in mind that before September, 1/52, the le<^l year began on the 25th of March, and that according to that reckoning James suc- ceeewf.ria.^jjatf.Tr.M..«^..a 16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [ClIAP. I. influence of undivided power, would be apt to vote against the abolition of such an order as had once consisted of those brave and energetic men. But men who looked more to the present than to the past, and whose experience of royalty and nobility was such as theirs, saw no good and much evil in a king such as James or Charles Stuart ; and saw, if no danger, at least no use in a House of Lords, which contained neither great statesmen, great soldiers, nor great lawyers. For it is impossible to obtain any approxi- mation to an adequate conception of the thoughts and feelings by which those men were actuated without bearing in mind that those years of the lives of all of them in which the faculties of observation and reflection are most active were the years, or a part of them, during which the Stuarts had occupied the throne of England ; that during a portion of those years they had seen sitting in the seat of their ancient kings a king who had carried his vices, his misgovernment, and his baseness to such an extent that the ambassadors of foreign powers resident in England repeatedly expressed their astonishment that the English nation submitted to such oppression and disgrace, and did not rise in insurrection and depose their king and hang his favourites, as the English barons had done in the case of Edward II., and Archibald Bell-the-cat in the case of James III. of Scotland, — calling it cowardice in the Eng- lish people, and some of them even going so far as to say that there were " no men in England : " ^ that, when this king died, his son who succeeded him, instead of treating his fixther's favourite as Edward III. had treated the minions of Edward II., actually made him his own favour- ite, and gave up to him the government of England at * The Count de Gondemar, the Spa- then sat on the English throne, pro- nish Amhassador, who used this expres- bably thought that the last man in sion, and to whose hostility Raleigh England perished with Raleigh. was sacrificed by the base cur which 1649.J CAUSES OF THAT ABOLITION. 17 home and the command of her armies in the discreditable wars mto which he drew his country ; that defeat and dishonour followed wherever this minion led, till England had sunk so low that her ambassadors were insulted at foreign courts, her merchant-ships could not sail the sea in safety, and her very coasts were ravaged by the Barbary pirates, who plundered the villages and carried off many of the inhabitants into slavery ; that, therefore, this king^s attempts to govern without parhaments and without laws had not about them anything of the illusion of a great or splendid tyranny, which, however bitter in itself, might have presented the spectacle of a coherent system, ' carHed out with an ability and courage which, were its object good or bad, rendered it great and formidable ; that, in short, aU these men had lived for a considerable portion of their lives under the teasing, exasperating tyranny of a man of whose mental constitution the weakness is described by those who knew him as exceeding all imagination ; ' and that the patience with which they had submitted to all this can hardly be conceived without the evidence of their own words. " My Lords,'' said Sir Henry Martyn, in his speech at the conference with the Lords against the addition made by the Lords to the Petition of Right -" My Lords, we are not ignorant in what language our predecessors were wont to express themselves upon hghter provocation ; and in what style they framed their petitions. No less amends ' Count Tillieres to the King of tended to excuse the smallness of the France August 28 and 31, 1625, in attendanceon the ambassador by In! Raumer's H.story of the 16th and 17th that ''his Excellency shTidd nJtZk centuries, vol n., p. 294.-At Paris, it strange that he had so few F e^h Madnd, and the Hague, the English gentlemen to attend on this service and ambassadoi. were repeatedly insulted. t. accompany him to the Court, Lre When Sir Thomas Edmunds went as gard there were so many kiUed aTthe ambassador to France, the Frenchmen Isle of Rhe."-i^o...Z/'..L J p 210 sent to meet him at St. Denis pre- 8vo, London, 1G78. ^' ' C 18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. could serve their turn than severe commissions to inquire upon the violation of their liberties ; banishment of some, execution of other offenders ; more liberties, new oaths of magistrates, judges, and officers ; with many other provi- sions written in blood. Yet from us there hath been heard no angry words in this Petition ; no man's person is named ; we say no more than what a worm trodden upon would say (if he could speak), * I pray tread upon me no more.' '' ^ These remarkable words in the speech of a Member of the Commons in the Parliament of Charles, which passed the Petition of Right, taken together with the not less remarkable language used by the French ambassadors, prove that the Lords had abdicated their office of being a bulwark of protection to the nation against the encroach- ments of the Crown ; that they were not virtually, as they were not lineally, the representatives of the warlike and high-spirited barons who had set their seals to the Great Charter, but truly, as well as lineally, the representatives of the creatures of the Tudors — the pettifoggers to make whom gentlemen,^ to borrow the words of Raleigh, that enormous mass of national property taken from the Church by Henry YIII., about one-third of the land of England, was diverted from its legitimate use ; and of the still baser minions of the Stuarts. It was not to be expected that, when the trodden worm had changed into the deadly adder, when " goodman burgess " had started up into an armed man, and gone forth conquering and to conquer, such kings and such Houses of Lords should appear either very useful or very worshipful institutions. There were still, however, some members of the House of Commons, mostly constitutional lawyers, such as White- ^ Pari. Hist, vol ii. p. 2 Birch's edition of Raleigh's Works, vol. i. p. 227, 1649.] REASONS IN FAVOUR OF A LIMITED MONARCHY. 1 9 lock and Widdrington, two of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, who argued, and justly, that the question was not what Government might be best in the abstract, but what was most conformable to the habits and feelings of the people, and, therefore, likely to be both stable and practicable ; that monarchy would be more in accordance with the general sentiments and old associations, and that the election of a king from one of the late king's younger sons, being a deviation from the ordinary rules of succes- sion, would put an end to the Divine-right pretensions, and stamp him and his successors as holding their place by Act of Parliament, and not by Divine right ; while the con- tinucance of the Crown in the same family, under certain limitations, strictly and clearly marked out and settled by the national will, would form a safeguard against the ambition of private men. Some even named King Charles's third son, the Duke of Gloucester;* others may have thought of the Prince Elector, the king's nephew, who remained in England till March, and to whom the House paid the arrears of his pension ; ^ and the latter scheme, if adopted and carried out with judgment and prudence, might have been attended with many advantages to the nation, might have saved it from many evils, from much suffering, much oppression, and much disgrace. I only say " might have saved it,'' for, when we consider the tenacity with which not only the Stuarts themselves, but many other persons in England, Scotland, and Ireland, clung to the notion that the islands of Great Britain and Ireland were those Stuarts' private pro- perty, in the disposal of which the inhabitants had no voice whatever ; and that, when a settlement of the crown on a * Wliitelock's Memorials, p. 364, Dec. 23, 1648, folio, London, 1732. Whitelock, pp. 382, 386. c 2 20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. basis somewhat similar to that mentioned above was made forty years after, even then nearly sixty years more elapsed before the Stuarts finally ceased from troubling, it would be rash to pronounce any scheme that could have been adopted perfectly free from objections and difficulties. Nevertheless, there were some matters of detail, in regard to which I think it can be shown conclusively that the ruling men of the Long Parliament committed errors of the most deplorable, if not fatal, nature. I do not mean, however, matters of administration, for their administrative ability was very conspicuous on most occa- sions ; but matters of legislation. At the same time many of their legislative measures were undoubtedly good, and formed the basis of nearly all the law reforms of the next generation. But while the parliaments of Charles the Second adopted what was good in the legislation of the Long Parliament, it was not to be expected that they would shun what was bad, particularly if that which was bad was beneficial to the majority who voted for it, how- ever hurtful, and even fatal, it might be to the English nation, not only of that, but of all succeeding ages. During the first thirty years of the seventeenth century, the English Parliament had the great advantage of being led by two or three of the greatest constitutional lawyers, such as Coke and Selden, that have appeared in England. All through the reign of James I. the question of getting rid of the oppressive part of the feudal tenures very much occupied the attention of Parliament. In the conference in July, 1610, with the Lords, on the subject of the abolition of the Court of Wards, an assurance on the part of the Commons was placed on record, that in raising the revenue to be substituted for the revenue arising from the Court of Wards, and the feudal dues, " nothing shall be levied upon 1649.J ERRORS OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 21 the people's ordinary victual; videlicet, bread, beer, and corn, nor upon their handy labours : '* and on the part of the Lords that *' the manner of levying it should be in such sort as may be secure to his Majesty, and in the most ease- ful and contentful sort to the subject that by both Houses of Parliament can be devised." ^ And in the eighteenth year of the reign of James, a motion was made in Parlia- ment for commuting the feudal payments into a *' compe- tent yearly rent, to be assured to his Majesty, his heirs, and successors.''^ The amount of the proposed rent-charge was equal to nearly one-half of the whole revenue of the kingdom at that time;^ and as the value of the land would increase with the wealth of the kingdom, the pro- portion would continue the same. In order, however, to make this rent-charge correspond in beneficial effect with the feudal tenure, it must have been so constructed as to rise in time of war, and fall in time of peace, thus furnishing the truly and only efficient check which the old English Con- stitution had placed upon unnecessary and expensive wars. Unmindful of or disregarding all these most important considerations, the Long Parliament, by a vote or ordinance passed on the 24th of February, 1646,* had abolished the Court of Wards and Liveries, and all tenures by knight service, without any compensation or equivalent whatever to the State. This ordinance seems, however, not to have been acted upon at the time. The dues of wardship, and all the other feudal dues, with the exception of purveyance, continued to be rigorously executed till 1656, when one of Cromwell's Parliaments passed an Act "for the further establishing and confirming" the ordinance above men- 1 Journals of the House of Lords, A Inst. 202, 203. 23rd July, 1610. 3 Sinclair, Hist. Reven,, vol. i. pp. 2 To this motion Coke has affixed 233, 244. the stamp of his approbation. See * Pari. Hist., vol. iu. p. 440. 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. tioned. This Act was in substance re-enacted by a majority of 2 (the number being 149 against, and 151 for it) in the convention parliament in 1660, and the excise, in direct contravention of the assurance of the Commons stated above, and placed on record on the Lords' Journals, was substituted as an equivalent for the revenue arising from the Court of Wards. After a debate, in which one member said that if this bill was carried, every man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, must pay excise to excuse the Court of Wards, which would be a greater grievance upon all, than the Court of Wards was to a few ; and another, one of the most learned of English lawyers, spoke strongly against the gross injustice of making those who had no lands pay an equivalent for the rent-charge, which was the condition on which the land of England had originally been granted to be held as private property.^ As the House of Commons, or the body which called itself the House of Commons, was now the sole governino* power in England, it would be desirable to ascertain the exact number of members composing that assembly at this time. But that, I apprehend, is impossible, for the follow- ing reason. Immediately after the king's execution certain of the secluded members were permitted, on certain con- ditions, to resume their seats in the House. But while the journals contain the entries of the orders for the re-ad- mission of six of those secluded members, namely, of Colonel Bingham, Mr. Edward Ashe, and Mr. Armyne, on the 2nd of February ; of Mr. Gould, and Mr. John Ashe, on the 3rd of February ; and of Sir William Masham, on the 8th of February ; there is ground for believing that at the same time several other members were re-admitted, and took their seats. For immediately before the entries of * Commons' Journals, Nov. 21, 1660. Pari. Hist., vol. iv. pp. 148, 149. 1649.J NUMBER OF MEMBERS AFTER 1648. 23 the orders for the readmission of Colonel and Mr. Edward Ashe, there are two entries erased, and in the margin is written "Obliterated by order of Feb. 22, 1659." And between the entries of the order for the readmission of Mr. Edward Ashe and of that for the readmission of Mr. Armyne, there are several entries erased.* Again, immediately before the order for the admission of Mr. Gould, there are three entries erased, and in the margin is written " Nulled, by order of Feb. 22, 1659;" and imme- diately after the order for the admission of Mr. John Ashe, there is also an entry erased.^ There are, moreover, in other places, several entries erased, and the words written in the margin "Nulled, by order of Feb. 22, 1659.''' But though, for this reason, the number of members cannot be exactly ascertained, a very close approximation to it may be obtained in this way. When there was a contest for power and place, the number of members present, which, upon other occasions when the business of the nation only was to be done, very seldom exceeded 50, and very often fell below 40, amounted to more than 100, the highest number being 122. This contest for power and place was the greatest when the annual elections of a new Council of State took place. Thus, at the election of a new Council of State in February, 16|^§, there was a House of 98* members; at the same election in 165^ there was a House of 121 members;^ in 165^, there was a House of 120;^ in 165|-, there was a House of 122.^ We may therefore conclude that 3 22 was the ^ Commons' Journals, Die Veneris, 2 Feb., 1G4|. ^ Commons' Journals, Die Sabbati, 3 Feb., 164§. 3 Commons' Journals, Die Lunse, 5 Feb., 164« ; Die Jovis, 8 Feb, 164|. * Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 20° Februarii, IBig. ^ Commons' Journals, 7 Feb., 165f. ^ Commons' Journals, 24 Nov., 1651. 7 Commons' Journals, 24 Nov., 1652. 24 HISTORY OF ENGLAKD. [Chap. I. greatest number the House could assemble ; and that the ordinary business of the government was carried on by a number not exceeding 50 on an average, though often falling below 50. It is evident that a government con- sisting of this number of men, who, as we shall see, shrunk from any appeal to the general sense of the nation, and retained their power by means of an army, had about the same title to call itself the commonwealth of England, that the three celebrated tailors of Tooley Street had to style themselves the people of England. On the 7th of February, the House " ordered that the Committee of Safety, and the Committee at Derby House, and the powers to them and either of them given by any order or ordinance of Parliament, be absolutely dissolved and Uken away."' On the same day it was ordered, « that there be a Council of State erected to act and proceed according to such instructions as shall be given to this House." 2 At the same time, Mr. Lisle, Mr. Holland, Mr. Scott, Colonel Ludlow, and Mr. Eobinson, were ap- pointed to present to the House instructions to be given to the Council of State; and likewise the names of such persons as they conceived fit to be of the Council of State, not exceeding the number of 40 ; and power was given to them to send for papers and writings from Derby House, or elsewhere. On the 8th of February Sir Thomas Widdrington and Mr. Whitelock, two of the commissioners for the Great Seal, brought the Great Seal into the House, and delivered it into the hands of the Speaker, the House then sitting. The House then ordered the Great Seal to be broken ; and a workman was brought into the House with his tools. * Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 7° Februarii, 164^. * Ibid. 1649.] CALL THE GOVERNMENT A COMMONWEALTH. 25 who, in the face of the House, upon the floor, broke the seal in pieces. The House then ordered the several pieces of the said seal thus broken and the purse to be delivered to Sir Thomas Widdrington and Mr. Whitelock, to be disposed of at their pleasure.^ After this, the House passed an Act for establishing the new Great Seal to be the Great Seal of England; and Whitelock, Lisle, and Keeble were ap- pointed Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal.^ The Commons also published, on the 21st of March, a long elaborate declaration, in English, Latin, French, and Dutch, stating their reasons for establishing what they called a republic or commonwealth.^ But names have not the power of changing the nature of things. Nevertheless, the bold and able men who then ruled England have so far succeeded in getting their names accepted for realities that histories have actually been written of their doings under the title of histories of the commonwealth of England, meaning of the republic of England ; for commonwealth was used formerly to express the established form of government, and is thus used by Sir Thomas Smith,* one of the principal secretaries of state to King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, and by Queen Elizabeth herself in her speeches to her parliaments. However, if these men imagined that by abolishing the king and House of Lords, and constituting themselves the sole governing power in England, they thereby established that form of government which the Greeks called a democracy, and the Romans a republic, they committed a great error. Whether, if they had been so minded, they could have established a republic, is, at least, very doubtful ; but they never tried. They ' Commons' Journals, Die Jovis, 8 Feb., 164|. Whitelock, p. 378. 2 Ibid. 3 Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1292-1304. * The English Commonwealth, in three books, first published in 1584. 26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. perhaps supposed that if, in accordance with the requisi- tions of the writing intituled "An Agreement of the People of England and the places therewith incorporated," * being, in fact, a draft of a parliamentary reform bill drawn up chiefly by Ireton, they had dissolved themselves on the last day of April, 1649, to make room for the election of a new parliament, and that if every reasonable degree of freedom of election had been permitted, all that they had done would have been undone at once, and they them- selves hanged for doing it. But this could not have happened while the victorious army, from the officers of which proceeded the petition accompanying " The Agree- ment of the People," existed. It might be said, indeed, that elections made under the protection of this army could not be reckoned free elections. At the same time, there is, undoubtedly, a great show of fairness in the proposal to tender the agreement to the people throughout the whole country, to be subscribed by those who should approve of it, as petitions of a voluntary nature are ; and that it may be carried into effect if, upon the amount of subscriptions, to be returned by commissioners to be appointed for that purpose in April next, there should appear a general reception of it among the people, or the well-affected of them. Now, at least in the neglect of this fair and reasonable proposal, the treatment of this docu- ment by the Parliament appears not quite honest ; and if it be said, in defence of the Parliament, that not only the principle of policy, but the still more powerful instinct of self-preservation dictated imperatively the course they pur- sued, it may be answered that they would have taken a ^ Pari. Hist., vol. iii. pp. 1267- the long continuance of the same per- 1277. The first article of this " Agree- sons in supreme authority, this present ment,"i8 — "That to prevent the many Parliament end and dissolve upon the inconveniences apparently arising from last day of April, 1649." 1649.] ** AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE." 27 more sound and far-sighted view of their own ultimate advantage by at least giving the above-mentioned plan a trial. They might then have said that they had, at least, attempted to establish a republic. Whitelock has expressed their view of the matter in a very few words, saying, " It was much pressed to set a time for dissolving this Parlia- ment. Most of the House disliked to set a time, as dan- gerous ; but agreed that when the business of the kingdom would permit, that then it should be dissolved. '' ^ It is needless to go through the clauses and enter into the details of Ireton's draft. Some of its leading features may, however, be shortly stated. It proposed that the number of representatives should be 400, to be elected by men above twenty-one years of age, assessed to the rehef of the poor, not servants to, and receiving wages from, any particular person ; and according to a fair and equal pro- portion of numbers throughout England and Wales ; that a Parliament should be chosen once every two years ; that the persons to be chosen shall be men of courage, fearing God, and hating covetousness ; and in case any lawyer shall be chosen into any representative or Council of State, that he shall be incapable of practice as a lawyer during that trust ; and that 150 members at least be always present in each sitting of the representative at the passing of any law or doing of any act whereby the people are to be bound, but that sixty may make a house for debates or resolutions preparatory thereunto.^ It may, I think, be truly said of it that whatever objections this draft may be open to, it bears all the marks of having been framed with perfectly honest intentions. The clause respecting the exclusion of practising lawyers renders Whitelock's appa- * Whitelock's Memorials, p 389, folio, London, 1732. 2 Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1267-1277. 28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. rently candid criticism of this bill of Ireton's sufficiently intelligible. *' The frame of this Agreement of the People/' he says, '' was thought to be, for the most part, made by Commissary-General Ireton, a man full of invention and industry, who had a little knowledge of the law, which led him into the more errors.'' ^ The bill is evidently the work of an able and ingenious man, and contains, amid some of a questionable character, many provisions of the highest practical value. There were undoubtedly at that time certain reforms wanted in the distribution of the representatives of the people in Parliament. For instance, the single county of Cornwall elected forty-four ; while Essex and other counties, each having as great a share in the payment of taxes, sent no more than six or eight each. In some instances, moreover, as in carrying measures with a House of only forty members, there was a clear departure from the fundamental constitution of Parliament. In pro- posing to reform such abuses as these, the framers of the draft did well. And as statesmen-soldiers they occupied the same position, and had acquired the same experience, as * Whitelock's Memorials, p. 356. It is remarkable that Whitelock, in his speech in the House in November, 1649, in favour of lawyers being elected mem- bers of Parliament in answer to the argument of a member who called the lawyers "gownmen, who had not un- dergone the dangers and hardships that martial men had done," said : — *'The ancient Romans were soldiers though gownmen ; nor doth that gown abate either a man's courage or his wisdom, or render him less capable of using a sword when the laws are silent or you command it. You all know this to be true by the great services per- formed by Lieut. -Gen. Jones, Commis- sary Ireton, and many other lawyers ; who, putting off their gowns when you required it, have served you stoutly and manfully as soldiers, and under- gone almost as many and as great dangers and hardships as the gentle- man who so much undervalues all of them."— Par^. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1341. But then it will be observed that the cases of Jones, Ireton, and others did not come under the clause proposed in Ireton' s draft, which only objected to lawyers practising while they were members of Parliament, which Ireton and the others certainly did not do. The clause is the more remarkable as coming from an able man who had re- ceived the education of a lawyer. 1649.] "AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE." 29 that great statesman-soldier, Simon de Montfort, who did so much towards the introduction of the most important discovery ever made in the science and art of govern- ment. It may be a lesson of humility to the pride of phi- losophy to reflect that the principle of representative government, for want of which all the ancient experiments in government were failures, after eluding the search of the greatest philosophers and legislators of antiquity, was dis- covered by a comparatively unlettered but practically saga- cious baron of the dark ages ; and that the Petition of Right, and even Magna Charta itself, with a gi'eat number of other most important constitutional statutes, were but declaratory and in affirmation of that body of laws and customs which had sprung from the healthy mental activity and conscious responsibility of free men managing their own affairs, public and private, and surpassed, in the prac- tical ingenuity of adapting means to ends, the most subtle devices of the gi-eatest philosophers. It is due to Ireton, and those who acted with him in the drawing up of that petition and agreement, to cite their own account of the ends they set before themselves and offered to their fellow-countrymen. The petition which accompanied the draft of a constitution, entitled "An Agreement of the people of England," was couched in terms guardedly respectful and courteous : — '' While your time,'' say the armed petitioners, " hath been taken up in other matters of high and present importance, we have spent much of ours in preparing and perfecting such a Draught of Agreement, and in all things so circumstantiated, as to render it ripe for your speedier consideration, and the kingdom's acceptance and practice if approved, and so we do herewith humbly present it to you. Now, to prevent misunderstanding of our intentions therein, we have but 30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. this to say, that we are far from such a spirit, as positively to impose our private apprehensions upon the judgments of any in the kingdom that have not forfeited their freedom, and much less upon yourselves : neither are we apt in any- wise to insist upon circumstantial things, or aught that is not evidently fundamental to that public interest for which you and we have declared and engaged; but, in this tender of it, we humbly desire : — 1. That, whether it shall be fully approved by you and received by the people, as it now stands or not, it may yet remain upon record before you, a perpetual witness of our real intentions and utmost endeavours for a sound and equal settlement ; and as a tes- timony whereby all men may be assured what we are willing and ready to acquiesce in; and their jealousies satisfied or mouths stopt, who are apt to think or say, we have no bottom. 2. That, with all the expedition which the immediate and pressing great affairs will admit, it may receive your most mature consideration and resolutions upon it ; not that we desire either the whole, or what you shall like in it, should be by your authority imposed as a law upon the kingdom, for so it would lose the intended nature of ' An Agreement of the People ; ' but that, so far as it concurs with your own judgments, it may receive your seal of approbation only. 3. That, according to the method propounded therein, it may be tendered to the people in all parts, to be subscribed by those that are willing, as petitions and other things of a voluntary nature are ; and that, in the meanwhile, the ascertaining of those circumstances which are referred to commissioners in the several counties, may be proceeded upon in a way preparatory to the practice of it : and if, upon the account of subscrip- tions (to be returned by those Commissioners in April next) there appears a general or common reception of it amono-st tJi^iiaiasaSdi 1649.] " AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE. 31 the people, or by the well- affected of them, and such as are not obnoxious for delinquency, it may then take place and effect, according to the tenor or substance of it.'' ^ The deputation, consisting of Lieut. -Gen. Hammond, Col. Okey, and other officers appointed by the general and his council of officers to present the petition, having with- drawn, the Commons ordered the petition but not the agreement to be read ; the reason of which, according to Whitelock, was the great length of it. The Commons then ordered their Speaker to return their thanks to the petitioners ; which he did accordingly.* The persons who now called themselves the Parliament of England, and who owed not only all their present power and importance, but their very existence, not to any merit of their own, or to anything they had done, but solely to the great deeds of the men who had drawn up and pre- sented this petition and agreement to their consideration, do not appear to have taken any further notice of the " Agreement of the People,'' which had been prepared with so much pains, and so respectfully presented to them. Instead of putting an end to their sitting on or before the last day of April, 1 6 4; 9, in the " Agreement " proposed, or taking any steps towards obtaining the opinion of the nation on the subject, they continued to sit till April 20, 1653, when Cromwell turned them out by force. I think it may be concluded from all this, that what- ever they might say of the dishonesty of Cromwell's pro- ceedings their own conduct was at least questionable : we might almost say not that of honest men, were there not other parts of their proceedings that bear strongly the marks of honest intentions. If, however, the turning them * Pari, Hist., vol. iii. pp. 1265, 1266, 1267. 2 Pari. Hist., vol. iii. p. 1277. 32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. out by force was a necessary step towards the establish- ment of a really constitutional government, the best thing under the circumstances for the nation at that time would have been for Fairfax and Ireton to have turned them out, when they found by their treatment of the " Agreement of the People,'' that they were not inclined to act an honest part. But Fairfax and Ireton were men of the strictest and most punctilious honour. It was from this ParHament, at least from a parliament of which they still considered this residue as the representative, that they had received their commissions, and they knew that when the generals of an army seek to corrupt their soldiers and to win their favour in order to use them against those to whom they have sworn allegiance, they become degraded to the condition of robbers or pirates. The difference between them and Cromwell was the difference between the Koman generals while Koman generals were men of honour, and the Roman generals when Rome had become thoroughly corrupt. The former, as Plutarch observes,^ were men of kingly souls, and moderate in their living, and satisfied with a small fixed expenditure, and they thought it baser to attempt to win the soldiers' favour than to fear their enemies. But the generals in the time of Sulla acted the dema- gogue, while they were in command, for their own aggran- dizement and their country's ruin ; and by purchasing the services of the soldiers by the money they distributed among them, they made the Roman State a thing for bargain and sale, and themselves the slaves of the vilest wretches, in order that they might domineer over honest men. This character would not apply to the English army » Life of Sulla, c. 12. 1649.J FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 33 under Fairfax, but we shall see as we proceed how Fairfax's successor changed the character of that army by weeding out the citizen element and substituting for it men who fought not for a principle, civil or religious, but simply for pay. As this remnant of the Long Parliament thus declined even to take the sense of the part of the English people who were well-affected to themselves as to the form and nature of their government, the government of England at the time cannot, according to any intelligible meaning attached to that word, be called a republic, democracy, or commonwealth, in the sense in which that last word was used by them. What form of government wa^ it then ? It is easier to say what it was not, than what it was. It was not a monarchy, and it was not a democracy : neither was it an oligarchy, nor an aristocracy according to Aristotle's definition of those forms of government. But as it held its power not at all from or at the will of the nation, but from and at the will of a victorious army, composed indeed of citizen soldiers and not of mere merce- naries, it may be described as a close, able, and well- obeyed military oligarchy, or rather aristocracy, which by the very fact of caUing itself a commonwealth recognized popular rights and wants, and kept in view great national objects to such an extent as was consistent with its own very critical and difiicult position, and which might perhaps, by dexterous management and undeviating inte- grity and single-mindedness in its members, have developed itself ultimately into an actual commonwealth or republic. But the conditions necessary for such a result are so rarely found among mankind that the chances of its ultimate failure, either from external or internal enemies, were greater than the chances of its ultimate success. Besides, 34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. those wlio now were at the head of affairs in England had already taken a step which, although some of them mio-ht have thought it conducive to their safety, was one ultimately leading to the destruction not only of their republic but of themselves. If there ever existed a chance for those who really wished to establish a republic, they threw that chance away when they determined on the kings execution. As Charles could not be amenable to the English law of treason, his execution was not only a most unjust, but a most impolitic act on the part of the republican party. There was a time when they might perhaps really have established a republic, and a time when, I am inclined to think, even Cromwell would have co- operated heartily in the work. It was, I think, with a view to defeat the views of the more violent fanatics in the army with regard to bringing Charles to a violent death, that Cromwell brought about the king's escape from Hampton Court. I think that he meant that Charles should make his escape to France. Perhaps Cromwell did not know all the difficulties in the way of that. However the plan failed, and then CromwelFs own safety might compel him to go along with the army fanatics. But probably even Cromwell, with all his sagacity and foresight, had not calculated all the wonder- flil effects of the kings trial and execution — of the public spectacle of a king, the representative of a long line of kings, first patiently submitting to the in- terruptions and to the sentence of his judges, and then kneehng at the block like a comraon malefactor, and dying quietly and bravely. Charles thus obtained by his death a posthumous reputation, which his life could never have obtained for him ; for the whole course of I 1649.] NOT A REPUBLIC. 35 I that hfe had exhibited him as a man of a soft head, and a hard but not a brave heart, forming a marked contrast to the hard head and soft yet brave heart, which, " de- spite some passing clouds of crime," formed the character of Cromwell. If Charles had escaped to France, and had succeeded in making an attempt to recover his power, and to execute his purpose of doing for England what his wife's brother had done for France by the help of a French army, the parliamentary army of England might have estabhshed Cromwell's family firmly on the throne, or set up a republican government, which would have had at least some chance of success. But the day of that execution in front of Whitehall, which the republican party hailed as the commencement of their beloved republic, was instead of that the total destruction of any chance that had existed for the establishment of a real republic. Henceforth the character of Charles assumed a new aspect, shaped and coloured from his death, and not from his life. It appears that Ireton's draft embodying his honest, able, and, as far as we have now the means of forming a judgment, practicable scheme for reforming and settling the representative system and government of England, not only met with no acceptance, but exposed its author to the ill-will and hostility of this remnant of the Long Parliament, which styled itself the parliament of the Commonwealth of England. This hostility was signally manifested in the debate on the election of members of the Council of State, when the name of Ireton was rejected. Besides the clause excluding practising lawyers from being eleceed as members of Parliament, there were other expressions in the " Agree- D 2 N 36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. ment/' of which the consciences of many members would feel the force and justice, and which on that very account would be the more disagreeable ; " and we desire and recommend it to all men, that, in all times, the persons to be chosen for this great trust may be men of courage, fearing God, and hating covetousness." On the 13 th of February, Mr. Scott reported from the committee, appointed to nominate a Council of State, the instructions for the Council of State, fourteen in number, which were read and assented to.^ Whitelock has stated concisely that their powers were, 1st. To command and settle the militia of England and Ireland. 2nd. To set forth such a navy as they should think fit. 3rd. To appoint and dispose magazines and stores. 4th. To sit and execute the powers given them for a year.^ Mr. Scott also reported a list of the names of persons to be of the Council of State. On the 14th of February, the House took up the debate upon the names of persons to be of the Council of State. They first passed a resolution that some of the officers of the army should be of the Council of State. The names proposed were then adopted without a division, except in the case of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, wlien the yeas were 50, and the noes 25, and in the case of William, Earl of Salisbury, when the yeas were 23, and the noes 20, and in the cases of Ireton and Harrison who were rejected. The two following entries in their own journals throw more light on the character of this assembly than all the pamphlets written against them by their most deadly enemies. "The question being propounded, that Henry Ireton, ^ Commons' Journals, Die Martis, ^ Whitelock's Memorials, p. 381, 13 Feb., 164|. foUo, London, 1732. 1649.] COUNCIL OF STATE. 37 Esquire, be one of the Council of State ; it passed with the negative. The question being propounded, that Colonel Harrison be one of the Council of State ; it passed w^ith the negative.'' ^ The House then proceeded to nominate the following lords and gentlemen as the persons who were to constitute the Council of State ; Basil, Earl of Denbigh, Edmund, Earl of Mulgrave, Philip, Earl of Pembroke, William, Earl of Salisbury, William, Lord Grey of Werke, Henry RoUe, lord chief justice of the upper bench, Oliver St. John, lord chief justice of the common bench, John Wylde, lord chief baron of the exchequer, John Bradshaw, Serjeant at law, Thomas, Lord Fairfax, Thomas, Lord Grey of Groby, Oliver Cromwell, Philip Skippon, Henry Martin, Isaac Pennington, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Rowland Wilson, Anthony Stapeley, Sir William Masham, William Heveningham, Bulstrode Whitelock, Sir Arthur Haselricr, Sir James Harrington, Robert Wallop, John Hutchinson, Sir Henry Vane, Jun., Dennis Bond, Philip, Lord Lisle, Alexander Popham, Sir John Danvers, Sir William Armyne, Valentine Wauton, Sir Henry Mildraay, William Purefoy, Sir William Constable, John Jones, John Lisle, Edmund Ludlow, Thomas Scott. It had been before ordered that the number of persons who were to compose the Council of State should not exceed 40. On the 15th of February, it was ordered that the persons to be of the Council of State shall not exceed the number of 41. It was then resolved that Cornelius Holland, Esquire, be one of the Council of State ; and that Luke Robinson, Esquire, be one of the Council of State. These two added to those before 1 Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 14 Feb., 1641 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. chosen made up the number of 41. It was then re- solved *' that the number of nine of those persons, who are named to be of the Council of State, and not under, shall constitute the said Council of State ''^ The question being propounded '*that there shall be a Lord President of the Council of State, it passed in the negative by 22 against 16.^ The Council of State accordingly for some weeks appointed a president at each meeting, who signed warrants and other papers in this form : "signed in the name and by order of the Council of State, appointed by authority of Parhament/' For instance, on the 22nd of February, certain warrants are signed in this form with the name of Oliver Cromwell, "preses pro tempore.''^ But on the 10th of March, the Council made an order *' that Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, shall be the president of this Council,'' and a further order, " that when any nine of the Council shall meet in the place of the Council, though the president be not there, yet they will act as a Council."* On the l7th of February, the House made an order for the Council of State to sit, and the members that desired it to have lodgings in Whitehall.^ On the same day, the Act, constituting the Council of State, the title of which was^ " An Act of this present Parliament for constituting a Council of State for the commonwealth of England," was read and agreed to. At the same time it was ordered that the Council of State do prepare two seals, a greater and a less, for the use of the Council, each of » Commons Journals, Die Jovis, 15 ^ Order Book of the Council of Februarii, 164|. State, 22 Feb., 164|. MS. State Paper ' Commons Journals, Die Jovis, 15 Office. Februarii, 164|. Here, though the * Jbid., 10 March. MS. State Paper question was important, the number Office, who voted was only thirty- eight. ^ Whitelock's Memorials, p. 382. 1649.] COUNCIL OF STATE. 39 them to have for impression the arms of England and Ireland ; the impression to be " the seal of the Council of State, appointed by the Parliament of England.'' It was also ordered that Whitehall be prepared for the Council of State. ^ Walter Frost, who had before been secretary to the committee of Derby House, was appointed secretary to the Council of State,^ and his appointment, like that of the members of the Council, was for one year. For we find him re-elected formally for another year, at the next election of the Council of State.^ There is preserved in the State Paper Office a vast num- ber of volumes of original papers relating to the period of English history called in the State Paper Office classifi- cation the Interregnum. Among others are those volumes which contain the original minutes of all the proceedings of the Council of State, as long as the Government called the Commonwealth lasted, forming a historical document of such value that I doubt whether one of equal value and importance could be found in the archives of any nation that ever existed. It is fortunate that Hugh Peters, who proposed the burning of all the old records of England,* did not lay his hands on these minutes. Of most of the volumes of minutes there are, besides the original drafts, fair copies in handwriting of the same period ; for the Council of State have shown by various minutes that they were very far from being of the opinion of Hugh Peters, mentioned above, and have, on the contrary, evinced a most anxious care for the preservation in good order and ^ Commons' Journals, Die Sabbati, 17 Februarii, 164|. 2 Commons* Journals, 15 Feb. 164g. 3 Commons' Journals, 13 Feb. 16^§. * Good Work for a Good Magistrate, 1651, p. 96, cited by Prynne in the Introduction to the first volume of his Parliamentary Writs. I s -5 40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. 1649.] COUNCIL OF STATE. 41 condifcion of all the papers that contained a record of their proceedings. In an order of 12th October, 1649, they direct " that it be referred to the Committee for Whitehall to take care that the Paper Office may be put into good repair, that the papers may not suffer, and that they take care to provide some other convenient room or rooms, wherein some other papers may be disposed which are to be put into order." And it appears from another order that we are partly indebted for the good condifcion in which those valuable papers have come to our hands, to the care of John Milton, the secretary for foreign tongues to the Council of State. I think the Council of State are en- titled to the benefit of whatever evidence this anxious care for the preservation of the exact minutes of their pro- ceedings may be considered to afford of the honesty of their intentions. The first meeting of the Council of State took place at Derby House, which was situated in Cannon Eow, between the river and the present Parliament Street, which did not then exist ; King Street serving the purpose of a thorough- fare between Whitehall and Westminster Abbey and Hall. I transcribe the minutes of the first meeting which, it will be seen, was a short one. " Derby House, Die Saturni, 17 Februarii, 164f. the Council of State, present — At Lt.-Gen. Cromwell. Sir John Danvers. Lord Grey of Groby. Col. Martyn. Col. Wanton. Mr. Kobinson. Mr. Stapeley. Sir Wm. Constable. Sir Wm. Masham. Col. Purefoy. Col. Ludlow. Mr. Scott. Mr. Holland. Mr. Heveningham. ,« " Ordered 1. "That this Council do meet on Monday morn- ing next, by the hour of nine, at Derby House. 2. " That the several lords and gentlemen, nominated by the Act of Parliament to be of the Council, be desired to meet at Derby House on Monday morning, by nine of the clock." ^ On the 13 th of February, when Mr. Scott had brought up from the Committee the instructions for the Council of State, he had also reported the form of an obligation or engagement to be entered into by such persons as should be of the Council of State. This engagement was read and assented to ; and a resolution was passed, *' That this en- gagement shall be signed and subscribed by every person appointed to be of the Council of State, before he sit therein."^ But this engagement gave rise to a difficulty; for although, at the meeting of the Council on Saturday evening, 1 3 out of the J 4 members present subscribed, and at the meeting on Monday morning six more subscribed, making the whole number who subscribed 19, one of the first entries on the minutes at the meeting on Monday, the J 9th of February, consists of the names of the members who declined to subscribe the engagement. ^ And it is particularly worthy of note that these amounted to more than half of the whole Council. The answer of the Earl of Denbigh for not subscribing, appears to turn chiefly on an objection to the retrospective effect of the engagement, which would make those sub- scribing it express approbation of all that had been done, of the death of the King, and the force put upon the Parlia- ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 17th Feb. 164|. MS. State Paper Office. •^ Commons' Journals, Die Martis, 13th Februarii, 164|. 3 Order Book of the State, 19 Feb. 164|. Paper Office. Council of MS. State L'«ttftjStailf>CRI6ilM«V!B>j-.BaV«^ 42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. ment. And in substance, though not in words, the Earl of Denbigh's true reason was probably much the same as Whitelock's, that he did not approve of all that had been done, and particularly « excepts the court of justice.'' ^ But they were both willing to accept the present Government, without a King or House of Lords, as a Government de facto. To meet this difficulty, the original engagement, which a majority of the members of the Council of State refused to subscribe was altered; and on the 11th of October, 1649, a resolution was made by the House, "That every member that now doth or shall at any time hereafter sit in this House, shall subscribe his name to this engagement, viz., " I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the commonwealth of England, as the same is now established, without a King or House of Lords " : and that subscription shall begin to-morrow morning : and that every person that shall be chosen to sit in Parliament shall subscribe the same engagement, before he be admitted to sit in the House." ^ On the 23rd of February, a resolution of the House was passed, " That this House do begin to sit on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only in every week : and that the House be adjourned and do not sit on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in every week."^ But this resolution does not seem to have been strictly acted on, at least for some time. It was further ordered "that the several committees of the members, now sitting in this House, do and be enjoined to sit, notwithstanding the said adjournment, upon the days when the House is adjourned. "* * Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lnnse, 19 Feb. 164|. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Commons' Journals, Die Jovis, 11° Octobris, 1649. ^ Commons' Journals, Die Veneris, 23 Feb. 164«. * Ibid. i 1649.] COUNCIL OF STATE. 43 As the Council of State consisted of forty-one members, and the average number of members that met in the House of Commons now was not above fifty, a majority of whom were also members of the Council of State, it might be inferred that the House was now little else than an instrument, like the French Parliament before the revolu- tion, to register the acts of the Council of State ; and the form of many of the orders of the Council of State would seem to support such an inference.^ But, again, there are other orders of the Council of State w^hich show that the Council did refer matters of importance to the House. The following order, while it shows this, shows also the great care and deliberation with which both the Parliament and the Council performed their work. " That it be reported to the House that, in pursuance of their order of the 9th of March, concerning the modelling of the forces that are to go into Ireland, they have conferred with the lord-general about it, who hath since consulted with his council of war, and returned their opinion that those forces would best be modelled with advantage of the service of the common- wealth if the commander-in-chief for those forces were first named, which this Council, taking into serious consideration and finding it a business of weight, have thought fit to represent the same to the House, to desire them to declare their pleasure concerning the nomination of the commander- in-chief, which being determined, the rest of the work will proceed with more effect and expedition.'' ^ This order was made on the 13th of March. On the 15th the Council ^ The following is an example : — ** That it be reported to the House that there may be an Act passed for the making of saltpetre, the ordinance being out the 25th of this month by which it was made," — Order Book of the Council of State^ 6 March, 164|. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, 13 March, 164«. MS. State Paper Office. 44 HISTOEY OF ENaLAND. [Chap. I. of State, having received the answer of the Parliament, made the following order. "That Lieutenant-General Cromwell shall be the person who shall command in chief the twelve tliousand horse and foot which are to go over into Ireland in pursuance of an order of the Parliament of the 14th day of this instant/'^ In other orders of the Council of State, as well as in the Commons' Journals, the words are " twelve thousand horse, foot, and dragoons ; " words which are used to this day in the annual Mutiny Act.^ It is necessary for any approach to a clear understanding of the military operations of that period, to explain the meaning attached at that time to the term "dragoon/' When the musket, or portable fire-arm, was first introduced in war, it was usual to mount muske- teers on horseback, for the purpose of being speedily con- veyed to different points, and then acting either on horse- back or on foot. In every expedition of any importance, a body of dragoons was alwaj^s considered a necessary adjunct to what were called the " horse.'' Thus, in this expedition to Ireland, to the ^yq or six regiments of horse selected, one regiment of dragoons was added. As it was not essential to the original service of the dragoons that they should be mounted on the best or strongest horses, their horses were of an inferior description to those of the " horse " or '' cavalry." One of their uses at that time was to perform the duty of outposts and detachments. Another was to dismount and line the hedges, or thickets, and do the "rough and ready " work of the attack on a difficult pass, a bridge, or any stronghold that was not strong > Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, 15 March, 164|. MS. State Paper Office. ^ ** Resolved, that out of the forces now in being in England and Wales, there shall be added to the establish- ment twelve thousand horse, foot, and dragoons, to be forthwith sent into Ireland." — Commons' Journals^ Die Martis, 6 Martii, ]64|. 1649.] DIFFERENCE BETWEEN *'H0RSE" AND "DRAGOONS." 45 enough to require a regular and protracted siege with the use of heavy artillery. The dragoons at that time, thouo-h very useful in the way mentioned, were not usually troops of equal military qualities with either the horse or pike- men.^ The arms of the dragoons, both offensive and defensive, were totally different from those of the liorse. The dragoons wore only a buff" coat, with deep skirts, and an open head -piece, with cheeks ; whereas the horse were armed with back, breast, and head- piece, or pot, as it was then called. These are sufficiently proved to have been at that time the defensive arms of the cavalry by the following resolution of the House of Commons, of 12th April, 1649 : — " Eesolved, that such backs, breasts, and pots, as shall be wanting, shall be provided for every trooper that shall be employed in the service (in Ireland) : and these to be transported to such places as the commander-in-chief shall direct."^ And while the troopers' weapons were a good sword,^ " stiff'-cutting and sharp-pointed,'' and pistols, the dragoons' weapon was at this time a fire-arm shorter and lighter than the musket. This shorter piece was at first * It is remarkable that Sir Walter Scott, in Old Mortality, constantly uses the term "dragoon" in a sense which it did not bear at the time of which he writes, applying it to the Scottish Life Guards, who would have considered it an affront to be styled "dragoons." Andyet Claverhouse, in his dispatch written on the evening of the day of the skirmish of Drumclog, to the Earl of Linlithgow, commander- in-chief of Charles II. 's forces in Scot- land, distinguishes the dragoons from his own regiment of horse (the Life Guards) thus: — "I saved the stan- darts, but lost on the place 8 or 10 men, besides wounded; but the dra- goons lost many mor." '■^ Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 12 Aprilis, 1649. 3 On the 4th of July, 1649, a war- rant was issued by the Council of State " to try all swords for the service of Ireland before their delivery into the public stores," — Order Booh of the Council of State, 4th July, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. And on the 5th June, there is an order "that Browne of Manchester make good the 600 musquets that proved unserviceable that were delivered to Colonel Tothill's regiment, or that otherwise a course must be taken against him." — Ibid.f 5 June, 1649. 46 HISTOBY OP ENGLAND. [Chap. I. called " the dragon," from which the French troops of this description had originally received their name. In the warrants in the order book of the Council of State " drao-oon arms'' are specified separately; and "troop saddles with furniture '' are distinguished from "dragoon saddles/' ^ As pistols are usually mentioned by pairs, as thus, " fifty pairs of pistols with holsters," 2 it may be inferred that the Parliament's troopers were each provided with a pair, or, as the phrase now is, a brace of pistols. This force of twelve thousand horse, foot, and dragoons was exclusive of certain regiments of horse and foot, which were dispatched beforehand as fast as they could be got ready to the assistance of the English forces at that time in Ireland, under the command of Colonel Michael Jones, Sir Charles Coote, and Colonel Moncke.^ On the 13th of March, the Council of State also made the following order :—" That Mr. Whitelock, Sir Henry Yane, Lord Lisle, the Earl of Denbigh, Mr. Martyn, Mr. Lisle, or any two of them, be appointed a committee to consider what alliances this Crown hath formerly had with foreign States, and what those States are, and whether it will be fit to continue those alliances, or with how many of the said States, and how far they should be continued, and upon what grounds, and in what manner, applications and addresses shall be made for the said continuance.'"'* It is a remarkable and interesting coincidence that on the same two days on which the orders I have here trans- cribed were made, orders were made by the Council of State respecting another man whose name has also become ^ Order Book of the CouncU of State, Book of the Council of State. ^^2 ^^^' ^^^^' ' ^^^^"^ ^^"^^ ^^ *^^ ^°"^^^1 ^^ State, 3 ;r*^- ^ Meridie, 13th March, 164|. MS. The name is thus spelt in the Order State Paper Office. 1649.] MILTON SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN TONGUES. 47 famous over the world. " That it be referred to the com- mittee for foreign alliances to speak with Mr. Milton to know whether he will be employed as secretary for the foreign tongues and to report to the Council." * And on the same day on which Oliver Cromwell was appointed commander-in-chief of the army destined for Ireland, John Milton, was appointed secretary for foreign tongues to the Council of State. For on the 1 5th of March, at their morn- ing meeting, the Council made the following order : — " That Mr. John Milton be employed as secretary for foreign tongues to this Council, and that he have the same salary which Mr. Werkherlyn formerly had for the said service." ^ It appears from the order book that Milton's salary as secretary for foreign tongues to the Council of State was i?300 a-year.' On the 5th of February Whitelock says that letters from Scotland mentioned that " the Parliament and priests there were at variance ; that the latter brought all to the stool of repentance that were in the last invasion of England, yet they are now as much as ever enemies to the proceedings of the House and of the High Court of Justice ; that they talk big of raising an army, in revenge of the king's blood, and all will join unanimously against the sectaries of England, and ground themselves upon breach of the cove- nant."* On the 2nd of February divers members of the Parlia- ment, of the army, of the city, and private gentlemen, in all to the number of sixty, were by Act of Parliament * Order Book of the Council of State, k Meridie, 13th March, 164|. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, 15th March, 164g. The latter words of the order have reference to the "Committee of both Kingdoms," of which the Council of State was in some sense a continuation. ' Milton's salary, when he had an assistant, was £200 a-year. * Whitelock's Memorials, p. 377, folio, London, 1732. 48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. 1G49.] THE NAVY. made a High Court of Justice for trial of Duke Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and others.^ On the 6th of March, the president of the High Court of Justice, Bradshaw, " in his scarlet robes, spoke many hours in answer to the pleas of the prisoners, the Duke of Hamilton, the Earls of Holland, and Norwich (Goring), Lord Capel, and Sir John Owen.'' ^ Hamilton had escaped from prison, but was again taken and arraigned as Earl of Cambridge. He demurred to the jurisdiction of an English Court, as being a native of Scotland, arguing that the title of Earl of Cambridcre did o not constitute him a subject of England. But it was held that as he had sat as an English peer in the House of Lords, and claimed and exercised all the privileges of a peer of England, he had necessarily subjected himself to English jurisdiction ; and his plea was overruled. Sentence was given against them all, " that their heads should be severed from their bodies, yet with relation to the mercy of Parlia- ment.'' 3 The Parliament by vote reprieved Lord Goring and Sir John Owen ; but Duke Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord Capel, were beheaded. The executioner struck off each of their heads at one blow. The Speaker's single vote saved the life of Lord Goring, and he said he did it because he had formerly received some civilities from Lord Goring.* The House being also equally divided in the case of the Earl of Holland, the Speaker's vote might have saved him : but, as the same reason for voting in his favour did not exist, the vote was given against him. * Whitelock's Memorials, p. folio, London, 1732. 2 Wbitelock, p. 386. 377, « Whitelock, p. 386. * Whitelock, pp. 386, 387. I i 49 I have nieDtioned that one of the powers and instruc- tions of the Council of State was to set forth such a navy as they should tliiuk fit. In accordance with this instruc- tion they appear to have applied themselves with inde- fatigable diligence to the affairs of the navy. That their labours in this matter were not fruitless their naval vic- tories sufficiently prove. As such victories are, however, immediately due to the valour of the men by whom the ships are manned and fought and the skill of their com- manders, it is often difficult to determine what precise portion of the result belongs to those who selected and sent forth the conquerors. Now, in this ca.se the order books preserved in the State Paper Office show with the most minute detail with what unwearied diligence, and with what consummate ability, the Council "of State executed the charge committed to them, of setting forth an efficient navy. With regard to the amount of time which the Council of State devoted to their business, their order book shows that they usually met at eight o' clock in the morning, sometimes at seven,' and again in the afternoon at three. On the third day on which the Council of State met, namely, the 20th of February, an order was made "that it be reported to the House as the opinion of the Council that the Ordinance of Parliament constituting the Earl of Warwick Lord High Admiral be repealed." « 'It is necessary to bear in mind tLe dotli agree with the Couneil of State hstmcfaon between the Committee of a., to the repeal of the ordinance con- the Navy and the Commissioners of the stituting the Earl of Warwick Lo.-d y J, " ""■" **"* '"'"■<='"" H'S"" ^''''"'•■>' ;" ••»■"• at the same ruhng body, consisting of members of time it was ordered " that the Council »tl oT- ' , "r ' *"' '""" "^'"^ "' '*''*« ^'-" >"'™ -d «-rcise all paid oftcais, subordinate to the former. such power and authority as any Lord 20;h Feb m. '';*'^""f' °' ''*' ^'"»™' "' Commissioned of the Ad- Office n f> '• !• ^''*' ^^P" •"'"'''y •'"^ '■•■'<» "' ""«" to have had Office On the same day it was re- and exercised. "-Co,«mo»»' Journah solved by the House " that the House Die Martis, 20th Feb. leTg. ' E 50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. On the 21st of February it was resolved by the House that it be referred to the Council of State to consider of and report to the Parliament some reasonable increase of the salaries to officers in the fleet whereby they may be enabled to maintain themselves without abuse to the State in wilful embezzlement of the stores or goods committed to them. On the 24th of February it was resolved by the House that the commissioners appointed for the command of the fleet shall have the salary of £4< per diem formerly allowed to the general of the fleet, and also the sum of £5 per diem more ; in regard the profits belonging to the place of High Admiral are reserved from them for other uses of the com- monwealth ; both the said sums amounting in total to £9 per diem, to be equally divided amongst them ; and that the secretary and the commissioners appointed for the com- mand of the fleet have the sum of £^50 per annum allowed unto him for his salary. " And this House doth declare that the secretary shall take no fees for any com- missions of such persons as had commissions granted the last summer/' ^ One of the first acts of the Council of State was, as has been seen, to supersede the Earl of Warwick as Lord High Admiral. On the 26th of February, 164f, the Council of State ordered "That the names of the commissioners who are appointed to command at sea shall be ranked in this order, viz. — Colonel Popham, Colonel Blake, and Colonel Ueane.^ On the 24th of March Colonel Wauton reported to the House from the Council of State a table of the rates of the increase of wages of the various officers of the navy. » Commons' Journals, Die Sabbati, 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 24th Feb. 1641. 26th Feb. 164«. MS. State Paper Office. 1649.] THE NAVY. 51 It appears from this table that the difference between a naval captain^s and lieutenant's pay was at that time very great. In this table it is proposed to raise the pay of a captain of a first-rate from 10s. to 15s. per diem and the pay of a lieutenant of a first-rate from 2s. 6d to Ss per diem : and a like proportion prevails through all the rates from a first-rate to a sixth-rate.^ Whatever virtues fasting may possess or produce it will be difficult to prove that it is likely to make men either work or fight better. It would appear that although England might in 1649 be said to have been a Protestant country, for about a century, the fasting prescribed by the Romish ritual had been up to this time kept up in the English navy, at least as regarded serving out short aUow- ances to the men on certain days, and in Lent. On the 20th of March, the Council of State made the following minute, which shows that whatever Vane's notions might be respecting the quantity and quality of food meet for the saints over whom he was to reign a thousand years, he did not imagine that English seamen would fight better on half rations. "That an order be given to the Commissioners of the Navy that the observa- tion of Lent may not for the future be any more kept amongst the mariners in the fleet either at sea or in harbour— as likewise the half-allowance on Friday nights— and that in both the said cases victuals may be allowed unto them as at other times.'' ^ Provision is also made in the Order Book with exact minuteness for furnishing every ship with a sufficient number of hatchets and pistols for the better 164f » Commons' Journals, 24 Martii, Order Book of the Council of State, 20th March, 164|. Office. MS. State Paper E 2 52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. enabling the mariners to board such ships as they shall attempt. The Council of State having used their best judgment in the selection of the commanders of their fleet, wisely ]eave to them fche selection of officers who are to serve under them, as appears from the following minute : " That an order be sent to the Commissioners of the Navy, to enter such officers into the ships as shall be recommended to them by the generals at sea." ^ '' That directions be given to the Commissioners of the Navy to obey such orders as the generals for the command of the fleet at sea shall give them, concerning the particulars herewith sent unto them for the setting out of the fleet to sea appointed for the summer's service.'' ^ The powers entrusted to the com- manders at sea, or the " Commissioners '' as they are sometimes styled, are further shown by such minutes as the following : " Wliereas the commissioners that are to com- mand in chief at sea have informed the Council that the THumph, the George, and the Andrew are appointed to go to sea for the summer's service, it is ordered that the Committee of the Navy be desired to give orders that they may be fitted out with all possible expedition." Their care for the protection of commerce and of person and property generally is shown by many minutes, of which the following are examples: "That a letter be written to Vice-Admirai Moulton to convoy the ships that are going to Newfoundland to fish, — off* beyond Ireland, till they shall be out of the danger of pirates." ^ " That a letter be written to Vice- Admiral Moulton to let him know that a post barque was lately taken by the Irish rebels 1 OrderBookof theConncilof State, ^ Qrder Book of the Council of k Meridie, 26th March, 1649. State, a Meridie, 24th Feb. 164|. MS. 2 Order Book of the Council of State Paper Office. State, 5th March, 164|, t Meridie. 1649.] PRESSING OF SEAMEN. 53 passing between England and Ireland, and to desire him that he would beat up and down upon that sea, so they may be kept in from attempting anything upon those barques." ^ " That a letter be sent to Capt. Moulton, to let him know that the merchants who are owners of the Eye, bound for Dublin, do not conceive the ship Satisfaction to be a suffi- cient convoy for their ship, to desire him therefore that a strong and sufficient convoy be appointed." ^ " That a letter be written to Capt. Moulton to send about into the Irish seas such ships as shall he necessary for the convoying over a regiment of foot, which is to be transported from Chester water into Ireland."^ " Memorandum. — That Mr. Frost is to enquire to whom a letter may be written into Turkey, who may be as an agent there to the Grand Seignior in the behalf of the prisoners at Algiers." * The prisoners at Algiers, however, had to wait for a more eff*ective mission in their behalf than a letter, a mission in the shape of that fleet with Blake for its admiral, which made the name of Enofland " famous and terrible over the world." In the next volume of this history I shall have occasion to enter into some details respecting the energetic measures adopted by the Council of State for the manning of the navy. But I would here take the opportunity of correct- * Order Book of the Council of ** That the petition of the prisoners at State, a Miridie, 24th Feb., 164|. Sallee be recommended to the Com- MS. State Paper Office. mittee of the Navy, and they desired 2 Order Book of the Council of to take into their consideration to State, ^ Meridie, 27th Feb. 164|. give them a relief as speedily as they Present — Lt.-Gen. [Fairfax], Lieut.- may." — Ihid.^ 16th May, 1649. Gen. Cromwell, &c. MS. State Paper "That the petition of the prisoners at Office. Sallee be recommended to the House, 3 Order Book of the Council of and that the House be desired to ap- State, k Meridie, 6th March, 164|. point a collection in such places as MS. State Paper Office. they shall think fit for the redemp- * Order Book of the Council of tion of these poor men from their State, 13th April, 1649. MS. State miserable captivity, and that it be Paper Office. The ravages committed reported by Col. Wanton." — lUd, by the Barbary pirates are further 23rd May, 1649. shown by the following minute : — 54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. ing a grave error, which has been adopted by historians on the authority of an assertion of Roger Coke, that the Long Parliament never pressed either soldiers or seamen in all their wars.^ In pursuance of this error, some modem writers have described the preamble of the 16 Car. I., c. 28, which is nothing more than a recital or declaration of the common law that, " none of his Majesty's subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to go out of his county to serve as a soldier in the wars, except in case of necessity of the sudden coming in of strange enemies into the king- dom, or except they be otherwise bound by the tenure of their lands or possessions " (the Act being '* to raise, levy, and impress soldiers, gunners, and chirurgions "' on the oc- casion of the Irish rebellion), as an Act passed by the Long Parliament against impressment. The above-cited preamble very accurately expresses the state of the case with regard to the pressing of soldiers, when it declares that " none of his Majesty's subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to go out of his county to serve as a soldier," seeing that there could be no question as to the existence of the practice of impressment, " even of soldiers (whatever the common law might be), from very early times," which if it be to be considered as an encroach- ment on the common law, must be admitted to be an encroachment of long continuance. The Honourable Daines Barrington in his " Observations on the More Ancient Statutes," — a work not only of the most profound learning in the laws of England, but so rich in the learning of the laws, the literature, and the philosophy of all nations, ages, and tongues — states, on the authority of the Petyt MSS.^ that, in the 47th year of Henry III., an order issued to » Detection of the Court and State 2 Petyt MSS., vol. ix. p. 157, in the of England, vol. ii. p. 30, 4th edition, library of the Inner Temple. London, 1719. 1649.] PRESSING OF SEAMEN. 5b the sheriff of every county, that, taking to his assistance the Gustos Pads, he should collect out of every township at least four able-bodied men, who were to repair to Lon- don on a particular day/ And, even so late as 1596, Stowe mentions that a thousand men were pressed for the land service, though they were afterwards discharged instead of being sent to France, as intended.^ And the last clause of an ordinance of the 22 nd of Feb. 164|-, intituled " for encouragement to mariners and impresting ^ seamen," shows that the exemption of seamen and water- men from land service was then deemed a privilege : — "And, lastly, for the better encouragement of seamen and * Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 337, 338, 5th edition, London, 1796. 2 Stowe, pp. 709, 769 ; and see Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 5, s. 41. "If one might be allowed," says Barrington, * * to cite Shakespeare on a point of law, it may be supposed that in the time of Queen Elizabeth, shipwrights as well as seamen, were thus forced to serve : — *' Why such impress of seawrights ?" Hamletj Act I. sc. i. If it be said that the scene of this play lies in Denmark, it must be recollected that Shakespeare generally transfers English manners and customs to every part of the globe in which he chooses his characters should act. Sir John Falstaff, in the first part of Henry the Fourth, says, '* I have misused the king's i3rm' damnably," speaking of it as a known practice. In the second part of this play, indeed, when Falstaff brings his recruits before Justice Shal- low, it should seem that there were sometimes temporary laws for raising men, as has been not unusual of late years. Rastel's statutes, however furnish no such instance during the reign of Henry the Fourth."— Ofeser- rations on the Statutes^ pp. 335, 338, notes, 5th edition. 3 "This word," says Barrington, "being derived from the French em- prester, seems to imply a contract on the part of the seaman, rather than his being compelled to serve. The first use that I have happened to meet .with of the term pre^s, as applied to mariners, is in a proclamation of the 29th March, in the fourth year of Philip and Mary, which recites that "divers ship- masters, mariners, and seafaring men, lately prested and reteyned to serve her Majesty, had withdrawn themselves from the said service," &c. — Coll. Procl.t vol. ii. p. 144, Penes Soc. Antiq. The penalty by this proclama- tion is death. By a proclamation of the 15th of May, 1625, the word prested is applied to soldiers in the king's sei-vice ; and by another of the 18th of June, 1626, the expression is ' ' every mariner receiving press money to serve the king." By a pro- clamation, likewise, of the 17th Feb. 1627, pressed seamen are ordered to be billeted in the neighbourhood of Limehouse, Blackwall, &c. — /6/c?., Observations on the Statutes^ p. 334 [m]. 5th edition. 5(j HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. watermen to apply themselves the more willingly to this service, it is further enacted and ordained that all mariners, sailors, and watermen, who have served an apprentice- ship of seven years, shall hereby be exempted and freed from being pressed to serve as soldiers in any land service/' ^ With regard to the power of pressing mariners. Barring- ton observes that, " as it was the intention of the Legisla- tm-e to circumscribe the admiral's jurisdiction by the 5th chapter of the statute 13 Eic. II., the total silence of the preamble wath regard to the warrants for pressing mariners, seems very remarkable, as well as that of the judges in their arguments with the civilians, before James the First in Council/' lie adds, "I do not mean to intimate that the pressing of maiiners is not su])ported by usage and precedents, as far back in our history as records can be found, many of which are referred to in the case of Alexander Broadfoot, who was indicted for murder at the gaol delivery for the city of Bristol in 1743. Mr. Justice Foster, who at that time was Recorder of Bristol, has published a very elaborate argument on this head, and has supported the opinions which he then gave by authorities chiefly from Rymer's most valuable collec- tion." ^ Nathaniel Bacon, in his chapter on the Admiral's Court, says that " the lord admiral hath power not only over the ^ Scobell's Collection, part ii. p. 4 ; and see Commons' Journals, 20th and 22nd Feb. Uq. I give the following minute from the Order Book in illus- tration : — ''That the militia of the hamlets be sent unto to send to the Council the names of such seamen, shipwrights, and chirurgians as plead exemption from bearing and finding of arms, together with what they plead for it." — Order Book of the Council of State, DleLunce, 20 Augusti, 1640. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Observations on the Statutes, p, 335, 5th edition. Barrington says that he has happened to meet with some authorities relative to the power of pressing, which have escaped the learned judge, and adds, in a note, that the most general pressing warrant which he has met with is in Carte's Rolles Gascognes, torn. ii. p. 151. I 1649.] PRESSING OF SEAMEN. 57 seamen sei'ving in the ships of the State, but over all other seamen, to arrest them for the service of the State." * On the other hand Kushworth gives the follow^ing account of the resolution of the House of Commons with reference to the temporary acts ^ of Charles I., for the purpose of manning the fleet. " The House being informed that ships were ready to be put to sea, but that mariners could not be got, it was the same day (May 8,104)1) resolved that a Bill should be drawn to enable the pressing of mariners for a certain time, the House being very tender of bringing the way of pressing into example.''^ As already mentioned, the Long Parliament, after the execution of the king, and the abolition of the House of Lords, passed an ordinance for pressing seamen, on the 22nd of February 164^. This ordinance was continued by subsequent acts or ordinances, which are printed in Scobell's Collection.* And when Cromwell had usurped the power of the Parliament, and an order of his * Historical Discourse of the Uni- foi-mity of the Government of Eng- land, part ii. p. 44, by Nath. Bacon, of Gray's Inn, Esq. The First Part, from the first times till the reign of Edward III., London, 1647; the Second Part or continuation until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, London, 1651. It has been said, on the autho- rity of Lord Chief Justice Yaughan, one of Selden's executors, that "the grounds of this book were laid by that eminent person." A fifth edition of this book was published in 1760. 2 16 Car. L ss. 5, 23, 26. These acts, empowering the Lord Admiral to impress seamen, make no mention of the Is press-money, ordered afterwards by the Council of State, but all of them allow conduct-money, at the rate of Id. per mile, from the place where the man shall be impressed to the ship or place to which he shall be ap- pointed to make his repair, and the like sum from the place of his dis- charge to the place of his abode. ^ Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 261. * Scobell's Collection, part ii. p. 4. The following entries in the Commons' Journals refer to this Act: — "Die Martis, 20 Feb. 164|. Commissary- General Ireton reports some amend- ments to an Act for impressing of sea- men and mariners for the next sum- mer's fleet, which were twice read, and, upon the question, committed." "Die Jovis, 22 Feb. 164|. — An Act for the encouragement of officers and mariners and impressing seamen was this day read the third time, and, upon the question, passed." 58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ohap. I. Council of State had become equivalent to an act of Parliament, I find under date March 15, 1654, in the " Order Book of the Council of State," preserved in the State Paper Office, an order that the " Act for impressing be continued/'^ The same valuable and curious record, while it was the Order Book of the Council of State, and not merely of Oliver CromweU's Council of State, contains various warrants for impressing seamen, as well as commissions for the same purpose to the vice-admirals of the maritime counties of England, particularly at the time wlien the Dutch war presented the most formidable aspect, and the Parliament of England was fighting for its very existence against the greatest naval power at that time in the world. It certainly was then no time for a govern- ment, however devoted it might be to abstract justice, to discuss the question of the legality or illegality of press warrants. Accordingly warrants were issued for im- pressing seamen " that are outward bound as well as inward, so as you do not take out of each ship above the fourth part of the number of seamen in the ship.'' ^ And commissions were issued on the 24th of May, 1652, in the height of the Dutch war, to the vice-admirals of Essex, Norfolk, Sufiblk, Kent, Sussex, Hants, ''to summon before them all the seamen and mariners in their counties, from 15 to 50 years of age, and to acquaint them with the State's emergence of service, and the want of seamen to man a fleet, and withal to press for the service so many able seamen as they can possibly get," with an allowance of one shilling press money, and one penny per > Order Book of the Council of State, May 19, 1652. See also, Dec. 3, 15th March, 1654. MS. State Paper 1652, January 11, 1653. MS. State Office. Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 1649.] LAND FORCES. 59 mile from the place where they shall be impressed to Deptford, in Kent.^ It is to be carefully noted here, that although the ** State's emergence of service " compelled them to have recoui*se to impressment, they nevertheless direct the vice-admirals, to whom the commissions are issued, to make an appeal to the seamen and mariners, as to free men about to fight for their honour, their freedom, and place among the nations. The anxiety of the Parliament, which was manifested in all these wars, to obtain troops of superior quality both as to character and intelligence, is strikingly confirmed and illustrated by the follow^ing order of the Council of State, under date 14th April, 1649 : "That a letter be written to Dr. Hill, Master of Trinity College, in Cambridge, that such students of that society as are wilhng to go to sea in this summer's fleet, may not be prejudiced in their elections to fellowships which are to be made about Michaelmas." ' On the 5 th of March the Council of State ordered " that a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Navy, to make haste out with the fleet appointed for this summer's service, in regard of many advertisements they have received f ^ and on the 20 th of March, " that Sir Henry Vane be desired to report to this Council from the Committee of this Council, appointed for the ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 24th May, 1652. MS. State Paper Office. The assertion that they never pressed men is stiU further disproved by the fact of their seamen sometimes deserting, as appears by such minutes as the following : — "That it be recom- mended to the Committee of the Ad- miralty to take into consideration what punishment may be inflicted upon such seamen as run away from the service of the navy, and that those men appre- hended by some of Col. Berksted's regiment be secured until further order." -Ibid, 30th April, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 14th April, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ' Order Book of the Council of State, 5th March, 164^, a Meridie. 60 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. affiiirs of the navy, in what readiness the fleet is to go out to sea." ' On the 8th of May, the Council ordered "that one thousand pounds out of the tenths of the Admiralty be laid up for making chains and medals, for rewards of officers and mariners, that should do eminent service at sea." ^ While the Council of State thus applied themselves to the affairs of the navy, they by no means neglected the land forces. On the same day on which the last-men- tioned order was made, namely, the 5 th of March, the Council made the following minute : " That it be reported to the House that the Council of State hath taken their order for the 2nd of March into considei-ation concerning the forces of the nation, and they find that there are in beinjr of Horse and foot 44,373 Besides those fit to be presently disbanded . 2,500/' " That it is necessary to have so many kept up for the service of England and Ireland.'' "That of this number 12,000 horse and foot to be sent to Ireland." "That for the maintenance of these forces, viz. the 44,373 there must be the monthly sum of dP8 1,633 per mensem. And for general officers the train and incidencies . . . 18,367 In all . ^100,000 For the relief of the forces already in Ireland .... 20,000 In all . ^120,000 M f> f> i> > Order Book of the Council of State, 2 Order Book of the Council of State 20th March, 16tl|. 8th May, 1649. 1649.] PRESSURE OF TAXATION. 61 " That it be offered to the House for the raising of this money that the c^'eOjOOO per mensem by tax be continued as now it is, for the army of England, and the i?20,000 per mensem for Ireland. " That for the other o£^40,000 per mensem, it be raised out of the revenue of the Crown by sale, lease, or other disposing of it, as it shall seem good to the House ; and by the sale or otherwise disposing of the lands that are now by ordinance of Parliament at the disposing of the Commissioners at the Star Chamber, which lands are now for security for raising of i^50,000 for Ireland. " That there be a course taken by the House to charge the anticipations of the receipts at Goldsmiths' Hall upon some other visible security that the payments there may be made use of for carrying on of the public service." * In accordance with this minute, the Parliament having resolved that ^£^1 20,000 per mensem be provided for six months for maintaining the forces in England and Ireland, to the end free quarter might be taken off; and that, towards raising this sum, a tax of i?9 0,000 per mensem, to bec^in from the 25th of March instant, be levied upon lands and goods, passed an Act for that purpose : and this beino- the first instance of a tax laid upon the subjects of England, by authority of the Commons only, the Speaker was ordered to write a circular letter to the Commissioners appointed in every county for levying the tax.^ Notwith- standing the Speaker's circular this weight of taxation was 1 Order Book of the Council of State, 5th March, 164|, a Meridie. MS. State Paper Office. On the same day is this minute : — " That the House will be pleased to set rules for the Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall to proceed upon for the composition with such delinquents the last year's war." number of MS. as were in There is a volumes in the State Paper Office filled with the proceedings of this committee at Goldsmiths' Hall respecting these compositions in regard to delinquents' estates. 2 Commons' Journals, Die Jovis, 8 Martii, 164|. Pari. Hist., vol. iii. p. 1304. large 62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. found to be very oppressive by the country at large, and the tax was levied with difficulty. Nothing could more strikingly show that, though England had got rid for a time of the ignoble tyranny of the Stuarts, it had to pay somewhat dear for the privilege of calling itself a common- wealth, than the following order of the Council of State of 16th June, 1649 :— " That the lord general be desired to appoint parties of horse to be aiding and assisting with the agents and collectors of the money upon the ordinance of ^^20,000 per mensem for Ireland in the several counties of England and Wales." ' It is no discredit to those clear-headed and strong-willed statesmen, that they were ignorant of a science which had not then dawned upon the world ; but it may be not uninstructive to mark some of the errors they committed from ignorance of the natural laws that regulate trade, and winch no statesman can violate with impunity. Imme- diately after the last-quoted minute, they make the following order : — " That for the more ready sale of such lands as are to be sold for the use of the commonwealth, the inte- rest of money may be brought to six pounds per cent.'' ^ In accordance with this order, it was, on the 12th of March, resolved by the House that the interest of money should be brought down from eight per centum to six per centum from and after the 29th of September next ; and an Act was ordered to be brought in for that purpose.^ The following minute further shows their igno- rance of those natural laws of trade which, in the time of a dearth or scarcity of corn, by raising the price enforce a more economical consumption, and which can only come > Order Book of the Council of State, 16th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 5th March, 164^, a Meridie. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Commons' Journals, Die Lunse, 12 Martii, 164|. 1649.] NEW REGIMENTS FOR IRELAND. 63 into full operation under a complete freedom of the corn- trade — " the only effective preventive of a famine, as it is the best palliative of the inconveniences of a dearth : " ^ " That the Ipswich petition against Robert Green, merchant, for engrossing of corn, be recommended to Mr. Attorney, to prosecute him according to law, and to take information from \Vm. Hanby, attorney for that town, to proceed against the said Green, to the end the poor people may see that care is taken of them in the time of dearth." ^ And on the 5 th of April an Act for abating the price of victuals and corn was read the first and second time, and committed.^ Lieutenant-General Cromwell having been appointed, as has been before mentioned, to the command in chief of the forces destined for Ireland, the Council of State proceeded to hasten as much as possible the dispatch of that important business. Some new regiments were raised about this time for the service of Ireland. The case of one regiment may be selected to show the Council of State's mode of proceed- ing. On the 6th of March there is a minute for the payment of <^400 to Colonel Tothill for a regiment of foot for Ireland now fully ready, near Chester, according to contract with the late committee at Derby House. Colonel Tothill was to receive the rest of his money for the said regiment upon the transporting of them, out of the c£>50,000 for Ireland out of the lands of delinquents. *'The late committee being dissolved, that the House be moved to give power for the disposing of the said money, whereby the contract by which a very good regiment is actually ready for the service of Ireland may be speedily » Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. 2nd May, 1649. MS. State PaperOffice. pp. 398, 399, M'Culloch's edition. 3 Commons' Journals, 5th April, 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 1649. 64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. furnished, and the said regiment transported."' After granting a warrant for the payment to Colonel Tothill of £400, the Council order " that the rest of the money which is to be paid to Colonel Tothill for the transporting of his regiment into Ireland be transmitted to Chester to Mr. Walley for that service." On the 27th of March there is a minute, " That a letter be written to the Governor of Chester to let him know that sixpence per diem is ordered for the payment of Colonel TothUl's regiment, and that money is now in Mr. Walley his hands to defray it ; that, therefore, free quarter is not to be demanded by them : '' and another minute, "That a letter be written to Mr. Walley to desire him to take care that the quarters of Colonel Tothill's regiment may I)e paid from the time of their muster, that the people in the country be not bur- tliened by them more than of necessity, and that he do not pay the money into the hands of the soldiers, but to the people themselves." ^ Now, it is to be observed that sixpence at that time was equivalent to eighteenpence, or, rather, two shillings at present, and the care of the Council of State in this impor- tant matter sufficiently distinguishes them from some of the governments that went before, as well as from some that came after them in this country. It was one of the worst features of the government of Charles I. that he billeted his troops in private houses, and made them live at free quarter. But the sturdy English yeomen were not people to submit quietly to such an outrage. There is in the State Paper Office a letter, dated 1st March, 1628, from Captain John Watts, and other officers of the regin.ent of Sir Thomas Fryer, stationed in the county of Dorset, to Office ' "■ '' ^"f"' ^^*'' ^''^' l«^l- IIS. State Pape^ Office. 1649.] FREE QUARTERS AND BILLETING. 65 Sir Thomas Fryer, in which it is stated that divers officers of his regiment met the Commissioners at Bland ford to complain of their soldiers being turned out of their billets by violence, the billeters alleging that they would not provide any billets, but that the soldiers must shift for themselves. " The soldiers,'' the writers of the letter continue, " are thus enforced either to steal or starve. The Commissioners say they have no order for anything. The gentry contemn the deputy-lieutenants' warrants for billeting and are ill precedents to the commonalty. If some speedy course be not taken, the greatest part of the men will run from their colours/' ^ Such is an example of the difference between the Council of State and some of the preceding Governments. I will now give an example of the difference between that Council and some of the succeeding Governments — an example which is a little startling from its being found so late as the middle of the nineteenth century. When tlie militia was called out during the Crimean war, the practice which, with similar indulgences, cost Charles I, his crown, of billeting soldiers on private houses was not only still kept up in Scotland, but the whole burden of billeting the militia of the two counties of Forfar and Kincardine was thrown upon the town of Montrose alone, thus exempting not only the whole of the inland landed pro- prietors and farmers of those counties, but also the towns of Dundee, Arbroath, Forfar, Brechin, Stonehaven and others. Such were the principles on which the billet- ing-tax was levied that persons who were too poor to be assessed to the poor-rate were subjected to the billeting- tax for the militia of these counties, while other persons with an income of c£*20,000 and even .£40,000 a year » 1628, March 1. MS. State Paper Office. F 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. 1649.] PROPORTION OF MUSKETEERS TO PIKEMEN. 67 were exempt from it. There were even cases in which the poor people on whom soldiers were billeted were com- pelled to give up their only bed to two militiamen and themselves lie on the floor. In a petition from the inhabi- tants of the royal burgh of Montrose to the Secretary for War it is stated that " while non-resident proprietors with incomes of several hundreds a year each, are exempt from billeting, and consequently from the payment into which it is now commuted, a working-man, being a householder, is subjected to the tax ; and assuming his income at ^^40 per annum, at the present rate of billeting soldiers in Montrose, or what it will shortly arrive at, he has upwards of d^ 4 of his hard-earned income taken from him to pro- vide billets for the militia — an exaction to which there is no parallel in Her Majesty's dominions, except in some of the other billeting towns in Scotland. The oppressive nature of the burden may be estimated when it is considered that the householders in Montrose, on whom soldiers are quartered, are, after deducting the present Government allowance, compelled to pay £S5 per week for billet- money, which sum, there is reason to believe, will in a few weeks be raised to £4t5 per week, or at the rate of ^^2340 per annum.'' The orders for arms for the regiment of Col. Tothill show more exactly than appears from any authority I have before met with the proportion which the musketeers at that time bore to the pikemen. It may be convenient to remind the reader that the foot regiments at that time were composed partly of musketeers, partly of pikemen, and that though the musketeers formed a larger proportion of each regiment than the pikemen, the work, in conse- quence of the inefficiency of the muskets, a large proportion of which were matchlocks, not flintlocks, and the want of the bayonet, was mostly done by the pikemen who were the tallest and strongest men ; the pikes from their length, from fifteen to eighteen feet, and weight, requiring men of some strength and height to handle them efficiently.^ I had an impression from all the authorities I had before consulted that the pikemen formed only about a third part of every regiment of foot : but it appears from the two following minutes that the pikemen in a regiment of foot 1000 strong were to the musketeers as 400 to GOO, or as two-fifths to three-fifths; "That GOO musquets now at Liverpool be presently issued out for the arming of the regiment of Col. Tothill.'' '' That IVIr. Webster be sent unto to be here to-morrow in the afl^ernoon to speak with the Council concerning the furnishing of 400 pikes for the arming of Col. Tothill's regiment." ^ What, in addition to the want of the bayonet, rendered the musket a particularly ineflective weapon at that time, was the fact that, the use of wadding for the ball not being understood, the soldier could not shoot effectually with his piece inclined below a horizontal position. Gustavus Adolphus indeed had introduced the use of the cartridge, but it was not adopted generally till near a century after.' That the cartridge was not introduced during this war appears from one of the usual articles of the surrender of places, by which it is stipulated that the soldiers may depart " with their arms and baggage, with di'ums beating and colours flying, matches lighted at both ends, and hall in their mouths, as they usually are wont to march.'* ^ Memoires de Montecuculi, i. 2, 16 ; Grove's Military Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 132, 133. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 13tli March, 164«. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Historical Record of the First Regi- ment of Foot, in Records of the British Army, printed by authority, comi)iled by Richard Cannon, Esq., Adjutant- General's Office, Horse Guards, London, 1847. F 2 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. I. This clearly shows that cartridges were not used, and that the ball was put loose or separately into the gun ; in which case the mouth was found a convenient magazine. And at the time of which we write, about one in sixty-eight was the proportion of flintlocks to matchlocks, as appears from a despatch of Cromwell from Linlithgow, in 1651, in which he states that they have left in store " 2030 muskets, whereof 30 snapliances," or flintlocks.^ Under such circumstances it is manifest that nearly aU the work had to be done by the cavalry and pikemen. 1 Cromwell to the Lord President of the Council of State, 26th July, 1651. CHAPTER II. The Council of State occupied themselves a good deal in regard to what they termed "divers dangerous books printed and published ; " * the multitude and constant suc- cession of which " dangerous books," implied a spirit of dis- content existing of a kind and degree which whether really formidable to their power or not was at least suffi- cient to render them uneasy. They appear to have been as much afraid of what they call " libellous books '' as Archbishop Laud and the High Commission were some ten years before. And not without cause, for though the government of the Council of State was, as compared with the government of Laud and Charles's council — an able, a great, and a formidable tyranny, it was a tyranny still, that would not tolerate opposition, or even criticism ; not merely in regard to its acts but also to its opinions. The Council of State were in this but the representatives of the body to which they owed their existence, the Long Parlia- ment, which from an early period had evinced an abun- dantly intolerant and tyrannical spirit. In a paper in- dorsed by Lord Clarendon " Skippon's Relation of some of the Extravagances of the Parliament," it is related that about the month of August 1646, at Henley-on-Thames a woman having taken notice of the unwonted taxations imposed on her and others by the Parliament, expressed » Order Book of the Council of State, 7th ^lay, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. some dislike thereof yet in civil terms ; wlncli being made known to a committee there, she was by them ordered to have her tongue fastened by a nail to the body of a tree by the highway side on a market day. This w^as accord- ingly done ; and a paper in great letters^ setting forth the heinousness of her offence, was fixed to her back to make her the more notorious.* Another instance of the cruel in- tolerance of the Lonsj Parliament is the case of James Navlor, who was condemned by the Parliament to have his tongue bored as a blasphemer.^ Several membei-s were for passing sentence of death upon him. The Protector interested himself in Naylor's favour. " The conduct of the House of Commons," says Mr. Orme, " was as unconstitu- tional, as its sentence was brutal and unmerited." ^ But there were other cases where the Parliament and Coun- cil may appear to have done no more than their situation im- peratively demanded in imprisoning and bringing to trial the authors of pamphlets which raised up mutiny in their army and threatened their very existence. On the 27th of March J 649 it was resolved by the House " That the printed paper intituled * The Second Part ^ of England's New Chains Discovered, &c.,' doth contain much false scandalous and reproachful matter; and it is highly sedi- tious, and destructive to the present Government, as it is now declared and settled by Parliament, tends to division and mutiny in the army, and the raising of a new war in the Commonwealth, and to hinder the present relief of Ireland, and to the continuing of free quarter." * On the same daj^ the Council of State made the following orders ; 1 Appendix to Clarendon's State * The First Part of England's New Papers, vol. ii. Chains consisted of Lilburne's Objec- ^ See Baxter's Autobiography, part i. tions to the Agreement of the People, pp. 102, 103 ; and Burton's Diary, as put forth by the Council of War. vol. i. ^ Commons' Journals Die Martis 2 Orme s Life of Baxter, p. 91, note. 27 Martii 1649. 1649.] JOHN LILBUUNE COMMITTED TO THE TOWER. 7l " That Sergeant Dendy,'' who was on the same day appointed " Sergeant-at-Arms to this Council," " be appointed to make proclamation of the order of the House this day against the authors of the book called the 'New Chains;' and that he do proclaim it in Cheapside, at the new Exchange, in Southwark, and at the Spittle. That the Lord General be desired to give order that Sergeant Dendy may be fur- nished with a guard drum and trumpets for proclaiming the order of the House against the authors of the book called the ' New Chains.' That a warrant generrJ be issued for the apprehension of all such as have been publishers of the book called the ' New Chains/ And that the posts may that night be searched for the said book, and that Mr. Sero-eant Dendy do make that search." ^ They also, on the same day, issued a warrant for the apprehension of John Lilburne, Mr. Walwyn, Mr. Overton and Thomas Prince, as being " the authors or publishers of a scandalous and seditious book printed intituled ' The Second Part of England's New Chains Discovered.' " ' On the following day the 28th of March the Council made an order " That Mr. Milton be appointed to make some observations upon the complication of interest which is now amongst the several designers against the peace of the Commonwealth : and that it be made ready to be presented with the papers out of Ireland which the House hath ordered to be printed." ^ On the 23th of March the Council appointed a committee to examine Lt.-Col. John Lilburne and the others concerning the matters contained in the declaration of the Parliament of the 27th of March : and also made an 1 Order Book of the Council of State, 27th March, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 27th March, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, 28th March, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. order " That Lt.-Col. John Lilbume be committed prisoner to the Tower upon suspicion of high treason for being the author of a scandalous and seditious book intituled * England's New Chains Discovered.' " ^ In order to have some insight into the character of John Lilbm-ne as well as into that " complication of interest " upon which " Mr. Milton " was appointed by the Council of State to make some observations, it will be necessary to go back for a few years to the time when Cromwell fir^st as a captain of a troop and then as a colonel of a regiment of horse beat up his drums ^ for the ardent and energetic souls lodged in strong and active bodies who had long been groaning under a most grievous spiritual as well as civil tyranny. In the beginning of his career one of his officers was James Berry, who had been a clerk of iron- works, ^ and was an old and dear friend of Eichard Baxter. When Cromwell lay at Cambridge with "that famous troop which he began his array with," Berry and his other officers proposed, says, Baxter, "to make their troop a gathered church, and they all subscribed an invitation to * Order Book of the Council of State, 28th March, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 This was the official phrase of that time — thus : * ' That George Lyon, ensign to Capt. Anthony Stampe have a warrant issued out unto him for the beating up of drums for the gathering recruits for the said captain's company, and that Mr. Walley be ordered to ship such men as the said Lyon shall conduct to the waterside to Derry to the rest of his company." — Order Book of the Council of StcUe^ 6th July, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 3 Some modern writers say that Berry had been a gardener, but Baxter, who had known him well, and in whose house he had lived, says that Berry, at the Restoration, was imprisoned in Scarborough Castle, * ' but being re- leased, he became a gardener, and lived in a safer state than in all his greatness." —-The Life of the Rev. Mr. Richard Baxter, faithfully published from his own original MS., by Matthew Sylvester, folio, London, 1696, part i. p. 58. In another place Baxter says, "James Berry was made Major-General of Wor- cestershire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and North Wales ; the counties in which he had formerly lived as a servant (a clerk of ironworks). His reign was modest and short; but hated and scorned by the gentry that had known his inferiority : so that it had been better for him to have chosen a stranger place."— /6irf., pp. 97, 98. 1649.] PARLIAMENTARY ARMY. 73 me to be their pastor, and sent it to me at Coventry : I sent them a denial." Baxter then says that afterwards meeting Cromwell at Leicester, Cromwell expostulated with him for refusing their proposal ; and adds : " These very men that then invited me to be their pastor were the men that afterwards headed much of the army, and some of them were the forwardest in all our changes ; which made me wish that I had gone among them, however it had been interpreted, for then all the fire was in one spark." * Baxter heard nothing more of Cromwell and his old friend Berry for about two years. After the battle of Naseby he paid a visit to the army of the Parliament and he then found that Cromwell's chief favourites among the officers held opinions both political and religious which greatly shocked him. " What," they said, "were the lords of England but William the Conqueror's colonels ? or the barons but his majors ? or the knights but his captains ? " ^ They most honoured the Separatists, Anabaptists, and Anti- nomians ; but Cromwell and his Council joined themselves to no party, but were for the liberty of all. Baxter says he perceived that those they did commonly and bitterly speak against were the Scots, and with them all Presby- terians but especially the ministers, and also the com- mittees of the several counties. There were, however, some officers who were still orthodox according to Baxter's * Baxter's Autobiography, p. 51. 2 Hobbes says, "The levelling sol- diers, finding that instead of dividing the land at home they were to venture their lives in Ireland, flatly denied to go." — Behemoth, part iv., p. 266, London, 1682. But Baxter was much better informed on this matter than Hobbes ; and we see that, according to Baxter, those who were for dividing the land among them were Cromwell's chief favourites among the oflicers, and not the men upon whom Cromwell fixed the name of Levellers. At the same time, I do not think that Ireton, Lud- low, Blake, Harrison, are to be reckoned in this class. 74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. notion of orthodoxy ; and partly from them, partly from the mouths of the leading sectaries themselves, Baxter in- formed himself of the state of the army. * Baxter now blamed himself for having before rejected the invitation to be chaplain to Cromwell's regiment, and after taking two days to deliberate upon the matter accepted an invitation to be chaplain to Whalley's regiment several troops of which had belonged to Cromweirs old regiment.^ Evanson a captain of Whalley's regiment had prevailed over Baxter's reluctance to leave his studies and friends and quiet at Coventry by telling him that their regiment though the most religious, most valiant, most successful of all the army was in as much danger of falling from orthodoxy as any regiment whatsoever ; and Whalley the colonel, who like Evanson was according to Baxter orthodox in religion but engaged by kindred and interest to Cromwell, invited him to be chaplain to his regiment. The county committee were so angry with Baxter for proposing to leave them to go to the army that he was fain to tell them all the truth of his motives and design, what a case he perceived the army to be in, and that he was resolved to do his best against it. Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to Baxter's judgment, his statements respecting what he saw and heard may be accepted as generally truthful and even where from a slip of memory inaccurate, not intentionally so. It would appear from what followed Baxter's statement of his case to the committee, that Cromwell and his confidants did not wish just at that time, 1645, to make any public parade of the opinions religious and political, which Baxter imputed > Baxter's Autobiography, p. 51. enemy, and he sent three of the gene- '^ Baxter says (p. 54), "Cromwell, ral's regiment to second them, all being at the battle of Langport, bid Whalley of Cromwell's old regiment." eend three of his troops to charge the 1649.] PARLIAMENTARY ARMY. 75 to them. Baxter did not know till afterwards that Colonel William Purefoy, a member of the committee and also a member of Parliament, was a confidant of Cromwell's. Purefoy, as soon as Baxter had spoken what he did of the army, answered him in an imperious manner with the following remarkable words which give a more striking picture than anything I have anywhere else met with of the terms in which Cromwell's oflScers spoke of him and of the terrible promptitude with which he repressed any symptom of insubordination: — "Let me hear no more of that : if Nol Cromwell should hear any soldier speak but such a word, he would cleave his crown. You do them wronof • it is not so." ^ " As soon as I came to the army," continues Baxter, ** Oliver Cromwell coldly bid me welcome, and never spake one word to me more while I was there ; nor even all that time vouchsafed me an opportunity to come to the head- quarters where the councils and meetings of the oflBcers were, so that most of my design was thereby frustrated. And his secretary gave out that there was a reformer come to the army to undeceive them, and to save Church and State, with some such other jeers ; by which I perceived that all I had said but the night before to the committee was come to Cromwell before me, (I believe by Colonel Purefoy's means :) but Colonel Whalley welcomed me, and was tlie worse thought on for it by the rest of the cabal." ^ " All those two years that I was in the army," continues Baxter, " my old bosom friend, who had lived in my house, and been dearest to me, James Berry, then captain, after colonel and major-general, then lord of the Upper House, who had formerly invited me to Cromwell's troop, did never once invite me to his quarters, nor ever once came to visit » Baxter's Autobiography, p. 52. = Hid., p. 52. 76 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. me, nor saw me save twice or thrice that we met acciden- tally/' * Of this change in his old friend's behaviour towards him Baxter gives the following modest and candid explanation. '' He (Berry) was a man, I verily think, of great sincerity before the wars, and of very good natural parts, especially mathematical and mechanical ; and affec- tionate [well affected, or rather zealous] in religion, and he carried himself as a very great enemy to pride. But when Cromwell made him his favourite ; and his extraordinary valour was crowned with extraordinary success, and when he had been a while most conversant with those that in religion thought the old puritan ministers were dull, self- conceited men of a lower form, and that new light had declared I know not what to be a higher attainment, his mind, his aim, his talk and all was altered accordingly/' ^ "After a little time Colonel Walley," Baxter further says, " though Cromwell's kinsman and commander of the Trusted regiment, grew odious among the sectarian com- manders at the head-quarters for my sake ; and he was called a Presbyterian, though neither he nor I were of that judgment in several points/' ^ Even among the orthodox of Walley's regiment how- ever there were sectarians. Major Bethel's troop in par- ticular consisted, according to Baxter, of very vehement and dangerous sectaries. One characteristic or mark to detect a sectary, in Baxter's opinion, was the disposition to dispense with vicarious preaching and prayer and thereby to encroach upon his professional functions. Great preachers were those military saints, and the parliamentary army exhibited scenes such as would be sought for in vain in any other age or nation. Of one of those scenes Baxter has preserved a sketch in outline. While he was in Walley's » Baxter's Autobiography, p. 57. » Ibid,, p. 57. 3 Ibid., p. 55, 1649.] FIFTH MONARCHY MEN. 77 regiment, and when they were quartered at Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, some sectaries of Chesham had appointed a public meeting as for conference ; " and this in the church, by the encouragement," says Baxter, '' of an ignorant sectarian lecturer, one Bramble, whom they had got in (while Dr. Crook, the pastor, and Mr. Richardson, his curate, durst not interrupt them)." When this public talking day came, Bethel's troopers (then Captain Pitch- ford's), and other sectarian soldiers, mustered strong in the church. Baxter thought it his duty to be there also, and took " divers sober officers " with him. Baxter took the reading pew, and Pitchford's cornet and troopers took the gallery. There was a crowded congregation. The leader of the Chesham men began, and was followed by Pitchford's troopers. Baxter then took up the argu- •nent, if such it could be called, in answer to what he designates " the abundance of nonsense which they uttered," and alone disputed against them from morning until almost night. ^ Another type of those strange military saints was the gallant soldier and wild enthusiast Thomas Harrison, who has come in for almost as great a share of the Boyalist calumny and scurrility as Cromwell himself. For the royalist and later Jacobite writers designate Harrison " that butcher's dog," or " brood of a butcher's mastiff/' because he was the son of a grazier, and " bloody," when in fact he was a most humane as well as an honourable man ; as they have styled Pride " a drayman " because he was a brewer, and Hewson " a cobbler " because he was a shoe- maker. Harrison was a favourite with Cromwell for the same reason that Berry was ; because Cromwell naturally esteemed men who were thoroughly fit for their work — ' Baxter's Autobiography, p. 56. 78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. men who never turned back from the sword or feared the face of a mortal enemy. But Harrison's religious enthu- siasm was of a far wilder flight than Berry's, whose mind was naturally inclined to mathematical studies. Harrison's imagination like Vane's loved to dwell on the vision of a time when " Christ's saints fitted by Him to sit upon the throne of the same glory with Him, shall likewise be found prepared to bring forth magistracy itself in its right exercise, exactly answering the end for which it was set up by God ; and so shall be acknowledged by all the nations of the world, during the thousand years' reign of Christ on earth/' ^ Harrison's military life naturally led him more than Yane was led to contemplate the attainment of his miJlenial paradise through deadly strife with the powers of evil, at the great battle of Armageddon, where the kings of the earth and their armies shall be gathered together to make war against him that sitteth on the white horse, and against his army, and shall be slain with the sword ; and the angel standing in the sun shall call all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven to feed on the flesh of kings and captains, of the war-horse and his rider. To men who revelled in such visions as these the dust of battle was the breath of life ; and the " iron scour^re and torturing hour" of the barbarians' law of treason were the keys that unlocked the gates of an everlasting Paradise. Baxter describes Harrison as so far diflering from the disputatious troopers last mentioned that he would not dis- pute at all, at least with him. " But he would in good * The Retired Man's Meditations, or the Mystery and Power of Godli- ness shining forth in the living Word, to the unmasking the mystery of iniquity in the most refined and pui'est forms. In which old light is restored, and new light justified. Being the witness which is given to this age. By Henry Vane Knight, 4to, 1655, p. 392. 1649.] ANTINOMIANS. 79 discourse very fluently pour out himself in the extolling of free grace which was savoury to those that had right principles, though he had some misunderstandings of free grace himself He was a man of excellent natural parts for affection and oratory ; ^ but not well seen in the prin- ciples of his religion : of a sanguine complexion, naturally of such a vivacity, hilarity, and alacrity as another man hath when he hath drunken a cup too much ; but naturally also so far from humble thoughts of himself, that it was his ruin."^ This vivacity and this cheerfulness never deserted Harrison, not even on the scaffold, with a death of torture before him ; and combined with his religious en- thusiasm they made him fearless and even exulting to the last. He told the sheriff on the day of his execution that he looked upon this as a clear answer to his prayers ; '' for many a time," said he, " have I begged of the Lord that if he had any hard thing, any reproachful work or contemptible service to be done by his people, that I should be employed in it ; and now blessed be the name of God who accounteth me worthy to be put upon this ser- vice for ray Lord Christ." He told the people round the scaffold, with respect to a shaking in his hands and knees, which being observed gave rise to scoffing in some abject spirits, that the shaking was not from fear of death, but by reason of many wounds he had received in battle and much blood he had lost. "This," added he, "causeth the shaking and weakness in my nerves : I have had it these twelve years ; I speak this to the praise and glory of God ; He hath carried me above the fear of death : and I value not my life, because I go to my Father, and am assured I shall take it up again. Oh ! I have served a good lord and ^ " Afiection " seems to be here used ^ Baxter's Autobiography, p. 57. in the sense of zeal. 80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. master, which hath helped me from my beginning to this day, and hath carried me through many difficulties, trials, straits, and temptations, and hath always been a very present help in time of trouble ; He hath covered my head many times in the day of battle. By God I have leaped over a wall, by God I have run through a troop, and by God I will go through this death, and He will make it easy to me. Now into thy hands Lord Jesus I commit my spirit." Harrison may be more correctly described as a Fifth Monarchy man than as Baxter describes him, when he says that his opinions were for Anabaptism and Antinomi- anism. Baxter also says that Cromwell had by degrees headed the greatest part of the army with Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, or Separatists, and tied all these together by the point of liberty of conscience as the common interest in which they united ; and that, though Cromwell did not openly profess what opinion he was of himself, the most that he said for any was for Anabaptism and Antinomianism. * To apply the name of Anabaptists and Antinomians to Harrison and Cromwell is to do pre- cisely what Baxter objects to Cromwell for doing, in calling certain men Levellers. The Church of Rome called those who differed from it '* heretics ; " the Church of England, under Laud, called those who differed from it " schismatics ; ** the Presbyterians, who succeeded Laud in power, called those who differed from them " sectaries." And worthy Mr. Baxter called Harrison and Cromwell " Antinomians," because they did not adopt all his theo- logical views, to read which, as set forth in some twenty odd thick volumes, would be a labour to which that of reading Guicciardini would be light. And yet the story * Baxter's Autobiography, p. 57. 1649.] OLIVER CROMWELL. 81 says that the criminal, who was offered Guicciardini or the galleys, having chosen the history and tried to read it, changed his mind and went to the galleys. The change that had taken place in the character of Cromwell in the interval between the time when he in- vited Richard Baxter to be chaplain to his troop of horse at Cambridge in 16-43 and the time, two years later and after the battle of Naseby, when he gave Baxter a cold welcome to the army of the Parliament, is at least in part explained by Baxter when he says of Cromwell : — " I think that having been a prodigal in his youth, and afterwards changed to a zealous religiousness, he meant honestly in the main, and was pious and conscionable in the main course of his life, till prosperity and success corrupted him ; that at his first entry into the wars, being but a captain of horse, he had a special care to get religious men into his troop." ^ But though Baxter might be able to understand the characters of ordinary enthusiasts such as Berry and Harrison, there were depths in the character of Cromwell which his plummet could not fathom, which perhaps no human plummet can ever fathom. There were combined in him qualities apparently the most incompatible, the most fervent enthusiasm, the most adventurous courage, the calmest and keenest judgment. One leading characteristic of Cromwell was the union of craft with bluntness and with a fiery temper, whereas crafty men are usually understood to be of a cold temper and smooth manner ; though craft under a cloak of bluntness and irascibility has the advan- tage of apparent openness and simplicity and thus of throw- ing off their guard those with whom it has to deal. There are some well-authenticated facts in the history of Cromwell's life which may perhaps help to throw some ^ Baxter's Autobiography, p. 98. G 82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. light on those parts of the character both of him and of other great men of the same type, which have been said to render such characters '* the wonders of history — characters inevitably misrepresented by the vulgar, and viewed even by those who in some sense have the key to them, as a mystery, not fully to be comprehended, and still less ex- plained to others/' ' The early years of Cromwell's life appear to have been particularly darkened by those fits of mental gloom,^ which, whether they be viewed as arising from physical or from religious and moral causes, seem strangely at variance with the daring and energetic character of the men in whom they are sometimes found. The names given in most languages to this temper of mind attribute it to a physical cause connected with the digestive organs. But the cause is probably also associated with the nervous system and the brain. And what appears strange or para- doxical is that men, to whom vulgar language assi^ms " nerves of iron,'' should have a nervous system apparently so delicate, as such susceptibility to derangement would seem to imply. Yet even if we retain that common meta- phor, may not iron chords be so formed as to vibrate easily ? But there is a certain class of minds in which, though generally under the control of a most powerful and acute understanding, the imagination at times exercises almost unbounded dominion. And if to the physical causes of disturbance referred to, religious enthusiasm be added, in such minds at such times ideas assume a force and vivid- ness which give them the power and enable them to exercise the tyranny of sensations. Then in such men " thoughts, like masterless hell-hounds," rise to torture them. Then the » Arnold's History of Rome, vol. iii. » Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs of P- ^^^- the Reign of King Charles I., p. 249. 1649.] INFLUENCE OF PAMPHLETS ON THE SOLDIERS. 83 phantoms of the brain assume the forms of fiends, to which they fancy themselves compelled to give battle even with a mort OrderBook of the Council of State, that they will take further care of 16th June, 1649. MS. State Paper himr—lUd, 14th May, 1649, a Meri- Office. They had before, namely on die. It appears from subsequent orders the 14th of May, made the foUowing that a part of Mr. Hall's duties was to order, which did not prevent them from write answers to some of Prynne's pam- answering pamphlets in the way tyrants phlets. Thus ' ' That 500 of the copies answer:— ^' That Mr. Hall shall be of Mr. Hall his answer to Mr. Prynne be employed by this Council to make printed in Latin and that the charge of answer to such pamphlets as shaU come it be defrayed by the Council."— /6ic?., out to the prejudice of this Common- 17th October, 1649. wealth, and that he shaU have £100 2 Commons' Journals, 28 Martii, 1649. per annum for his labour, with an as- * Baxter's Life, by Himself, part i. surance given him from this Council p. 61. 90 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Chap. II. It is to be observed here however that Baxter is not strictly accurate in describing the persons called LeveUers a^ adhering to the principles of the Agreement of the People, as drawn by Ireton ; inasmuch as on the 26 th of February, 164f, John Lilburne delivered a paper to the House signed by many of the Levellers proposing several alterations in the - Agreement of the People/' A summary of these proposals of which some are reasonable and sen- Bible enough while others have about as much that is rational and practicable as the legislation of Jack Cade wiU be found in Whitelock/ These men whom it now suited Cromwell and the Parliament to denomi- nate LeveUers had been found extremely useful a year or two earlier; and a year or two later it wiU suit Cromwell to bestow very hard names on his good friends Harry Vane and Harry Martyn and others whom he finds useful at present. It is the old tale so often told of Ambition's march. The friends of yesterday, when their day is done and they are no longer needed, become but " the broken tools that tyrants cast away/' In May, 1649, a mutiny or insurrection was raised in the army by that portion of the officers and soldiers whose discontent at the treatment which the Agreement of the People met with from the body which now called Itself the Parliament of England led them to attempt what was far beyond their power, and who have been deno- mmated Levellers. The chief leader of these men was William Thomson, a captain of horse, according to White- lock and according also to a better authority than Whitelock, the Order-book of the CouncH of State. » Whitelock, p. 384, Feb. 26, 164|. his objections to the A-n-eement of th^ LUbun.epublished,afewdaysafter,h^ ^-pH -der the title^En^^^^^^^^ address to the Parliament, containing New Chains Discovered " 1649.] THE LEVELLERS' WAR. 91 Baxter speaks of Thomson as one of the corporals of that theological troop of Walley's regiment who disputed with him for a whole day in Agmondesham church. But he may have risen from the rank of corporal to that of captain in the interval of three or four years. According to Whitelock Thomson marched up and down with about 200 horse and " declared to join with those of Colonel Scroope's, Colonel Harrison's, and Major General Skippon's regiments in their Declaration and reso- lution.'' According to another contemporary writer whose accuracy however is not much to be relied on, the Levellers of the army drew together to a rendezvous about Banbury, in Oxfordshire, to the number of 4000 or 5000, others resorting to them daily from other parts.' Thomson published a declaration in print, intituled " England's Standard advanced, or a Declaration fi^om Mr. William Thomson, and the oppressed People of this Nation, now under his Conduct in Oxfordshire, dated at their Ren- dezvous, May 6, 1649." At the end of this document were these words : " Signed by me William Thomson, at our rendezvous in Oxfordshire near Banbury, in behalf of myself and the rest engaged with me. May 6, 1649, for a new Parliament, by the Agreement of the People." Now as Lilburne's "Agreement of the People" was dated May 1, 1649 and is specially referred to in Thomson's Declaration, it may be concluded that the *'new Parliament by the Agreement of the People," de- manded by Thomson and those engaged with him was a new Parliament by Lilburne's and not by Ireton's Agree- ment of the People. This indeed is expressly stated in the Declaration. There were, as I have said, in Lilburne's Agreement of the People, amid some provisions that were » Clement Walker's History of Independency, part ii. p. 179, et seq. 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. unobjectionable others that savoured somewhat of the legislation of Jack Cade. But as the men called Levellers have been usually condemned by writers who have not given themselves the trouble to obtain any accurate know- ledge respecting them, it is but justice that they should be judged by their own words and not by the construction put upon those words by their enemies. Their words and deeds are a part of the drama of this troubled period of English history, without a tolerably accurate knowledge of which, the whole meaning of that drama cannot be known. The Declaration thus commences : — "Whereas, it is notorious to the whole world, that neither the faith of the Parliament, nor yet the faith of the army formerly made to the people of this nation in behalf of their common right, freedom, and safety, hath been at all observed, or made good, but both absolutely declined and broken, and the people only served with bare words and fair promising papers, and left utterly destitute of aU help or delivery : and that this hath principally been by the prevalency and treachery of some eminent persons, now domineering over the people, is most evident. The solemn engagement of the army at Newmarket and Triplo-heath by them destroyed, the Council of Agitators dissolved, the blood of war shed in time of peace, petitions for common freedom suppressed by force of arms, and peti- tioners abused and terrified, the lawful trial by twelve sworn men of the neighbourhood subverted and denied, bloody and tyrannical courts, called a High Court of Jus- tice and a Council of State, erected, the power of the sword advanced and set in the seat of the magistrates, the civd laws stopped and subverted, and the military intro- duced, even to the hostile seizure, imprisonment, trial, sen- tence, and execution of death, upon divers of the free 1649.] THE LEVELLERS' WAR CRUSHED. 93 people of this nation, leaving no visible authority, de- volving all into a factious Juncto and Council of State, usurping and assuming the name, stamp, and authority of Parliament, to oppress, torment and vex the people, whereby all the lives, liberties and estates, are subdued to the wills of those men, no law, no justice, no right or freedom, no case of grievances, no removal of unjust bar- barous taxes, no regard to the cries and groans of the poor to be had, while utter beggary and iiimine, like a mighty torrent, hath broken in upon us, and already seized upon several parts of the nation." ^ The Declaration then proceeds to state that they are resolved as one man, " even to the hazard and expence of their lives and fortunes/' which would imply that some of them had property to lose as well as life, " to endeavour the redemption of the magistracy of England, from under the force of the sword, to vindicate the Petition of Right, to set the unjustly imprisoned free, to relieve the poor, and settle this commonwealth, upon the grounds of common right, freedom, and safety." They then, "that all the world may know particularly what they intend,*' declare that they " will endeavour the absolute settlement of this distracted nation, upon that form and method by way of an Agreement of the People, tendered as a peace-offering by Lieut..Col. John Lilburne, Mr. William Walwyn, Mr. Tho. Prince, and Mr. Richard Overton, bearing date, May 1 , 1649." Now if, the question of abstract right apart, there were certain grave practical difficulties in the way of the Parlia- ment's accepting Ireton s Agreement of the People, there would be practical difficulties far greater, to say nothing of difficulties on the ground of sound principle, in the way of 1 This Declaration has been reprinted Lieut. -Col. John Lilburne, in State at the end of the report of the trial of Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1410-1413. 94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. their accepting LiJburne's Agreement of the People. Be- sides, if they acceded to the demand of those who offered them Lilburne's Agreement of the People ''with their swords in their hands/^ ' the sovereignty passed at once from their hands to the hands of the leaders of this section of their army. And though the immediate conse- quence might have been the erection for a short time of a goverment partaking considerably more of the nature of a democracy, or a democratic republic, than the common- wealth of the Eump of the Long Parliament, the ulterior consequence would have been such a political chaos as the substitution of the brains of Lilburne, Overton and Thomson, for the governing power, in the place of the brains of Cromwell, Ireton and Vane, would be likely to produce. Colonel Reynolds first attacked these men, and after- wards Fairfax and Cromwell surprised them in their quarters at Burford, in Oxfordshire, with a very superior force. A small number escaped. Thomson was pursued and slain, making a brave defence singly to the last, near Wellingborough, in Northamptonshire. The rest, the number of whom is variously stated, were taken prisoners at Burford, and, with one or two exceptions, were pardoned. " So that,'' to borrow the words of Baxter, " the Levellers' war was crusht in the egg/'' On the 12th of May, the Council of State made an order, " that a letter of thanks be written to Colonel Reynolds for his good service done in dispersing the rebellious troops under Captain Thomson.''* The important part performed by Cromwell in the ^ ** Be it therefore known," says the Declaration, ''to all the free people of England, and to the whole world, that (choosing rather to die for freedom, than live as slaves), we are gathered and associated together upon the bare account of Englishmen, with our swords in our hands, to redeem ourselves and the land of our nativity from slavery and oppression." 2 Baxters Life, by Himself, part i. p. 61. Whitelock's Memorials, pp 401, 402. ' Order Book of the Council of State, 12th May, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. iig^8fe■laAnMBi8^g.^ilafeirawyJlaJ.^j^.ji^i^^ i 1649.] COMPONENT PARTS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ARMY. 95 putting down of this dangerous insurrection is beyond a doubt ; though here, as elsewhere, some of his enemies have been bold enough to charge him with want of personal courage. Clement Walker's account of Cromwell's beha- viour on the occasion is ratlier an amusing specimen of the style of that scurrilous and mendacious writer. " Crom- well," says Walker, "not knowing what party to draw out against them, that would be steadfast to him, shunned the danger, and put his property the General upon it to oppose the rendezvous, and, looking as wan as the gills of a sick turkey-cock, marched forth himself westward, to inter- cept such as drew to the rendezvous." ^ We have now, taking the testimony of Baxter, a credible witness, who was for two years ^ chaplain to the principal Ironside regiment, the Agreement of the People, drawn up by Ireton, and the proceedings of Lilburne, Overton, Thom- son, and others, altogether, the means of analyzing the Parliamentary army ; that is, of decomposing it into its component parts ; and we find that it consisted of two parts — one, the larger and more powerful, headed by Crom- well and his friends or partizans (not including Ireton nor Harrison, except so far as the latter was duped by Crom- well), who were the sort of men described by Baxter as for a settlement of the business similar to that of William the Norman and his officers ; the other, much weaker, who were for a republic in reality, not merely in name, like the " Commonwealth " — a republic such as the instrument called the Agreement of the People, if fully carried into operation, would have created. But the smaller party was rendered much weaker than it would otherwise have been by the mischievous activity of Lilburne and * Clement Walker's History of Inde- pendency, part ii. p. 179. * Baxter's Autobiography, part i. p. 57. 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. one or two others, who, as stated above,' proposed several alterations in Ireton's Agreement of the People. Without imputing any superfluous dishonesty to Crom- well, it may be supposed that so practical a logician, as he was, considered this republic according to Ireton s Agree- ment of the People, much more according to Lilburne's Agreement of the People, as a visionary and even an impossible project, which he was justified in crushing and which he accordingly crushed with his characteristic decision and promptitude. And as both Ireton and Blake served under the Government which had destroyed under the name of Levellers some of those who sought to carry out by force some at least of the provisions of Ireton's Agree- ment of the People, it may I think be concluded that those two brave and able men tacitly at least admitted that the difficulties in the way of a republic were at that particular time insurmountable. Still, the question is an extremely complicated one, and I do not feel by any means unlimited confidence in this solution of it, but it appears at least some clearing up of the darkness and confusion in which this period of English history has to me always appeared to be enveloped. During this month of May 1649 the new Government of England had more than even its ordinary share of dangers and difficulties to cope with, for, besides the mutiny in the army, which, but for the rapidity and decision of Fairfax and Cromwell might have overthrown them, they received * In the two subsequent chapters I will endeavour however to do that justice which has by no means been done to Lilbume in regard to his quarrel with Cromwell and the remnant of the Long Parliament. His penetration in dis- covering Cromwell's designs long before others discovered them and his defence of himself on his trial, fighting singly without counsel against the whole power of the Government and their law officers, prove that he possessed abilities of a much higher order than modern writers attribute to him. 1649.] ASSASSINATION OF DORISLAUS. 97 information of the assassination of Dr. Dorislaus, their resident at the Hague. Dr. Dorislaus, who though a native of Holland had lived long in England, and had acted as judge-advocate in Essex's army and as assistant counsel against the late king, had been sent towards the end of April to the Hague as resident jointly with Walter Strickland for the Parliament in Holland. Soon after his arrival at the Hague, while seated at table in his own lodgings Dr. Dorislaus was assassinated by some Royalists, in revenge, as they said, for their king's murder. On the 1 0th of May, a Memorial on the murder of Dr. Dorislaus at the Hague wa^ ordered by the Council of State to be drawn up and delivered to the Dutch ambassador.^ On the following day, the 11th of May, it was ordered by the Council of State 'Hhat it be reported to the Parliament that it is the opinion of this Council, in regard Dr. Doris- laus lost his life in the service of the Commonwealth, being murthered in so barbarous a manner, his children being deprived of their father and thereby of the mainte- nance they had by him, that the Parliament will settle i?200 per annum as a pension on his son during his life and that each of his two daughters may have c^'oOO to be paid to her forthwith — also that there may be £250 appointed for the interment of Dr. Dorislaus in an honour- able way at Westminster." ^ Q^^ the 1 0th of May, there is in the Order Book of the Council of State a minute of the committal of one Walter Breame " prisoner to Peterhouse upon suspicion of having a hand in the death of Dr. * Order Book of the Council of State, May 10, 1649. MS. State Pai)er Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, 11th May, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. H 98 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Chap. II. Dorislaus." The general opinion was, that the assassins of Dorislaus were six Scotchmen in the train of the Mar- quis of Montrose. A minute of the Council of State of 12th May directs "That the informations had concerning the death of Dr. Dorislaus be reported to the House, and withall that the Council hath informations that there are designs for assas- sination of the Lord President and some members of the Parliament and of this Council.''^ On the 14th the Council considered that the mutiny in the army wore so dangerous an appearance as to render it necessary to suspend the preparations for the expedition to Ireland. They ordered " that a letter be written to the generals of the fleet to let them know that by reason of some present disturbance in this nation the soldiers formerly designed for the service of Ireland are not in such readiness as was formerly expected they by this time would have been ; to desire them therefore that the vessels by them prest for transporting forces thither be discharged from further exportation at present." ^ On the 15th the very day following, the Council of State received the news that the revolt in the army had been put down and they immediately took off the tempo- rary stoppage of the transportation of troops to Ireland. I may mention in this place an instance of the weight of Vane in tlje councils of the English Government at that time. A Spanish ship the Santa Clara had been taken at sea canying near 200 Irishmen for the military service * Order Book of the Council of State Paper Office. 10th May, 1649. MS. State Paper ^ q^^j^j. ^^^ ^f ^^^ Council of ^®<^®- State, 14th May, 1649, a Meridie. •^ Order Book of the Council of MS. State Paper Office. State, 12th May, 1649. MS. State 1649.] I RELATIONS WITH SPAIN. 99 of Spain. On the 1 6th of April 1649, before Vane's arrival in the council-room, there was a considerable number of members of the Council of State present, including Fairfax Cromwell, Ludlow, Martyn ; and a good deal of business had been gone through, chiefly relating to the details of transporting troops to Ireland. The importance of the business dealt with in the order made next after Vane's arrival, an order which might and did lead eventually to war with Spain, manifests in a remarkable degree Vane's weight in the Council. It was probably a matter that had been committed to Vane's particular consideration and im- mediately on his arrival in the Council, it was propounded and then the important order made. Cromwell and Vane may certainly be regarded as the two great men—the men of gen,us-of the CouncU of State-Cromwell chiefly as a soldier or rather as a statesman-soldier— Vane as a states- man only, not at all as a soldier. As compared with these two, the others must be regarded as mere men of detaU. The following is this important order :— « That it be returned in answer to the Spanish ambassador That, upon due consideration of the contents of the paper given' in by his secretary, it is the opinion of this Council that it IS not contrary to any of the alliances between the two nations of England and Spain to hinder the carrying of Irishmen into the service of Spain, and that it is in their power to dispose of them as they shaU conceive best for the Commonwealth, which accordingly they have done."* The « Instructions to Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, to be observed in his Address to the Lord Ambassador of Spain " are these, and their import must have convinced even Gondemar, had he then filled the place of Spanish ambassador, that he had now another sort ' Or,ler Book of tl.o Council of Stote, 1 Gth Ai.ril, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ir 2 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. of men to deal with than King James and his minions : — " You are to make your repair to the said Lord Ambas- sador of Spain and shall signify to his lordship that we have taken the petition into consideration, and have con- sulted with the judges and advocates of the Admiralty about it, and find that the taking of the said ship and men therein is not against any treaties or articles of alliance between the Commonwealth of England and any of the countries of the jurisdiction and obedience of Spain, which treaties we shall be careful to maintain inviolably. " You shall also inform his lordship that the Irish nation are dependents upon the Commonwealth of England, and therefore neither the nation nor any party or particular man of them have any power to treat or agree with any foreign State or their ministers for their levying or trans- porting of men to their service without special licence first obtained from the Commonwealth of England, which hath not in the case of these men been either desired or granted. " You shall further inform his lordship that the Irish are declared long since by Act of Parliament to be rebels against the sovereignty of England and therefore it is justly in the power of the English to deal with them as such wherever they shall take them. "That therefore the Council hath given order for the disposing of the men, and shall leave the ship and goods to their just trial in the Court of the Admiralty. " And lastly you shall signify to his lordship that this Commonwealth cannot permit these nor the rest of the men to be transported, it being (besides other important reasons) a private transaction of a rebel and against the honour and sovereignty of the Commonwealth of England." ^ ^ Order Book of the Council of State, State Paper Office. Die Martis, 17th April, 1649. MS. L^M. i«Vrfan!t*Jai'4i>-'faV?J»^W«'.^iiBftA^-.A*^ - lrtH.lMlrV*rf*^ J^WfcJ' ' 1649.] RELATIONS WITH HOLLAND. 101 On the 24th of May it is ordered in pursuance of an order of the House that it be reported to the House " as the opinion of this Council that those houses and parks hereunder named be kept for the public use of the Commonwealth and not sold viz. Whitehall House, and St. James's Park, St. James's House, Somerset House, Hampton Court and the Home Park, Theobald's and the Park, Windsor and the little park next the house. Green wich House and Park, Hide Park."^ On the 28th of May the warrant for the clearing of Whitehall was dehvered out to the Serjeant-at-Arms to put in execution ; and after that day the Council of State removed from Derby House and held their sittings at Whitehall.^ On the 31st of May, as if conscious of an increase of dignity by the change from Derby House to Whitehall, they ordered " that there sliall be a mace provided for the use of the Council at the charge of the State." ^ In forming a judgment of men engaged in such a contest as that which was the business of those who nov\^ governed England, it is necessary to bear in njind that defence not wealth was their object, while the olject of political economists is wealth solely. This distinction is admitted even by Adam Smith himself in his criticisms of their famous Navigation Act, passed about two years after the time of which I am now writing. " It is not impos- sible,'' says Adam Smith, "that some of the regulations of this famous Act may have proceeded from national ani- mosity. They are as wise, however, as if they had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom. National 1 Order Book of the Council of State, 24th May, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 28th and 29th May, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 31st May, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. animosity, at that particular time, aimed at the very same object which the most deliberate wisdom would have recommended, the diminution of the naval power of Hol- land, the only naval power which could endanger the security of England.'' And after stating some economical disadvantages consequent upon that Act, such as that of buying foreign goods dearer and selling our own cheaper, he adds, " As defence, however, is of much more im- portance than opulence, the Act of Navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England." ^ The Navigation Act carried the animosity between Eng- land and Holland into open war. But more than two years before the passing of that Act namely at the point of time to which the present narrative has reference, o-rave matter of offence had arisen on both sides. On one side the Dutch authorities had taken no effective measures to punish the cowardly and infamous assassination of Doris- laus by the partizans of the Stuarts ; and by such criminal neglect they had offered a mortal affront to a body of men who taught the Dutch and all the world that they were not men who could be insulted with impunity. On the other side it must be admitted that the English Government only a few weeks after the assassination of Dorislaus afforded to the Dutch Government grave cause of offence. The Dutch were at that time, and indeed for more than a century after, the great carriers of Europe. In that capacity it was natural that the Council of State should seek to em- ploy Dutch vessels for the transport of their troops to Ireland. But the matter was urgent, the English Govern- ment pressed their own ships, colliers and others, and they resolved to press the Dutch ships, if their masters or owners * Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. ii. 1649.] PRESSINa OF DUTCH SHIPS. 103 should refuse to contract with them. On the 6th of June 1 649 the Council of State made an Order " That a warrant be issued to the Commissioners of the Navy to contract with 20 Dutch Prams,^ or other needful vessels for the transportation of forces into Ireland ; and that they have warrant to the sergeant of the Admiralty to make stay of them in case they shall refuse to stay to make a contract with the said commissioners for the aforesaid service." And on the same day a warrant was issued to " make stay by the marshal of the admiralty of 20 Dutch prammes.'' At the same time they ordered a letter to be written to their agent in Holland Mr. Strickland '' to use his best en- deavours to stop clamour, if any should arise thereupon " ^ — not an easy task for Mr. Strickland, it may be supposed. On the 8th Sir Oliver Fleming was ordered to go to the Dutch ambassador to give him an explanation that the Dutch ships are only stayed for a contract with them for transporting of troops to Ireland and that the State will dismiss as many of them as possibly they may.* On the 1 3th they ordered a letter to be written to Mr. Walley at Chester to desire him to make stay of all Dutch bottoms and other fit ships for the transportation.^ And on the same day they made an order " That ^2500 be paid upon account to the Commissioners of the Navy, out of which the masters of the several colliers' ships who are now pressed for the service of Ireland shall be presently, according to * This word is in the warrant in the Order Book spelt *' prammes." John- son in his dictionary gives the word *'prame — a flat-bottomed boat. — Bailey.''^ * Order Book of the Council of State, 6th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 6th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, 8th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, 13th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. contract, paid." ^ On the same day the 13th of June they ordered " That Mr. Scott do report to the House as the opinion of this Council that Commissary General Ireton shall be the person who sliall be the next commander-in- chief of the forces in Ireland, under the command of Lieu- tenant General Cromwell/'^ On the 15th of June Mr. Scott brouglit up this report to the House, who confirmed the appointment. Thursday the 1 4th of June was the day appointed for the public funeral of Dr. Dorislaus. The Council of State resolved to show every mark of respect in their power to the remains of the man who had been so basely assassi- nated in executincr the commands of the Parliament of o England.^ The body of Dorislaus was accompanied to the grave by the members of the Council of State, by the two Lords Chief Justices and the Lord Chief Baron, and by the Lord General and the general officers of the army ; and the Lord General was directed by the Council to give order for a fit guard to prevent any disorder that might happen by so much concourse of people as might be at such a solemnity.* Under the date 20th June the Order Book contains " a list of Bills proposed by the Council to the House to be put * Order Book of the Council of State, 13th June, 1649. ' Order Book of the Council of State, 13th June, 1649. ^ There are many instances in the Order Book of the Council of State as well as in the Commons' Journals of the prompt punishment of all injury or insult offered to or by their public servants, and of their prompt acknow- ledgment of the claims of the widows and children of those who died in their service. Dr. Dorislaus would appear to have died very poor, to judge from the following minute : — ** That £10 be paid unto Mr. Dorislaus, as part of the arrear due unto the Dr. his father, to enable him to pay the taxes charged upon their lodgings." — Order Booh of the Council of State, 2nd June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. The reason assigned for this payment tells much respecting the weight of taxation at that time. * Order Book of the Council of State, 13th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. THE GOVERNMENT NOT PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT. 105 into Acts before the adjourning of the House/' and likewise a list of " things to be put in a way during the recess to ripen them for the judgment of the House at their meeting again." Among the former are " An Act for the further and better prevention of the exportation of gold and silver ; '' " An Act for preventing and punishing the print- ing and publishing of scandalous pamphlets and regulation of the press ; " and " The Act touching restraining and punishing the licentiousness of the pulpits in seditious and derogatory expressions touching the Parliament and their proceedings." The latter are these "1. That a commis- sion be granted to fit persons in the several parts of this nation for the valuing of tithes throughout England in order to the taking of them away and settling in their room an honourable and competent means for the preachers of the gospel. 2. That the business depending before a committee of settling future parliaments may be proceeded in during the recess to be ready for the consideration of the House at their next meeting. 3. That the regulating of the proceedings in law and courts of justice and equity for preventing the tediousness of suits and abuses burthensome to the people may be proceeded in during the recess, and an account thereof be given at the next meeting after the adjournment, and the same committee to consider what unnecessary and inconvenient laws are fit to be repealed, and their opinion to be therein proposed. " ^ It is extremely difficult to strike a balance with such nicety as to do perfect justice to those men who now formed the Parliament and the Council of State of England. While some of their proceedings evince a spirit of the most grinding despotism, others exhibit an anxious care for * Order Book of the Council of State, 20th June, 1G49. MS. State Paper Office. 106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. 1649.] THE EXPEDITION TO IRELAND. 107 justice and even liberty to the subject. They conscien- tiously and justly paid for whatever was taken even under the most urgent pressure of necessity. Thus on the 1 3th of September of this year the petition of Mr. John Davis for fish taken by Sir Charles Coote for the use of the garrison of Derry is referred to the consideration of the committee for Ireland who are to report to the Council what is fit to be done for his satisfaction.^ The title which they assumed to themselves of Custodes Lihertatis Anglice ^ does indeed forcibly suggest the question " Quis custodiet ipsos custodes libertatis Anglise ? " A defence might indeed be made for them, that at least many — a large proportion — of their harsh acts were the necessary result of their very difficult situation. Though this again may be called the tyrant's plea, necessity. But in troubled times men must either destroy or be destroyed ; and it is not fair to style men tyrants absolutely for taking the means necessary for their deliverance from destruction. Then again many of their measures were simply the result of ignorance, which they shared with the wisest men of their age, of the true laws of political science ; such mea- sures as those already mentioned, their attempts to keep down by force the price of corn, and the rate of interest and their great exertions, by searching ships and interrupt- ing trade by embargoes, to prohibit the exportation of gold and silver. The English Government at this time was in fact an anomaly. Though called a Commonwealth governed by a Parliament, it was not strictly parliamentary 1 Order Book of the Council of State, 13th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 7 Martii, 164|. "The form of a writ for election of a knight for the county of Berks was this day read ; and upon the question agreed unto ; and was in hcec verba; viz. 'Custodes Libertatis AnglisG, Auctoritate Parliamenti, Vice- comiti salutem,' " &c. iA government. For it wanted the essentials of true parlia- mentary government, a second chamber and a parlia- mentary opposition. It thus wanted the counterpoise absolutely necessary to protect any man or body of men from themselves when exposed to the corrupting influence of undivided and unchecked power. In this point of view the history of the proceedings of this Government becomes a most instructive chapter in the history of the great experiments made by man in the art of government. The Council of State now directed all their energies to the hastening off of the expedition to Ireland. On the 25th of June, they ordered a warrant to be sent to the masters of the twelve ships impressed for the service of Ireland to fall down forthwith into the Downs, and thence with convoy to set sail with the first fair wind to Milford Haven, where they are to receive orders from the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. On the same day they sent a letter to the Commissioners of the Navy to impress eight ships more for the service of Ireland.^ They also on the same day issued warrants to the treasurers at war to pay to each of the four old regiments of foot designed for Ireland c£^20 to buy chirurgians' chests, viz. the Lord-Lieu- tenant's regiment, Colonel Hewson's, Colonel Ewer's, and Colonel Cooke's ; and to pay to each of the four new regiments ci^25 for a chirurgian's chest, viz. Colonel Venables', Colonel Phaire's, Commissary General Ireton's, and Colonel Stubber's regiments — " those having never yet had any.'' They also issued warrants to the eight regi- ments "for ten colours each at c£20 each ;" and warrants 1 From a document in the Order they carried three, five, six, eight Book intituled **The Agreement with guns, and were all of Yarmouth. — the Six Colliers' Ships " it apj>ears Order Book of the Council of State, that these six ships varied from 120 to 27th August, 1649. MS. State Paper 160 tons — four being 120 tons — one Office, being 150 and one 160 tons — that 108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. to furnish the said eight regiments each with ten waggon- horses at £S 16s. each horse, payable to the respective colonels. On the same day they ordered letters to be written to Mr. Walley to let him know that Major EUiott's troop is to consist of 80 soldiers besides officers — a fact further illustrative of the strength of their regi- ments of horse. On the 26th of June, for the first time Cromwell's name appears in the list of the members of the Council of State present at that sitting, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. On the same day the Council issued an order "to the treasurers of deans' and chapters' lands, Goldsmith's-hall, and the Excise, to certify to-morrow to the Council what the present state of their several treasuries is in present money : and that they do twice in every week viz. Mondays and Tlmrsdays give unto Mr. Frost the younger an extract [abstract] of all the moneys that shall come in and be paid out, who shall upon those days repair unto them for that purpose and that he have power to view the books concerning that affair.'' ^ On the 28th of June the Council made an order that ^1000 be paid by the Treasurer at War to Captain TomUns, Comptroller of the Train of Artillery for Ireland, for the buying of horses to-morrow in Smithfield ; ^ and on the following day a warrant was issued to Captain Edward Tomlins to carry the horses by him bought for the service of the train for Ireland '' to Maribone Park and to put them there, and there continue them till Monday come sevennight." On that same day, Friday the 29th of June, a minute * Order Book of the Council of State, ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 26th June, 1649. MS. State Paper 28th June, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. Office. 1649.] THE SOLDIERS' ARREARS. 109 was made, " that the next Monday in the afternoon be appointed for the Council to take an account of the state of the affairs of Ireland from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland before his going out of town ; — and that the usher is to give notice to all suitors to forbear their attendance at that time." ' On the 30th of June a warrant was issued to the Trea- surer at War to pay ^700 by way of imprest for the buying one hundred carriage-horses for the service of Ireland.^ On the 2nd of July an order was made for .£^2000 by way of imprest for buying of 500 draught horses. And on the same day " Hules and Orders " were made as to the arrears to the troops for Ireland, according to which all were to have one month's pay "to be discounted upon arrears ; " and those who were in the Parliament's service in January 1647 and have so continued shice without receiving the benefit of the former disbanding were to have a month's pay more of their arrears advanced to them before their shipping.^ This shows that the Parliament habitually kept the pay of their troops very much in arrear. And that not merely the soldiers but the officers, at least those who were not Parliament-men, suffered from this cause, appears strikingly from the following minute : — " That a warrant be issued to the contractors for Ireland to pay d^lOO to Lieutenant Valentine Wood and such others as they shall think fit as part of their arrears.'' The concluding words of the minute are remarkable — " but that they do not suffer it to be public lest it draw upon the State a greater payment than they can make good." ^ This want of money is further shown by such minutes as » Order Book of the Council of State, '-^ Order Book of the Council of State, 29th June, 1649. MS. State Paper 30th June, 1649. Office. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 2nd July, 1649. no k HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. the following : — " That a letter be written to Colonel Horton and the rest of the Commissioners in South Wales for the money there, to let them know that information was given to the Council that d^ 10,000 of the composition of South Wales was ready at Bristol, whereupon deputies and a waggon were sent to Bristol to bring it away ; to desire them to hasten the payment of it, in regard it is very much wanted here, and the carriage stays there for the bringing the money away/' ^ In this want of money to pay their troops it seems to me viewing the question at this distance of time that it was the duty of the Parliament to have acted upon the advice of Ireton when he refused the J'2000 per annum which they settled on him, and to have " paid their just debts before they made such presents/' Nevertheless on the very day after that on which the Council of State made those rules as to the soldiers' arrears by which they declared they could or would pay only a small fraction of them, namely, on the 3rd of July, the Parliament settled " lands of inheritance of the clear yearly value of ^£1000 upon Colonel Henry Marten in consideration of several great suras of money disbursed by him and of the arrears due to him as a colonel/' ^ I do not remember to have met with any record or any notice whatever of any military service performed by Henry Marten. But the rewards of services given by parliaments were somewhat strangely proportioned. On the 27th of March of that year the Parliament ordered "that .^300 per annum land of inhe- ritance be settled upon Major General Lambert and his heirs for ever in respect of his many great and eminent » Order Book of the Council of State, 11th April, 1649. 10th April, 1649. MS. State Paper 3 Commons' Journals, Die Martis, 3 Office. Julii, 1649. =* Order Book of the Council of State, 1649.] ARMS AND AMMUNITION. Ill services/' ^ There is record enough of the great military services of Lambert, but as they are estimated by the Parliament as bearing to the services of Marten the pro- portion of three to ten, we may thence form some idea of the parliamentary scale of merit. And this will tend to make us feel little surprise that when certain men saw that their chief portion had been hard blows while the Parlia- ment-men had sat comfortably and voted themselves good estates, it should occur to the men of hard blows to say — " Let us pull those talking fellows out by the ears/' On the 3rd of July the Council of State made an order, " That the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Sir WiUiam Masham, Sir William Armyn, and Sir Henry Vane, do go forth and confer with the Commissioners of the Excise concerning the advancing of the ^^ 150,000, and that they do acquaint them with the necessity of having present money for the public service/' ^ On the same day it was ordered " That a warrant be issued to the treasurer for deans' and chapters' lands to pay to the Treasurers at War the sum of cf'S 0,000 out of their receipts, saving the third part appointed for the use of the navy ; " and " that a warrant be issued to the Treasurers at War to send dPS 0,000 unto the head-quarters of the Lord Lieute- nant of Ireland/' ' On the 4th of July the following warrant, the last clause of which directing " that the great shot be first delivered, that it may serve for ballast to the ships," is par- ticularly deserving of attention, was issued by the Council of State to the officers of the Tower : — " These are to will and require you upon sight hereof * Commons' Journals, Die Martis, 27 Paper Office. Martii, 1649. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 2 Order Book of the Council of 3rd July, 1649. MS. State Paper State, 3rd July, 1649. MS. State Office. 112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Chap. II. to deliver unto Captain Edward Tomlyns, Comptroller of the Train for Ireland, the arms and ammunition hereunder expressed (which we are informed by certificate from Cap- tain Vernon to be now in the Tower) to be by him presently shipped away for Ireland : and that the great shot be first delivered, that it may serve for ballast to the ships ; of which you are not to fail and for which this shall be your warrant. Given at the Council of State at Whitehall, this 4th of July 1649. " The particulars are — " Cannon of 8 . " 24-lb. bullet . " Demi-cannon . " Culverin " Demi-culverin " Sacre [Saker] " Match — ton . " Matchlock musquets " Powder " Musquet-shot — ton " Grenado-shells, 1 4^-inch " Grenado-shells, 12^-inch " Hand Grenado-shells On the 10 th of July the Council made the following minute respecting the raising of certain regiments of volunteers : — " That, to the end the regiments of foot in the several garrisons may be free to take the field when there is occasion, the Council of State do give commissions for raising such regiments of volunteers near the said garrisons as they shall find necessary ; which additional forces are not to expect pay but when they are employed in service, 200 200 79 226 600 788 50 400 40^ 30 11] 187 200." 2 ' Qy. barrels. State, 4th July, 1649. '^ Order Book of the Council of Paper Office. MS. State 16l9.] CROMWELL'S DEPARTURE FOR IRELAND. 1J3 and are to be in readiness to join with the marching forces or be put into garrisons as the Lord General shall think fit and shall be ordered from time to time by the Parliament in Council of State/' ^ On the evening of that same day, the 1 0th of July, 1649, about five o'clock, the Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land, after prayers for the success of his expedition by three ministers, and an exposition of the Scriptures by himself, Goff, and Harrison in the presence of a large assemblage at Whitehall, set out on his journey to Ireland by the way of Windsor and Bristol. Seven years had made a transformation like that in an ancient fable or Ai'abian tale upon the rustic if not clownish Member for the town of Cambridge, the Huntingdon brewer, and St. Ives and Ely gentleman farmer. He now began his journey amid the acclamations of an immense concourse of spectators "in that state and equipage,'' says a contemporary journal, " as the like hath hardly been seen. Himself in a coach with six gallant Flanders mares, whitish grey, divers coaches accompanying him, and very many great officers of the army ; his life- guard, consisting of eighty gallant men, the meanest whereof a commander or esquire ; in stately habit, and many of them colonels, with trumpets sounding almost to the shaking of Charing Cross had it been now standincr. The Lord Lieutenant's colours are white." ^ The ordinary strength of a regiment of foot appears to have been 10 companies of 100 each, and of a regiment of horse 10 troops of 80 each. On the 10th of July an order was made "That there be added to the present * Order Book of the Council of State, 10th July, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Mod. Intel. July 5-12, 1649, in Cromwelliana, p. 62. 114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. II. establishment of the army, when the Council of State shall see necessary to make up the regiments of foot 1200 the several single companies 120, and the troops of horse 100, and for such time only as the Council of State shall find the safety of the Commonwealth to necessitate the same/' ^ On the 12th of July the Council of State made the following order : — ''In pursuance of the order of the House it is this day ordered that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland shall be allowed from the day of the date of his patent the sum of £\0 per diem as General of the forces of Ireland during the time that he shall continue in England ; and that from the time he arrives in Ireland he shall have and receive as General of the said forces of Ireland the sum of . 1641.] THE IRISH MASSACRE OF 1641. 129 like cattle till they came to a river and then forced them into the water, men women and children, and knocked on the head such as swam to the shore ; to draw others up and down the water with ropes about their necks ; and to hang up, take down and hang up again others several times, to make them confess their money and then dispatch them ; to persuade some with the promise of life to be the executioners of their nearest kindred, and then butcher them upon their murdered relations ; to tempt others by the same promise to conform to the Komish rites, and then murder them lest they should relapse into heresy; to dash out the brains of infants, or bury them alive with their murdered mothers ; and to do many other deeds of horror which I will not write down. A record of them is preserved in the depositions of eye- witnesses attested upon oath, which are published in Sir John Temple's history of that most disgusting massacre, called the Irish Kebellion of 1641. I wiU give one or two of these depositions in the words of the witnesses, — words which are well calculated to leave an impression on the mind of any one who reads them not easily effaced. William Parkinson late of Castle Cumber in the county of Kilkenny deposeth "That he saw Lewes O'Brenan, with his sword drawn, in the said town, pursue an English boy of eight or nine years of age, or thereabouts, by name Richard Bernet, into a house, and saw the said Lewes lead the said boy forth of the house, the blood running about his ears, in a hair-rope ; and he led the boy to his father's tenters and there hanged him with John Banks, another little boy." ^ A youth of about fifteen years of age meeting with his schoolmaster, the latter drew his skein, and began furiously to slash and cut the boy, who cried to him ' Temple, p. 89, ed. Maseres, London, 4to, 1812. 128 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Chap. III. 1641.] THE IRISH MASSACRE OP 1641. 129 IBVii live among them as in a hostile country, with arms ever in their hands, and in habitations like fortified camps. This was thoroughly understood and acted upon by that brave and astute race of men, the Normans, both in Nor- man Cromwell to the Speaker, Dublin, 17th Sept. 1649. 138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. through the goodness of God." ^ In the minute of the Council of State of Saturday 29th of September 1649, ordering a public thanksgiving on the following day in all the churches of London and the neighbouring districts, it is stated tliat "there were about three thousand of the enemy slain and of our men only sixty-five private soldiers and two officers." ^ The reasons which Cromwell in his dispatch to the Speaker assigns for this severity are precisely the same as a British commander might in 1857-8 have assigned for ordering no quarter to be given to sepoys taken in arms, and will be better appreciated now than they were some years ago. " I was persuaded " he says " that there is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future ; which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret." If on the other hand it be asserted that the garrison of Drogheda were not chiefly Irish, since according to Ludlow the royalists had " put ^ Cromwell to Bradsliaw, 16tli Sept. 1649. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Saturai, 29 Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. The following is the minute: — "Whereas it hath pleased God to bless the endeavours of the forces of the Commonwealth against the Irish rebels and their ad- herents in the town of Drogheda which was taken in by storm there being in it a strong garrison of the choice of Ormond's army put into it. There were about three thousand of the enemy slain and of our men only sixty- five private soldiers and two officei-s. It is therefore this day ordered that all the ministers in London &c. do publish the same to the people to-morrow being the Lord's day the 30th of this instant September in their several churches and chapels and stir up the people to give thanks to God for his goodness in still crowning and blessing the endeavours of this Commonwealth, for the settling of peace against the enemies thereof." On the 17th of October the Council of State made an order ' * That a warrant do issue out to Mr. Jackson to pay unto Capt. Porter who brought the good news out of Ire- land of the taking of Drogheda the sum of <£100 according to an order of Parliament made to that purpose.'' — Ibid., 17th October, 1649. 1649.] STORM OF WEXFORD. 139 most of their army into their garrisons, having placed three or four thousand of the best of their men, being mostly English, in the town of Tredagh (Drogheda), and made Sir Arthur Ash ton governor thereof," the answer is that if Englishmen will join with Nana Sahib, they must take the fate of Nana Sahib. In regard to the assertion that women and children were slaughtered in the storm of Drogheda, it is an assertion unproved and most probably altogether false.^ The garrison of Wexford having offered resistance shared the fate of the garrison of Drogheda. Cromwell in his dispatch reckoned that there were lost of the enemy not many less than 2000, while of the besiegers not twenty were killed.^ Most of the other places of strength yielded at his approach, and the Protestant troops under Inchiquin revolted to the Parliament. The season was so far advanced (24th of November) before he attempted Waterford that he was obliged to raise the siege, and soon after retire into winter quarters. He first however reduced Dungarvan, at which place he had the misfortune to lose by a rapid fever his lieutenant- • Mr. Carlyle (Cromwell's Letters, vol. ii. p. 205, note) says the old Par- liamentary History, vol. xix. pp. 207-9, has added after the concluding *' Surgeons, &c.," in Cromwell's list of the slain, "and many inhabitants," of which there is no trace in the, old pam- phlets. And yet M. Guizot in his Histoire de la Republique d'Angleterre et de Cromwell (Paris, 1854), tom. i. p. 91, in quoting the list in question has con- cluded thus — " les chirurgiens et beau- coup d'habitans," and has actually cited Carlyle's Cromwell's Lettei*s as the first of his authorities, adding Pari. Hist. vol. xix. pp. 201-210, &c., without noticing Mr. Cailyle's note on the most important, and as it would appear altogether unwarrantable addi- tion of ' ' many inhabitants, " made by the royalist compilers of the Parlia- mentary History. In regard to the question. Had children or women also imbrued their hands in innocent blood ? the depositions on oath printed in Sir John Temple's History of the Irish Rebellion or Massacre show that they had — not that even this might be a valid ground for retaliating upon them^ and I do not believe that Cromwell's soldiers did so. ■^ Cromwell to the Si)eaker, Wex- ford, 14th October, 1649. 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. 1649.] PREPARATIONS FOR JOHN LILBURNE'S TRIAL. Ul general, Michael Jones, to whom Ireton, with that zeal for the public service and freedom from selfish ends and personal aggrandizement that marked his character, had given way "on observing his greater knowledge of the country and of the service. The character which his com- mander-in-chief, Cromwell, gives him in the dispatch which announces his death, will remain a greater honour to his memory than a monument among the sepulchres of kings. " The noble lieutenant-general," says Cromwell, "whose finger, to our knowledge, never ached in all these expeditions, fell sick, upon a cold taken in our late wet march, and ill accommodation, and went to Dungarvan, where, struggling some four or five days with a fever, he died, having run his course with so much honour, courage, and fidelity, as his actions better speak, than my pen. What England lost hereby is above me to speak ; I am sure I lost a noble friend and companion in labours. You see how God mingles out the cup to us.'' Owen O'Neal, having quarreUed with Ormond, en- deavoured to make his peace with the English Parliament ; but his offers were sternly rejected, and he again united with Ormond. It would appear, from a minute, and a copy of another document in the Order Book of the Council of State, that the number of the troops of the Parliament at that time in Ireland was greater than has been commonly supposed. There is a minute of 1 2th October 1649 "that the pro- position made by Mr. Downes for the furnishing of sixteen thousand suits of foot soldiers cloaths [sic] at 1 7s. per suit and to find packing be accepted of." ^ The Order Book 1 Order Book of the Council of Paper Office. State, 12th October, 1649. MS. State also contains a copy of the " Articles of Agreement between the Council of State and Robert Downes for the furnishing of 16,000 coats and breeches for the soldiers in Ireland." The Irish committee also contracted for 16,000 shirts, 16,000 pairs of stockings, and 16,000 pairs of shoes.^ This seems to show that there was only one shirt allowed for each man, the number of shirts ordered being the same with the number of suits of clothes. John Lilburne had, as has been before mentioned, been committed to the Tower on the 28th of March by an order of the Council of State, " upon suspicion of high treason, for beinfif the author of a scandalous and seditious book intituled England's New Chains Discovered."^ On the 1 7th of July Lilburne had addressed a letter to Lord Grey of Groby, Henry Marten, and two other members of Par- liament, stating that his son had died of the small-pox the day before, and that his wife and two other children were ill, and desiring to be allowed a few days' liberty to visit them. On the following day, the 18th of July, Henry Marten moved the House that he should be liberated on security. This motion was granted, and Lilburne was liberated. But again, on the 19 th of September, an order of the Council of State ' was made for his imprisonment in the Tower, in order to his trial on the charge of new attempts to raise up mutiny in the army, and overturn the Govern- ment. Great preparations were now made for the trial of John 1 Order Book of the Council of tomey- General having given the Coun- State, 30th October, 1649. MS. State cil satisfaction that he hath evidence Paper Office. sufficient against him to witness him 2 Order Book of the Council of guilty of offending the late Act of Par- State, 28th March, 1649. MS. State liament declaring treasons." — Order Paper Office. Book of the Council of State, £t Meri- 3 *'That Mr. John Lilburne shall be die, 19 Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper committed prisoner in the Tower of Office. London, in order to his trial, Mr. At- 142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. Lilburne on these charges. Forty-one persons of station, including one of the Lords Commissioners of the great seal, eight of the judges, three serjeants-at-law, the Lord Mayor of London, and nine aldermen, were appointed the commissioners of this extraordinary commission of Oyer and Terminer.^ Four counsel were appointed assistants to Prideaux the Attorney General.^ The following minutes of the Order Book of the Council of State further show the extraordinary anxiety of the Government to rid them- selves of this active and troublesome, if not formidable, assailant. " That letters be sent to the several judges who are out of town to repair to this town to attend the service of the commonwealth for the trying of some grand offenders according to the late Act. And they are to be here within 1 4 days after the date hereof ^ "That Mr. Ambrose and Andrew Broughton be sent unto to repair unto this town to attend upon the Attorney General and receive directions from him for the carrying on of a charge against Mr. John Lilburne, who is to be tried according to a late act for treasons, and that Mr. Nutley shall be solicitor for this cause.'' * " That letters be written to the militia of London and Westminster to cause sufficient guards to be in a readiness on Wednesday next to prevent any trouble that may arise upon the occasion of the trial of John Lilburne." ^ " To write to the Sheriffs of London to prepare a fit * See the names of the 41 Commis- sioners in State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1269, 1270. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, 19 Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ' Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, 19th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, 19th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Order Book of the Coiincil of State, Die Saturni, 20 Octobris, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 1649.] NEW LAW OF TREASON. 143 place in Guildhall, for the trial of Lt.-Col. John Lilburne, and for the accommodation of the Council of the Common- wealth." ^ " That the letter now presented to the Council to be sent to Major-General Skippon for keeping the peace and preventing danger at Guildhall upon the trial of John Lilburne be signed and sent." "^ The " late act for treasons," referred to in the minutes above recited, was "An Act of the 14th of May 1649 declaring what offences shall be adjudged treason." There was another Act of 1 7th July, 1G49 which was the same as the former, with the addition of a clause respecting coining. Now, while the old English law of treasons required that there should be an attempt to subvert the Government, manifested by an overt act, this new law of treasons of the Government, which styled itself the Commonwealth, enacted that words affirming by writing or otherwise that the government settled in the form of a Commonwealth is tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful, or that the commons assembled in Parlia- ment are not the supreme authority, shall be treason — thereby creating a change in the old constitutional laws of England, which was considered generally a tyrannical innovation. It is evident that the Parliament and Council of State committed a great blunder in tlie whole of this proceeding, both in the change of the law of treason, and in the extraordinary constitution of the tribunal, which they created for the trial of an obnoxious individual, whom they thereby raised to an eminence and importance which probably his own abilities, though far greater than modern * Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunse, 22 Octobris, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, Die Martis, 23 Octobris, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. writers have supposed, could never have obtained for him. And yet, whatever judgment may be formed of his abilities, a man who was a more popular pamphleteer than Milton, who could thwart and irritate such statesmen as Vane and CromweU, and baffle all their efforts for his destruction, naturally excites some curiosity respecting his character and history. It is also important towards &. clear under- standing of the nature of the government then existing in England to enter into some of the details of this trial, from which it will appear that the law-officers of the government called the Commonwealth, both counsel and judges, did not exhibit much, if any, greater fairness towards the prisoner than was exhibited by the counsel and judges of the most despotic times of the Tudors and the Stuarts. Lilburne was by birth a gentleman, though Clarendon in his account of him, which contains more misstatements than it does sentences, says of him " this man before the troubles was a poor bookbinder."^ So far is this state- ment from the truth, that John Lilburne was descended^ of an ancient family, (quite as ancient and as good as Hyde's), that possessed estates in the county of Durham. He was the second son, (his elder brother Robert being a colonel, as he was a lieutenant-colonel in the army of the Parliament), of Richard Lilburne of Thickney Puncharden in the county of Durham, where John Lilburne was born in 1618. His father Richard Lilburne, besides the estate of Thickney Puncharden, was possessed of lands to a considerable value in the county of Durham. John Lilburne, according to a custom at that time very prevalent with regard to the younger sons of good families, for whom the colonies and the Indian Empire did not then afford a provision, had 1 Clar. Hist. vol. vii. p. 44, Oxford, 1826. 1649.] CLARENDON'S MISSTATEMENTS AS TO LILBURNE. 145 been put apprentice at twelve yeare of age to an eminent wholesale clothier near Londonstone ; ^ which may account for what he said on his trial that he did not know Latin or any other language but English. John Lilburne was fully aware, and even rather more than reasonably proud, of the importance in that age of being of a good family. For he is reported to have assigned as one reason for refusing to submit to the domi- nation of Cromwell that he was " as good a gentleman, and of as good a family." And though such men as Cromwell and Bonaparte could well afford to lauc^h at such reasons for refusing allegiance to them, and content themselves with the reflection that their nobility began at Naseby and Monte Notte ; this reverence for family anti- quity is one cause of the stability of hereditary kingship m an old country. Great would have been John Lilburne's wrath could he have returned from the grave and seen the contemptuous terms in which Hyde presumed to speak of him ; of him wliose courage or whose folly, unlike the wisdom and discretion of Hyde, always made him defy a living enemy to his face ; and not wait for the time when he could safely blacken his memory. For Lilburne knew so little of fear, that he was ready on all occasions to fight against any odds. Lilburne said in the course of this trial, " I bless God I have learnt to die, having always carried my life in my hand, ready to lay it down for above this twelve 1 Biog. Brit., art. Lilburne, John. — *'When John Lilburne's cause was pleaded at the bar of the House of Lords in 1640, among other aggrava- tions of the cruelty of the sentence passed upon him by the Judges of the Star Chamber in 1637, it was urged by the managers in his behalf that he was descended from an ancient family in the north, a town in Northumberland still bearing the name of Lilburne, or rather Leisle-boume, by reason of the water called the Bourne that was about it ; and that the arms belonging to the family are three water- budgets, which is an ancient bearing of arms." — Ibid.f note (a). L 146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. years together." This was true to the letter, for he had begun his struggle against tyranny in 1 637, when, though only nineteen years of age, for his undaunted defence of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, he was fined ^oOO, and fiirther ordered to be whipt through the streets, and set in the pillory. The punishment was inflicted with the utmost severity. But nothing could subdue the spirit of John Lilburne. While in the pillory he inveighed bitterly against the tyranny of the bishops, and the government of Charles, and scattered pamphlets among the people, which the Star Chamber then, like the Council of State now, pro- nounced to be seditious. The Star Chamber also, having heard of his speaking in the pillory, ordered him to be gao-cred The joker of the Long Parliament, Henry Marten, is reported to have said of John Lilburne, that '^if there was none Hving but himself, John would be against Lil- burne, and Lilburne against John/' On Monday, the 22nd of October, 1649, there is a minute in the Order Book of the Council of State, " That Colonel Robert Lilburne be called in to hear what he hath to propound to the Council."^ Though no further infor- mation is afi^orded by the Order Book as to what Colonel Robert Lilburne had to propound to the Council of St^te, there is no doubt that his business with the Coimcil related to a proposition made by his brother, John Lilburne. On that same day a petition from Colonel Robert Lilburne, and Elizabeth Lilburne, the wife of Lieut. -Col. John Lilburne, was presented "to the right honourable the supreme authority of this nation, the Commons of England in Parhament assembled, in the behalf of Lieut.-Col. John Lilburne, prisoner in the Tower of London." It is 1 Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 468. State, Die Luna., 22 Octobris, 1649. 2 Order Book of the Council of MS. State Paper Office. 1649.] PETITION OF COLONEL ROBERT LILBURNE. 14? good evidence in favour of the private character of John Lilburne, that both his wife and his brother Robert were most devotedly attached to him. In this petition the petitioners say " considering his principles are a burthen to this State, they do most humbly present their assurance and confidence of his purpose to withdraw himself into some foreign country, desiring he may have his money, which is necessary to his and his family's subsistence in their transplantation, and convenient time to prepare him- self to go.'' ' This petition was however altogether fruit- less. The proposition which Colonel Robert Lilburne had to make to the Council of State on the 22nd of October, referred to in the minute of that date, was a proposition of John Lilburne entituled "The Innocent Man's Second ^ Proffer: made unto his present adversaries, Oct. 22, 1649, and communicated unto them by his loving Brother, Col! Robert Lilburne. " This proposition is in the form of a letter to his brother, dated - Tower Oct. 22 ] 649," and thus com- mences, " Brother ; In answer to your late letter, I can make no other proposition, besides what is in my letter to Mr. Hevenningham of the 20th present, than this. That seeing myself, and the principles I profess, are a burthen to the * State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1424, 1425. 2 "The Innocent Man's First Proffer" was a proposition of Lt.-Col. John Lilburne in the form of a letter dated Tower of London Oct. 20, 1649 to William Hevenningham, Esq. of He- venningham, in Suffolk, a member of the Council of State, to submit the judgment of his cause to a tribunal composed of one of the twelve judges chosen by himself and such of the other eleven as his adversaries shaU choope, provided the hearing be public, and the judges give their judgment in writing with their reasons for it, and provided he may choose two friends to take notes of all the proceedings with- out danger to their persons, liberties or estates. The letter thus commences : "Honoured Sir; Having sometimes the opportunity to discourse with you, there appeared that in you unto me, that gives me encouragement to pick you out above all men that now remain sitting in your House, to write a few lines unto, in as moderate a way as my condition and provocations will permit Dae." — State TnaU^ vol. iv. pp. 1421- 1423. L 2 148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. men in present power, therefore (for peace and quietness' sake only), I will engage, (enjoying my money and my immediate liberty), that I will within six months' time transport myself into some part of the West Indies/' He then adds a proviso that all those that are free and willing to go with him, of what quality soever, may have free liberty to go, and may have their arrears or money lent to the public paid to them. He concludes by saying that seeing he knows no plantation already planted, he would sooner choose to be cut to pieces in England than engage singly to go alone. » This propo- sition was as fruitless as the petitions of his wife and brother. • • « ti On the 23rd a remarkable petition, entituled "The humble petition of the well-affected, in and about the city of London, Westminster, and parts adjacent," was offered to the House, with most earnest and importunate solicitation to have it received, but neither the serjeant-at-arms, nor any member would so much as touch it, the former telling the petitioners that the House would not receive any petition in Lieut.-Col. Lilburne's behalf ; although they had them- selves declared that it is the right of the people of England to petition, and their duty to receive petitions, even though against law established. Some passages of this petition srt some of the proceedings of the existing Government in a very striking light. " Every one believed," say the petitioners, " that after the expulsion of the greater number of the mem- bers of this honourable House (as betrayers of their trust) a new representation should immediately have been ordered, according to that model of an Agreement of the People, tendered by the Council of the Army, or in • State TrUls, vol. iv. p. 1426. 1649.] PETITION FOE A NEW PARLIAMENT. 149 some other way. And that because that honourable Coun- cil in their declaration of December last, declared ' That they should not look on the remaining part as a former standing power to be continued ; but in order unto and until the introducing of a more fuU and formal power in a just representative to be speedily endeavoured by an Agreement of the People.' " And we were the more confident hereof, because they had formerly declared also, 'That where the supreme authority was fixed in the same persons during tlieir own pleasure, it rendered that Government no better than a tyranny, and the people subject thereunto, no better than vassals : That by frequent elections men come to taste of subjection as well as of rule,' (and are thereby obliged for their own sakes to be tender of the good of the people), so that considering those expressions, and those extraordinary things done (declaredly) for a speedy new elected Parlia- ment ; how it should come not only to be wholly deferred, but to be matter of blame for us, or any of our friends, earnestly to desire what is so evidently just and necessary in itself, and so essential to the liberties of the nation perplexeth us above measure ; and we intreat some satis- faction therein. " And truly, when you had voted the people under God to be the original of all just power, and the chosen repre- sentatives of the people the supreme authority, we con- ceived that you did it to convey those righteous principles (which we and our friends long laboured for) to the next full and formal representative, and not that you intended to have exercised the supreme law-making power. Much less that such ensnaring laws should ever have issued from a House of Commons, so often and so exceedmgly purged (intentionally by the army) for the freedom of the Com- Ii8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. in present power, therefore (for peace and quietness' lake only), I will engage, (enjoying my money and my immediate liberty), that I will within six months' time tmnHport myself into some part of the West Indies." He then adds a proviso that all those that are free and willing to go with him, of what quality soever, may have free liberty to go, and may have their arrears or money lent to tlie public paid to them. He concludes by saying that seeing he knows no plantation already planted, ho would sooner choose to be cut to pieces in England than engage singly to go alone. » This propo- sition was as fruitless as the petitions of his wife and brother. On the 23rd a remarkable petition, entituled "The bumble petition of the welUaffected, in and about the city of London, Westminster, and parts adjacent," was offered to the House, with most earnest and importunate solicitation to have it received, but neither the serjeant-at-arms, nor any member would so much as touch it, the former telling the petitioners that the House would not receive any petition in Lieut.-Col. Lilbume's behalf ; although they had them- selves declared that it is the right of the people of England to petition, and their duty to receive petitions, even though against law established. Some passages of this petition set some of the proceedings of the existing Government in a very striking light. " Every one believed/' say the petitioners, '* that afler the expulsion of the greater number of the mem- bers of this honourable House (as betrayers of their trust) a new representation should immediately have been ordered, according to that model of an Agreement of the People, tendered by the Council of the Army, or in ' State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1426. 1649.] PETITION FOR A NEW PARLIAMENT. 149 some other way. And that because that honourable Coun- cil in their declaration of December last, declared ' That they should not look on the remaining part as a former standing power to be continued ; but in order unto and until the introducing of a more full and formal power in a just representative to be speedily endeavoured by an Agreement of the People.' " And we were the more confident hereof, because they had formerly declared also, 'That where the supreme authority was fixed in the same persons during their own pleasure, it rendered that Government no better than a tyranny, and the people subject thereunto, no better than vassals : That by frequent elections men come to taste of subjection as well as of rule,' (and are thereby obliged for their own sakes to be tender of the good of the people), so that considering those expressions, and those extraordinary things done (declaredly) for a speedy new elected Parlia- ment ; how it should come not only to be wholly deferred, but to be matter of blame for us, or any of our friends, earnestl}^ to desire what is so evidently just and necessary in itself, and so essential to the liberties of the nation perplexeth us above measure ; and we intreat some satis- faction therein. " And truly, when you had voted the people under God to be the original of all just power, and the chosen repre- sentatives of the people the supreme authority, we con- ceived that you did it to convey those righteous principles (which we and our friends long laboured for) to the next full and formal representative, and not that you intended to have exercised the supreme law-making power. Much less that such ensnaring laws should ever have issued from a House of Commons, so often and so exceedingly purged (intentionally by the army) for the freedom of the Com- 150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. 1649.] PETITION FOR A NEW PARLIAIVIENT. 151 monwealth, as is your Act against treason, wherein, con- trary to the course of former Parliaments and to Magna Charta, so many things are made treason, that it is ahnost impossible for any to discourse with any affection for per- formance of promises and engagements, or for the liberties of the nation, but he is in danger of his life,' if judges and juries should take it for good law, which God forbid. "Also your Act for continuance and receipt of excise, (which everyone hoped upon the prevaiUng of the army would have had a final end), to trade more oppressive than all the patents, projects, and ship-money put together. "Also your Act for continuance and strict receipt of customs was exceeding cross to exportation, that and the other for excise being esteemed most destnictive to all kinds of commerce, shipping, and navigation, and are so chargeable in the receipt, as that if what is disbursed to oflficers and collectors were raised in an ordinary way of * The Order Book of the Council of State furnishes full confirmation of this statement in the frequent orders for proceedings against persons on the charge of speaking against or using menacing words against the Parliament and Council of State, and on suspicion of treason. There are also many- minutes relating to the taking down obnoxious placards that have been fixed on churches and public places. Thus on the 22nd of November 1649 we find the following ordere : "That George Wharton be committed to New- gate for suspicion of treason and that a wanant be issued for that purpose." *' That a wan'ant do issue for the ap- prehending of John Wingfield for speak- ing menacing words against the Parlia- ment and Council of State." — Oi'der Book of the Council of State, Die Jovis, 22 Novenibris 1649. MS. State Paper Office. On the following day a warrant is issued for the apprehension of Francis Leyton of the Charterhouse "for speaking of words dangerous to the Commonwealth."— /6icZ., Die Vene- ris, 23 Nov. 1649. Warrant for ap- prehending one John Hinde for speak- ing opprobrious language against the Parliament.— /6^fZ., 30 Octobris 1642. "That the printed paper that was taken down from the church door in Covent Garden and brought to this Council be reported to the House by Col. Wauton." "That the marshalls be directed to pull down all scandalous papers that they shall find posted up and to apprehend all such as shall countenance the same." — Ihid., Die Saturni, 17 Novembris 1649. A man like their Attorney- General Prideaux would perhaps have sought to make out reading or even looking at these posters to be " countenancing the same." % subsidies, it would go very far towards the public charge, which it was hoped you would have seriously laid to heart, and have prepared a way to have eased the nation of both, and to have raised all public moneys by way of subsidies.* *' It was also expected upon the prevailing of the army, and the reduceraent of this honourable House, that the printing presses should have been fully opened and set at free liberty, for the clear information of the people, the stop- ping of them having been complained of as a great oppression in the bishops' times, and in the times of the late unpurged Parliament, rather than such an Act against all unlicensed printing, writing, or publishing, as for strictness and severity was never before seen in England, and is ex- tremely dissatisfactory to most people. " What a sad thing, we beseech you, is it, that it should be thus in this nation, in the first year of England's liberty, (as you would have it esteemed), which in our apprehension exceeds in misery and thraldom the worst of England's bondage. For, besides what hath been mentioned, what is more frequent than to examine men against themselves, to imprison men by votes of committees, to seize upon men's persons by pursuivants and messengers, to swear men against themselves ; taxes and impositions never so high, and soldiers ^ (not civil ofiicers) set to gather them, to the terror of the people ; and, upon the least denial, either violence or an imprisonment certainly ensueth ; lawyers in eiffect are said to rule all, the laws are trod under foot by * The celebrated Marquis of Halifax in a tract intituled " An Essay upon Taxes calculated for the present Junc- ture of Affairs, 1693," endeavours to show the mischievous as well as unjust nature of the excise, in place of which method of raising money he proposes ' ' that of the antient way of subsidy, upon a true pound rate, according to the wisdom and constant practice of our ancestors, as the most equal, most reasonable, and most suitable to our con- dition," 2 I have given some instances of this from the minutes of the Order Book of the Council of State. 152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. tbem, and wrested to what sense they please/ and law- suits extended beyond all reason, in respect of time and charge ; then (as is verily supposed) having evaded the clear intentions of this House, and perverted the just in- tentions of the army, poor impotent prisoners for debt and small oiFences abound, and starve in prisons, through poverty and the cruelty of lawyers and gaolers, and the poor abroad even perish for want of employment, and through the excessive price of food,^ and few or none lay these things to heart ; and if any do, and become pas- sionately affected therewith, and but speak their minds freely thereof, or (as hath been usual and commendable) endeavour to get people together in meetings, and propose petitions for redress, the Puritans were never more reproached in the bishops' times, nor the Independents and Anabaptists in the late defection of Parliament than now all such are, with more odious titles (or the same in a more odious form) as Atheists, Levellers, Libertines, in- troducers of monarchy, anarchy, and confusion ; which are poisoned arrows shot principally at us and our friends, though most unjustly, none hating or abhorring either the principles or the practice more than we or our relations. " To om* understandings this is truly our miserable condition, and the sad condition of the Commonwealth, and which is the more grievous, because in a time when upon promise in the presence of God and with appeals to His most righteous judgments, we justly expected the clearest and largest freedoms, with even a total redress of all grievances, and which is no small addition to our * Some remarkable examples of this ^ These statements are confirmed will be seen in the trial of Lilburne by the evidence of various minutes in which follows. the Order Book of the Council of State. 1649.] PETITION FOR A NEW PARLIAMENT. 153 sorrow, that we are wounded thus sorely, by the hands whence we expected our most perfect cure. " So that w^hat to say or do, we are exceedingly to seek, and therefore we most humbly and ardently beseech the divine goodness to vouchsafe you a true Christian-like spirit of condescension, whereby you may be inclined to appoint some impartial persons to inform our understand- ings aright of many things here complained of, that if we be, we may appear to have been mistaken, professing from our consciences, that as yet we are confirmed in these our apprehensions of things, not only from our own reasons, but from the declarations, promises, and engagements of parliaments ; and we trust, this way of reasoning out of differences will appear more like unto the ways of God, than by force or threats to stop our mouths, or suppress our understandings. " Also that God will soften your hearts, that you may instantly look back from whence you are fallen, to the just ends for which the army reserved you together, and then we would beseech you to render up unto the people their long withheld right of new elections, and a new elected parliament ; and to fulfil your promises concerning Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right.'' ^ On the same day, the 23rd of October, Colonel Robert Lilburne presented another petition from himself, in which, after alluding to the failure of the petition presented the day before in his own and his sister's name in behalf of his dear brother, and adding, " yet so strong are my afiections towards him, not only as a brother, but as con- fident of his integrity, and that he hath been very serviceable formerly in his generation, though possibly accompanied with human frailties, but also exceedingly » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1427-1430. 154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. afflicted Tvith the long-continued sufferings of his faithful, dear, and now almost distracted wife," and further stating his belief that if the proceedings against his brother should be suspended for some reasonable time he should be able to prevail with him to give no further disturbance to the Government, he says : " And therefore as an humble servant and faithful soldier of yours, for whose safety and preservation I have often readily adventured my life, I have taken the boldness again to presume upon your serious affairs, and most humbly and earnestly to entreat, as the only favour that ever you intend towards me, that you would be pleased to vouchsafe upon this my humble suit, that my dear brother's trial may for some reasonable time yet be suspended." ^ Upon the delivery of this, Mrs. Lilburne, perceiving that nothing would satisfy them but her husband's life, and having been extremely shocked by the revilings and threats of the members, but especially, says the contem- porary report, "old Mr. Valentine that used her most unworthily and basely," went home to the Tower to her husband in a half-distracted condition, and with much im- portunity, in the bitterness of her spirit, besought her husband to stoop as low as possibly he could for the safety of his life, in the preservation of which hers was locked up. " Her bitter mourning and crying " says the report, " and the beholding the anguish of spirit of her that had been so faithful and hazardous a yoke-fellow to him in his above seven years' sorrow, wrung from him, with much a-do," a letter to the Speaker which is dated from the Tower 24th Oct. 1649, and in which he says, *' Honoured Sir ; As a man being somewhat at present confounded in myself, through a strong confidence in my own innocency » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1431, U32. 1649.] JOHN LILBURNE'S LETTER TO THE SPEAKER. 155 (having suffered above measure, but intentionally done injury to none) and pressed under with the importunity of friends, especially with the heart-breaking sighs of my dear, but even half- distracted wife ; as when my late children lay in a most disconsolate condition (which ended their lives) your House did me the favour to grant me my liberty to visit them, which I think was the saving of her life : So now greater importunities lying upon me from divers, and her that is dearer to me than many lives, I as earnestly entreat you to move your House, in the most effectual manner you can, that my trial (so suddenly in- tended) may for some reasonable time be suspended, that so I may have time to hear and consider what many of them say they have to offer by way of reason and argu- ment to persuade me to what at present my conscience is not convinced of ....... Upon the knowledge of the acceptance of which, during all that time of suspension of trial, I do hereby faithfully promise not in the least to disturb those that shall grant me this favour." ^ This letter however was of no avail, and only added to his wife's sorrow. So that Lilburne got his friends to prevail on her to go into the city and there to keep her till his trial was over. I have repeatedly had occasion to notice the sensitiveness of the Government on the subject of the expression of any opinions except such as were favourable to themselves. In regard to the liberty of the press they had all along been as arbitrary and tyrannical as Henry the Eighth or Arch- bishop Laud ; but, in the atrocious act which has been cited, and which adjudged what by the English law was merely liable to the punishment of libel to be high treason, they not only went beyond any former English tyrant, but » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1432, 1433. 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. beyond themselves. What the Star Chamber, directed by the savage intolerance of Laud, had punished with the pillory, and mutilation, they punished with death ; at least they sought to punish with death, for they found that an English jury would not carry out their law, and this very fact proves that the people were disposed so far to take Lilburne's advice as " not to side with or fight for the chimeras, fooleries, and pride of the present men in power/' And chimeras they were, the imaginations that those men or any of them entertained that the government they had established was a republic, and that it would last. I do not say that an actual republic — a democracy— such as Lilburne and his friends denominated the Levellers aimed at would have secured the end of good government— but it would at least have had the merit of being what it called itself. It might have been a tyranny no less, or it might have fallen to pieces at once ; but it would not have been an ohgarchical tyranny under the name of a republic. Moreover there is one thing that seems a little strange. Even the panegyrists of Vane and Marten do not claim more for them than that, after the battle of Worcester, to- wards the close of the third year of their Commonwealth, they began to have doubts respecting Cromwell's designs. Now long before that time, more than two years before, Lil- burne had declared, in several of his publications that the " false Saint Oliver/' as he calls him, was aiming at the supreme power. His very words read against him at this trial in October 1649 actually came to pass to the very letter, three or four years after they were written and pub- lished. "The present contest of the present dissembling interest of Independents for the people's liberties in general" - he says *' is merely no more but self in the highest, and to set up the false saint, and most desperate apostate, mur- 1649.] LILBURNE'S PREDICTIONS RESPECTING CROMWELL. 157 derer/ and traitor, Oliver Cromwell, by a pretended elec- tion of his mercenary soldiers, under the false name of the godly interest, to be King of England, (that being now too apparently all the intended Hberties of the people that ever he sought for in his life) ; that so he might rule and govern them by his will and pleasure, and so destroy and evassalize their lives and properties to his lusts : which is the highest treason that ever was committed or acted in this nation in any sejise or kind; either, 1. in the eye of the law: or, 2. in the eye of the ancient (but yet too much arbitrary) proceedings of Parliament : or, 3. in the eye of their own late declared principles of reason (by pretence of which, and by no rules of law in the least, they took away the late king's head)." ^ Now Lilburne published this in the summer of 1649, and the very men, who now in October 1649 sought to destroy him for promulgating such opinions, such men as Bradshaw, Vane, Marten, Scot, when at last the proceed- ings of the memorable 20th of April 1653 opened their * In his *' Legal Fundamental Liber- ties of England," p. 1, Lilburne says, " I positively accuse Mr. Oliver Crom- well for a wilful murderer for murder- ing Mr. Richard Arnold near Ware." To which the Attorney-Greneral's answer was, ' * Which man, my lord, was con- demned for a mutineer by a council of war, where the Lord- Lieutenant of Ire- land was but one member ; and the Parliament gave him and the rest of the Council thanks for shooting that mutinous soldier to death ; and yet Mr. Lilburne calls him murderer there- fore ; and this is laid to my Lord- Lieutenant's charge for his part." In answer to the Attorney- General Lil- burne talked of the Petition of Right, and cited the case of the Earl of Straf- ford, which in fact is not a pamllel case. — State Trials^ vol. iv. pp. 1367, 1368. This charge of murder against Cromwell is one of the weakest points of Lilburne's case. 2 From * ' An Impeachment of High Treason against Oliver Cromwell, and his son-in-law Henry Ireton, esquires, members of the late forcibly-dissolved House of Commons ; presented to pub- lic view, by Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne, close prisoner in the Tower of London, for his real, true and zealous affections to the liberties of his native country," page 5, cited in State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1359, 1360. ^ Tt 158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. 1649.] ''SELF IN THE HIGHEST." 159 eyes, must have been forced to admit that Lilburne^s opinion of Cromwell was right and that theirs was wrong. Marten, when he saw his beloved oligarchy, which he called a republic, destroyed, precisely as Lilburne had predicted four years before, might feel when too late that, when making jokes on John Lilburne for the amusement of CromweU, he somewhat resembled the fowl comfortably at roost on the boa constrictor, though destined for part of that animal's supper. The cause of Lilburne's seeing the truth so much sooner may have been this. Lilburne, who was unquestionably an acute, observing, clear-sighted man, had occasion to see Cromwell under circumstances more calculated to bring out his whole character than those under which the parlia- mentary men who were not soldiers saw him. To the latter he could wear a mask, or even a mask within a mask. Now it would happen at times that all his masks would drop off or be thrown aside in the tumult of those stormy debates that sometimes occurred in the councils of the officers of the army. Lilburne has himself described one of those stormy scenes in a passage which has an instructive significance, and which hke that already quoted is one of those pro- duced against him at his trial by the Attorney- General " But alas, poor fools ! " he says, " we were merely cheated and cozened, it being the principal unhappiness to some of us, as to the flesh, to have our eyes wide open, to see things long before most honest men came to have their eyes open. And this is that which turns to our smart and reproach, and that which we commissioners feared at the first, viz. That no tie, promises, nor engage- ments were strong enough to the grand jugglers and leaders of the army, was now made clearly manifest; for when it came to the Council, there came the general, Cromwell, and the whole gang of creature-colonels, and other officers, and spent many days in taking it all to pieces, and there Ireton showed himself an absolute kino- if not an emperor ; against whose will no man must dis- pute. And then Shuttlecock, Eoe their scout, Okey, and Major Barton (where Sir Hardress Waller sat president) began in their open council to quarrel with us, by givin^y some of us base and unworthy language ; which procured them from me a sharp retortment of their own baseness and unworthiness unto their teeth, and a challenge from myself into the field. Besides, seeing they were like to fight with us in the room in their own garrison, which when Sir Hardress Waller in my ear reproved me for it, I justified it, and gave it him again, for suffering us to be so affronted. And within a little time after, I took my leave of them for a pack of dissembling, juggling knaves, amongst whom in consultation ever thereafter I should scorn to come (as I told some of them) ; for there was neither faith, truth, nor common honesty among them. And so away I went to those that chose and entrusted me, and gave publicly and effectually (at a set meeting appointed on purpose) to divers of them, an exact account how they had dealt with us, and cozened and deceived us ; and so absolutely discharged myself from meddling or making any more with so perfidious a generation of men, as the Great Ones of the army were ; but especially the cunningest of Machiavehans, commissary Henry Ireton.'' ^ If Lilburne's view of the character of Ireton be accepted as the true one, Ireton's ulterior designs must be considered as not less fatal to constitutional liberty than those of 1 From Lilburne's "Legal Funda- and vindicated," page 35, cited in State mental Liberties of England asserted Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1368, 1369. 160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. Cromwell. But I am still of the opinion expressed in a former page that Ireton was sincere in his profession of political faith, and that though a fanatic in his way, " self in the highest,'' to use Lilburne's happy expression, was not his god as it was that of Cromwell. In regard to Cromwell " the grand juggler," and his " gang of creature- colonels,'' there is, as I have said, an instructive significance in the passage I have quoted above. Cromwell's whole nature was so thoroughly imbued with craft, that when we consider that his unsleeping vigilance in the contrivance of snares was assisted by great natural sagacity and astute- ness, by promptitude of decision and unbounded daring, we see that he gradually must have enveloped the men who sat and talked at Westminster in net within net, like so many flies in the wide-spread and powerful web of a huge and active spider. The fact is, that even with much less employment of spider machinery Cromwell might have accomplished his end. The victorious general of an army which has rendered itself all-powerful can always make himself supreme if he be so minded. Washington might have done so, if " self in the highest " had been his god. In 1782, AVashington refused, "with great and sorrowful surprise " (these were his words) the supreme power and the crown, which certain discontented officers offered him. A far greater soldier than either Washington or Cromwell, Hannibal, might have had, according to the worshippers of successful crime, a more glorious end, if, after the battle of Cann^, he had turned his victorious army to the destruction of his own country's constitution, such as it was. But Hannibal, though making no pretensions, like Cromwell, to saintship, was content to employ his unequalled strategic genius in overreaching and destroying enemies who were on their guard against him, not in overreaching and destroying 1649.] "SELF IN THE HIGHEST." 161 friends and colleagues who trusted him. And in strancre contrast to the English Christian, the Carthaginian heathen to borrow the eloquent words of Arnold, - from his child- hood to his latest hour, in war and in peace, through glory and through obloquy, amid victories and amid disappoint- ments, ever remembered to what purpose his father had devoted him, and withdrew no thought or desire or deed from their pledged service to his country. "^ There is an English word, treachery, which means per- fidy, that IS, breach of faith, or breach of trust. There is another English word, treason, which means a breach of faith or of trust against the State, in other words treachery not against a private individual, but against the public individual, or body of individuals, as representing all the individuals composing the State or nation. But there is a particular kind of this treachery, perfidy, or breach of trust agamst the State, for which the English language happily has no name, but which in the French language ha^ received the name of coup d'etat The particular act which has received this fine name is an act of perfidy, treachery or breach of trust against the State, performed by some i^di- vidual placed in a position of special trust, and therefore of extraordmary power ; which position oflen enables him to make his treachery or treason successful. Charles I at- tempted some acts of this kind, but his brains were far from equal to the successful performance of them. Now, although to overreach and destroy friends who trust you and are off their guard is a far easier business, and requires far smaller abilities, than to overreach and destroy armed enemies, who are watching all your slightest movements, it still requires a certain portion of ability, chiefly of that kind which can simulate friendliness, frankness, and truthfulness towards * AmoUl's History of Rome, vol. iii. p. .387. M 162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. men whom you intend to destroy. Of this fav in the afternoon for the prohibiting of the walking in the streets after [blank in orig.] of the night."— Orrfe?- Book of the Council of State, Die Jovis, 22 November, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. The hour after which the streets were unsafe specified in Somers' Tracts and other authorities was 9 o'clock. ^^smmiBgm^ 1649.] BUSINESS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 165 degree to colour or exaggerate it, I will give in the words of the original. A minute of the 14th November 1649 sets forth the following facts and provisions ' respecting those facb?. " Whereas there are daily great robberies and outrages committed not only in the highways on passengers travelling on their lawful occasions, but also many houses broken open and murders committed, whereby the very trade atid com- merce of this commonwealth is in danger to be ruined : for prevention therefore of such mischiefs in the future it is ordered that the directions following be put in due execution. " 1 . That of the two regiments upon the guards for London and Westminster the officers take care to send out ten men out of every troop daily eight miles to scour the roads about London, viz. Kumford, Epping, Waltham, Barnet, Uxbridge, Brentford, Shooter's Hill, Kingston, and Croydon roads. " 2. That twenty horse ^ be upon the guard upon every road in two several guards which are to correspond one with another by scouts. " That every constable provide an able guide well ac- quainted with the several roads and ways and an able horse » By a former minute of 24th Council to be from them presented to October 1649 it is ordered ''that it be the House." — Order Book of tJte referred to the committee that consults Council of State, Die Mercurii, 24 with the officers of the army, to whom October, 1649. MS. Stat« Paper Office, are to be added for this purpose only 2 j^ describing in a former page the the Lords Commissioners of the Great arms of the "horse," I ought to have Seal, the Chief Justices of both benches, added that they sometimes at least and the Lord Chief Baron, to consider were armed with musquetoons as well how the soldiers may be assistant to as pistols, as appears from the foUow- the civil power for preventing of the ing passage of Ludlowe's Memoirs :- robberies murthers and outrages com- *' The committee of Irish affairs raised mitted upon the highways and in also a troop consisting of a hundred houses, and to consider of some reward horse to accompany me, and armed and encouragement to be given them them with back, breast, head-pieces, for that purpose, and that they also pistols, and musquetoons."— i/iM^^o^g'i draw up an Act to be offered to the McTnoirs, p. 128, folio. London, 1751. 166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. to the end the said guide so accommodated may (upon any robbery) give speedy notice to the next guards and so con- duct them in pursuit of the robbers as occasion may require, and that upon notice the justices of peace respectively give order to the constables for the doing thereof, the charge of the same to be borne by the respective towns. "3. That no soldier pass above five miles from his quarter but by a pass from the field officer or chief officer present with the regiment. " 4. That the officer of every troop and party that shall have the charge of any guard for this service give order every night to all innkeepers alehouse-keepers or victuallers that shall lodge travellers to give an account to the officer of the guard in writing of the number of all guests that lodge in every such inn and alehouse or victualling-house with a description of their wearing clothes, with the marks and colour of the horse of every person to be set down in writing. " .5. That the captain of every guard give order to all innkeepers that lodge guests before they depart such place that they show themselves to the captain of the guard to be examined by the said captain ; and the said captain is to secure aU suspicious persons to be further examined by the next justice of the peace. « 6. That the quartering of the rest of the regiments of horse upon the several roads in this commonwealth for the purpose aforesaid be referred to the special and speedy care of his Excellency and the Council of War. « 7. That his Excellency and Council of War be desired to appoint such and so many troops as by them shall be thought requisite for securing the highways kc. within fifty miles of London more or less as they shall see cause, and the places of their abode with such particular direc- tions and orders as to them shall seem fit. No trooper or a-n* ^it'— .■ "-TmAaA fcatfcAia ^ytj-^W. ^yStTtS^ZSX^^iJ&a&gi xjiSiAJ>i:wlSlKu»3i;aS^;s:i^i^ 1649.] BOBBERS, THIEVES, AND PIRATES. 167 foot soldier stirring from the place he shall be quartered in above one mile, or to the next market town, upon pain to be punished by a Council of War, unless he have a pass from his field officer or the chief officer then present with the regiment ; and the said officers eveiy week are to give an account in writing to his Excellency and Council of War of their proceedings therein." ^ While a portion of the land forces was thus employed against robbers, a portion of the fleet was employed against pirates. Thus on the 24th of August 1649 Col. Popham is informed by the Council of State of the depre- dations committed on the eastern coast upon merchant ships, which are carried into Dunkirk and Ostend contrary to treaty ; and he is desired " to go over to that coast, making use of the countenance of those great ships which are now going out, and to expostulate the business with the governors of those places.'' And again on the 3rd of Sept. 1649 it is ordered "That a letter be written to the generals of the fleet with information of some pirates pre- paring to come out of Dunkirk to spoil the fishermen." It further appears from the Order Book that the Court of Admiralty was a good deal occupied with the business of trying pirates, who abounded considerably in those days.^ The officers of the Council were often wounded and sometimes killed in the execution of their duty. The fol- * Order Book of the Council of State, 14 Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. As a further illustration of the spirit with which the Council of State acted I am tempted to give here the minute that immediately follows in the Order Book. " That the forms of the medals which are now brought in to be given to the several mariners who have done good service this last sum- mer be approved of — viz. the arms of the Commonwealth on one side with Meruisti written above it and the pic- ture of the House of Commons on the other." — Order Bool: of the Council of State, 15 Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 24th August, and 3rd and 11th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 168 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. lowing minute describes a case of this kind. " That it be reported to the Parliament that there hath been two of the officers of this Council slain while they were about the execution of a warrant of this Council for the appre- hension of a malefactor, and one other wounded, and all these by a dagger, and that the Council making inquiry thereinto do find that use of daggers and pocket-pistols do grow very common and the danger thereby be great : — to desire the House to consider of a way to prevent that mischief by forbidding the making or the use of daggers, stilettos, or pocket-pistols." ^ There are various other minutes throwing light on the condition of London at that time, and showing that though this government of a Council of State held its power and place by virtue of a victorious army, its position w^as by no means one that indicated a settled and tranquil state of society. The following minutes and orders of 30th August 1649 may be given as evidence. " That it be reported to the House that Sir Kenelm Digby is now in England without licence for aught that is known to the Council and that they conceive him a dangerous man, and to desire the House to declare their pleasure concerning him." " That the same report be made concerning Mr. Walter Montague." ^ * Order Book of the Council of State, Die Mercurii, 13th Feb. 16fg. By the time Oldham wrote his imita- tion of the third satire of Juvenal, 1682, pocket pistols had become the ordinary weapon of the robber. When the shops are closed, he says *' Hither in flocks from Shooter's Hill they come, To seek their prize and booty nearer home : 'Your purse !' they cry ; 'tis mad- ness to resist, Or strive, with a cocked pistol at vour breast. And these each day so strong and numerous grow, The town can scarce afford them jail- room now." 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 30th August, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 1649.] THE KING'S PLATE CONVERTED INTO COIN, &c. 169 " That a warrant be issued for the seizing of a cabinet in the custody of Mrs. Sbepheard [wife of a tailor] in Wliyte Fryars belonging to some of Sir Robert Heath's sons." ^ " That all the keys of all the gates and doors of St. James's Park and of all back doors into the same be delivered unto Colonel Pride; and that all the doors belonging to private houses that come into the park be also railed up; and that a warrant be also issued to Colonel Pride for that purpose." ^ " That a letter be written to the Earl of Pembroke to let him know of what course is taken about the doors of St. James's Park ; and that it is done for the safety of the Council that there may be no attempt upon the garrison." ^ On the following day there was an order that the late king's plate be melted down and converted into coin ; and that the gilt plate be improved to the best advantage. The hangings, carpets, chairs, stools, and beds were ordered to be reserved for furnishing the lodgings of the Council of State. It was also ordered at the same time " That rooms at Hamp- ton Court be reserved furnished for the use of the Common- wealth " ; * i. e. for the use of some score or two of indi- viduals who called themselves the Commonwealth. On the 20th of September a sort of Committee of Safety was appointed for six months with extraordinary powers for apprehending suspected persons. This com- mittee consisted of the Lord General (Fairfax), the Lord President of the Council of State (Bradshaw), Mr. Scott, and Sir William Armyue." ^ * Order Book of the Council of State, 30th August, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, 30th August, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, 30th August, 1649. * Order Book of the Council of State, 31st August, 1649. * Order Book of the Council of State, 20th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. This government of England in the year 1649, which year they were pleased to denominate " the first year of England's liberty/' determined, like other despotisms, whether of one or of a few or of many, to be its own news writer. On the 21st of September it was ordered by the Council of State "That Mr. Frost (their secretary) shall be the person whom the Council doth authorize to publish intelligence every week upon Thursday according to an Act of Parliament to that purpose.''^ Only two days before they had issued a warrant to apprehend Charles Collins "for publishing a treasonable and seditious libel intituled The Outcry of the Ajp- prentices,'' ^ It may be superfluous to say that Milton's noble defence of the freedom of the press, of the liberty of unlicensed printing, had no influence on the Parlia- ment to whom it was addressed. It was treated by them pretty much as John Knox's arguments for a suitable provision for the Church of Scotland were treated by the nobility of Scotland. In such times the argu- ments of men, who do not wield the sword as well as the pen, avail nothing. Indeed it may be contended on the part of those statesmen who then governed England, that at such a time they had no choice, and that, if they had not done all that was in their power to hinder the press from being employed in the service of their adversaries, they would have shown themselves to be pedants and dreamers and not statesmen. But however this may be, there can be no question that they committed a blundering as well as a tyrannical act, when they attempted to make bare words treasonable and punishable with death. If, what with political adversaries, with pirates, robbers, » Order Book of the Council of ^ Qrder Book of the Council of State, 21st Sept. 1649. MS. State State, 19th Sept. 1649. Paper Office. 1649.] LODGINGS IN WHITEHALL FOR COUNCIL OF STATE. I7l and thieves, and with unscavengered streets, the members of the Council of State did not live at home altogether at ease, while Cromwell, Ireton, Michael Jones, and others roughed it in Ireland, they evidently took thought how to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances per- mitted. I do not think Mrs. Hutchinson has thought fit to make any mention of such matters as the following : " That all the members of the Council of State that have lodgings in Whitehall shall have hangings and accommoda- tions for those lodgings out of the £10,000 worth of goods (the late king's) reserved for the use of the State.'' • " That the Earl of Pembroke be added to the committee for providing accommodation in Whitehall for the members of this Council." ^ « That several warrants be issued to Mr. Kinnersley to furnish the lodgings of Col. Wanton and Col. Hutchinson in Whitehall out of the dt^l 0,000 worth of goods reserved for the State.'' ^ "That the door into the gallery out of St. James's Park be made up and a lock set upon the door." * " That all the members of the Council shall have keys of the garden at Whitehall. That the secretary shall also have a key to the said garden . That Mrs. Hamden (sic) shall have a passage into St. James's Park and that she be desired to have a care who passes through by means of that key." * John Milton appears to have been in especial favour with his masters, the Council of State. On the ] 9th of November 164i9 it is ordered "That Mr. Milton shall have the 1 Order Book of the Council of State, 8th Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 8th Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, 8th Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, Die Mercurii, 24 Octob. 1649. This I suppose was the raised gallery that crossed the street. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 15th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 172 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. lodgings that were in the hands of Sir John Hippesley in Whitehall for his accommodation, as being secretary to the Council for foreign languages/'^ The following minute corroborates what appears from other minutes, and shows that Milton's duties as secretary were not con- fined to foreign languages. " That a warrant be issued to Mr. Milton and to Mr. Sergeant Dendy to view the books and papers of Mr. Clement Walker that are seized at Kensington and such others as he hath here in Westminster or elsewhere and to report what they find therein to the Council/'^ This Clement Walker, who, as one of the secluded Presbyterian members, was violently exasperated against the Independents, that is, the sitting part of the Parliament, is the writer upon whose authority Hume states^ that the Parliament from the commencement of the war had levied in five years above forty millions. Hume does indeed add that these computations are probably much exaggerated. But whilst he gives this absurd and incredible statement on the authority of a writer whose authority he says is very considerable from his " being a zealous parliamentarian," and omits to mention that when Walker wrote he had been secluded and had become most bitterly exasperated against the Parliament, his remark is none the less just that the taxes and impositions were far 1 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunse, 19th November, 1649. On the same day it is ordered '* That a commission be drawn up for Charles Vane, Esq. brother to Sir Henry Vane to be his deputy as he is treasurer to the navy and that it be brought in this afternoon." It is stated by Sikes the friend and biographer of Sir Henry Vane that having been appointed sole treasurer of the navy and considering the fees, amounting in time of war to little less than £20,000 a-year, as too much for a private subject, he gave up his patent which he had for life from King Charles to the Parliament desiring only that £1000 a year should go to his deputy and the remainder be ap- plied to the use of the State. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Mercurii, 24 Octob. 1649.. a Chap. 59. 1649.] EXCISE, &c. 173 higher than in any former state of the English govern- ment. One of the worst consequences of this war was the imposition of the excise, a grievous and oppressive mode • of taxation unknown to and contrary to the principles of the English constitution. In a report to the Parliament, contained in the Order Book of the Council of State " concerning the moneys arising out of the receipt of the grand excise,'' it appears by an abstract of the accounts delivered to the Council of State by tlie Commissioners of the Excise " that there hath been made of the excise (salaries and other charges not deducted) the three years last passed, beginning 29th Sept. 1646 unto 29th Sept. 1649 as follows ; — ** From Sept. 29, 1646 to Sept. 29, 1647 . Do. 1647 to do. 1648 . Do. 1648 to do. 1649 . . £357,423 11 8 . 266,094 4 10 . 277,917 6 6*'» In the same report the amount of "custom and subsidy" from 2Gth March 1G49 to 8th October 1649 is .£>1 38,463 5s. O^d. Although it may be impossible to obtain a completely accurate account of the money raised by the Government about this time, it is evident that the abstract given by Sir John Sinclair in his history of the public revenue, who considers Walker's account to be a great exaggeration, is much above the truth, since, to take one item, the excise, which may be considered as correctly stated above for three years, he estimates the excise at .^500,000 per annum ^ which is almost double the amount set forth in the above quoted official abstract. The Council of State appear from various minutes in their Order Book to have been themselves sufficiently aware of the extraordinary charges » Order Book of the Council of 2 Sinclair's History of the Public State, Die Martis, 23 Octob. 1649. Revenue of the British Empire, vol. i. MS. State Paper Office. p. 284. 174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. of tlieir government, charges which were in a great measure unavoidable by reason of the wars in which they were constantly engaged. In the afternoon of the same day in which the above abstract of the receipts of the excise was laid before them they made the following minute : " That an eifectual letter be written by the Council to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to let him know what charge we have been at, what preparation we have made for Ireland, and how our treasury is drawn : and to desire his special care and diligence to improve the revenue of Ireland for the carrying on of that service.''^ It was probably in reference to the letter written in accordance with this minute that Cromwell says, in one of his des- patches from Ireland : — " Sir, I desire the charge of Eng- land as to this war may be abated as much as may be, and as we know you do desire out of your care to the common- wealth ; but if you expect your work to be done, indeed it will not be for the thrift of England, as far as England is concerned in the speedy reduction of Ireland, if the marching army be not constantly paid. The money we raise upon the counties maintains the garrison forces, and hardly that ; if the active force be not maintained, and all contingencies defrayed, how can we expect but to have a lingering business of it ? Surely we desire not to spend a shilling of your treasury wherein our consciences do not prompt us. We serve you, we are willing to be out of our trade of war, and shall hasten (by God's assistance and grace) to the end of our work, as the labourer doth to be at his rest. This makes us bold to be earnest with you for necessary supplies, that of money is one ; and there be some other things which indeed I do not think for your ^ Order Book of the Council of MS. State Paper Office. State, 23 Octob. 1649, a Meridie. 1650.] ESTIMATE OF THE FLEET FOR 1650. 175 service to speak of publicly, which I shall humbly represent to the Council of State, wherewith I desire we may be accommodated." CromweU then winds up after his fashion with an exhortation "to fear the Lord, to fear unbelief and self-seeking/' Was this hypocrisy ? Or did Cromwell really believe that there was no self-seeking in him ? Or, being a clear-sighted man and knowing that it abounded in him, did he sincerely pray to God to be delivered from it ? If he did, it would appear that his prayers as regarded that particular were unheard or unheeded. In the beginning of the month of January 1 6f§ an estimate was brought in of the charge of fitting and setting out a fleet of 44 men-of-war and 28 merchant ships, manned with 8082 men,^ to serve for eight months on the narrow seas, as a summer's guard for the year 1650. The House approved of this estimate, amounting to <£'886,220, and ordered the commissions of their three admirals. Pop- ham, Blake, and Deane, to be renewed for the whole year. The names of all the ships intended for this summer's guard are entered on the journals. Three of these ships being styled the PHnce, the Charles, and the Mary, the House ordered that it be referred to the Council of State to give other fit names to those ships.^ If their care for constitu- tional liberty was open to many doubts, they were deter- mined to extinguish all traces of the monarchy which they had abolished. The Parliament having received letters from General Cromwell, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, from Major-General * Some estimate may be formed of the number of men in each of the larger ships from a minute of the Council of State which specifies " 4 of the great ships appointed by this Coun- cil to be set to sea manned with the number of 1000 men." — Order Booh of the Council of State, 22 March, :64|. MS. State Paper Office. I suppose this means 1000 men for the 4 great ships— 250 men for each ship. ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1344. 176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. Ireton, and from Lord BrogliiU, dated at Cork, the 18tli and 1 9th of December, passed a resolution on the 8th of January, that the said Lord-Lieutenant be desired to come over, and give his attendance in Parliament : and that the Council of State do prepare a letter to be read to him for that purpose, to be signed by the Speaker; and at the same time to render him the thanks of the House for his great service and faithfulness to the Commonwealth. On the same day a Bill, which had been some time depending, for settling certain lands upon Cromwell and his heirs, was reported to the House and ordered to be read a second time.^ Cromwell's services may certainly be said to have been far greater than either Ireton's or Vane's. Nevertheless the contrast between his conduct and theirs in regard to the acceptance of Parliamentary grants cannot be overlooked. While Cromwell readily accepted votes of ^^6500^ per annum in land, a handsome residence at Whitehall, the use of the palace at Hampton Court, and other provisions from the Parliament, Ireton absolutely refused the grant of c£>2000 per annum in land, and Vane voluntarily gave up in consideration of his country's necessities his very lucra- tive appointment of treasurer of the navy, and even refunded <£>2500, being the moiety of what he had received from the time the Parliament had made him sole treasurer.^ Such 1 Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1345. ' This would make at that time one of the largest rentals in the possession of a subject. The Duke of Bucking- ham's rental, which was reckoned exorbitant, is stated by Pepys in 1669 to have been £19,600 a year. Pepys gays " The Duke of Buckingham's con- dition is shortly this : that he hath about £19,600 a-year of which he pays away about £7000 a year in interest, about £2000 in fee farm-rents to the King, about £6000 in wages and pensions, and the rest to live upon and pay taxes for the whole."— Pep^/s' Diary, Feb. 14, 1668-9. It may be mentioned as an example of the gross inaccuracy of satirists that Pope in a note on his lines on this Duke oi Buckingham, erroneously describing him as dying '4n the worst inn's worst room," describes him as *' having been possessed of about £50,000 a year." 3 Sikes, after saying that at the beginning of the war with Holland 1650.] PARLIAMENT OF COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. 177 is the effect always when « self in the highest " predomi- nates. We see it in many forms. But it presents itself very prominently in the spectacle of what a politician, a lawyer, and sometimes but far more rarely a soldier will do that they may have money enough to support the dignity of a peerage. On the 10th of January the House ordered their Attorney-General to prepare a patent to be passed under the great seal of England, appointing Major-General Ireton to be President of the province of Munster, he observing such instructions as should be given him by the Parliament, Council of State, or the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland for the' time being.^ On the 30th of January, upon the Lord Grey's report from the Council of State, that they had agreed that the style to be used in all transactions with foreign Powers should run thus, - Reipublic^ Anglicanse Ordines," unless the Parliament thought fit to appoint any other ; after debate it was resolved, " That in aU negotiations and transactions with foreign States, the style or title to be used should be, ' Parliamentum E^ipublicse Anglise : ' that the Lords Commissioners of the great seal be required to pass, under the great seal of England, several commissions m common form, mutatis mutandis, to the two agents ap. Vane resigned his treasureship of the navy which during that Dutch war, would have amounted to near £20,000 a year, adds— " He had also long before this, upon the self-denying ordinance (little observed by others) refunded five and twenty hundred pounds, for public uses, being the moiety of his receptions in the said office, from such time as the Parliament had made him sole treasurer, who, before the war, was joined with another person."— Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, Knight, 1662. Ludlowe says he was very much blamed by his good friend Sir Henry Vane for preventing the sale of Hampton Court. Vane said *'that such places might justly be accounted amongst those things that proved temptations to ambitious men, and exceedingly tend to sharpen their appetite to ascend the throne." — Lud- lowe's Memoirs, p. 258, folio. Lon- don, 1751. » Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1345. N 178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. pointed by the Council of State, to be employed to Spain and Portugal : and tLat the style and title of every address to the Parliament from foreign princes and States shall be, ' The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, and no other style or title whatsoever." ' On the 31st of January the House received letters from the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, at Cork, advising that several garrisons in Munster had surrendered to the Parliament s forces without blood, or striking a strike ; and that the army was in so good health that regiments which lately marched only 400 men, now marched 800 or^900; and that the horse were disposed of into garrisons.' The time appointed for the continuance of the present Council of State expiring about the middle of February, 16*-^ the House proceeded to the election of a new Council of State for the ensuing year. They first agreed that the number, as before, should not exceed 41. They next read over a list of the names of the present Council, and proceeded to put the question upon every single person ; when they were all re-elected except the Earl of Mulgrave, the Lord Grey of Warke, and Sir John Danvers. Besides these three vacancies, however, there were two more caused by the deaths of the Earl of Pembroke and Alderman Eowland Wilson. There were thus five vacancies to be filled up The filling up of these vaxjancies in the Council of State gave occasion to much debate and many divisions of the House. On such occasions the contest for place and power caused the number of members present to amount to more than double the number which met for the dispatch of ordinary business. On this occasion the number present was 98 ; and the following five persons we nominated of the Council of State for the year 1 Pari. Hist. vol. ui. P- 1345. 2 Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1845. 1650.] ELECTION OF COUNCIL OF STATE FOK 1650. 179 ensuing, Mr. Thomas ChaUoner, Mr. John Gurdon, Col Herbert Morley, Sir Peter Wentworth, the Lord Howard. "The question being propounded that Sir Henry Yane senior, be one of the CouncH of State for the year ensuing ;' and the question being put, ("the previous question -), that that question be now put ; " The House was divided. " The Noes went forth. " Colonel Ludlow " Colonel Martin '* Sir William Armyn, " Sir John Trevor, 54 44 TeHers for the Noes:) "With the Noes, Tellers for the Yeas : 1 With the Yea.s, "So it passed with the negative." Philip the new Earl of Pembroke was rejected without a division. ' The Parliament, as before mentioned, having desired CromweU to come over into England, made an order on the 25th of February, "That His ExceUency have the use of the Ibdgings called the Cockpit, the Spring Garden, St. Jameses House, and the command of St. James's Park.'' During the months of April and May the Parliament signahsed themselves by legislation on which it will be necessary to make some observations. In April they passed an Act " For inflicting certain Penalties for breach of the Lord's Day and other Solemn Days." By this Act no person was to use or travel with boat, horse, coach, or sedan, except to church, upon pain of IO5. The like penalty was inflicted for being in a tavern, alehouse, &c. Where distress could not be found sufficient to satisfy the respective penalties, the offender was to sit in the stocks * Commons' Journals, Die Mercurii, 20° Februarii, 16*1. This division is given here partly to show to the general reader the meaning of what is called ''Tub Previous Question " which is often misunderstood. N 2 180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. six houi-s In May an Act was passed for suppressing the detestable sins of incest, adultery, and fornication Of this Act the most material provisions were these : That all persons guilty of incest shaU suffer death, without benefit of clercry ; that incestuous marriages shall be void, and the chMvm illegitimate : that adultery shall also be deemed felony, and punished with death ; but this shall not extend to every man who, at the time of committing such offence, did not know the woman to be married ; nor to any woman whose husband shall be three years absent from her so a.s she did not know him to be living. In case of formication, both parties, for the first offence, were to suffer three months' imprisonment without bail, and also give security for their good behaviour for one whole year after. Every common bawd, for the first offence, was to be openly whipped, set in the pillory, and there marked with a hot iron in the forehead ; also to be committed to the house of correction for three years without bail, and until sufficient security be given for good behaviour during life : and the persons a second time found guilty of the la^t recited offences were to suffer death. ^ In addition to this, the Long Parliament put down all public amusements whatever. There might undoubtedly be much that was objectionable in bear-baiting as weU as m sta-e-plays ; but they did not consider sufficiently the necessary consequences of their purblind fanatical tyranny. And yet they might have reflected, from what they had themselves seen only some ten years before in the fate of Archbishop Laud's attempt to enforce conformity to his notions of religious doctrine and discipline, what was likely to be the ultimate fate of a similar attempt on their part. In some points too their attempt was even more 1 Scobell, 121. 1660.] PURITAN LEGISLATION. 181 dangerous than his. For if amusements are prohibited, vices are apt to take their place. Where the theatre is closed and all public amusements are put down, the tavern takes the place of the theatre, and cards and dice are sub- stituted for stage-plays and farces.^ I have no doubt that such consequences followed the legislation of the Long Parliament — I mean among the people during the period before the Restoration — for with regard to the irruption of profligacy that made its appearance at the Restoration in the Court circle, that I think had a remoter origin than the Puritan legislation of the Long Parliament; though that legislation may have undoubtedly had its effect in giving to it an added impulse. Every one with the least experience of life must have known cases of some of the greatest reprobates having been those who were subjected in their youth to such discipline as formed the Puritan code. There is one case of this kind belonging to this time which has a curiously melancholy interest, and furnishes another illustration of the remark that truth is stranger than fiction. There was a certain Presbyterian divine, by name Stephen MarshaU, who was held in high repute among the leading men of the Long Parliament, and bore a prominent part in those long prayers, aud still longer preachings, with which that Parliament diversified their secular business. When John Pym lay on his deathbed, Stephen Marshall attended him, and also preached the sermon at Pym's funeral, in which he gave a narrative of some of the * When Prynne wrote his Histrio- mastix and condemned utterly the theatre as an amusement, he should have recollected that every man had not like himself an amusement that never failed in writing a sheet for every day of his life. Between the tyranny of the Stuarts and the tyranny of th« Puritans it was rather a hard choice. 182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. particulars of the great parliamentary leader's last moments, telling his audience, which included all the members of Parliament in London, with what " clear evidence of God's love in Jesus Christ and subjection to God's will " Pym met death ; and how he declared to him (Marshall) " that if he died he should go to that God whom he had served, and who would carry on his work by some others.''^ Some twenty years after this time, when a strange change had come over the aspect of England since that day, we 6nd some facts recorded by Pepys respecting two daughters of Stephen Marshall which were enough to make their father's bones move with horror in their grave. Pepys in his Diary frequently mentions as celebrated actresses of that evil time, when actress and courtesan were convertible terms, Anne Marshall and her younger sister Becke.^ Their career was probably the effect, so often ob- served, as to be called the natural effect, of religious exercises carried to an immoderate excess to the total exclusion of all even innocent amusements. The result of such a course of discipline is intense disgust for the discipline itself, and a violent desire, amounting to a sort of insane passion, to rush into the very worst of all the long and sternly-for- bidden pleasures. This is an extreme, at least a remark- able case : since the daughters were as celebrated as act- resses at a time when as Lord Macaulay has said, '' the comic poet was the mouthpiece of the most deeply-corrupted part of a corrupted society," as the father had been as a ^ Stephen Marshall's sermon preached before the Parliament at the funeral of Mr. Pym, 4to, 1644. This Stephen Marshall is the first of the five minis- ters (Stephen Marshall, Edmund Ca- lamy, Thomas Young, Matthew New- coraen, William Spinstow) of whose names the first letters made the word Smectymnuus, celebrated in the con- troversies of those times. 2 Under date Oct. 26th, 1667, Pepys says, "Mrs. Pierce tells me that the two Marshalls at the King's house are Stephen Marshall's the great Presbyterian's daughters." iiaaaB.ija'^tf^Sjnfl a -■■!'.' -aaf-m" ■■,^'X J^iifo.-*.^ laaS'i 1650.] TWOFOLD CHARACTER OF THE PURITAN REBELLION. 183 Puritan divine and preacher. But even the average result would be that the bending the bow so forcibly in the direc- tion of the conventicle would be its rebounding as forcibly in the opposite direction. It seems to be a law of human nature that all govern- ments, unless when under strong pressure from without, should make a job of appointments, that is, should appoint persons to offices for other reasons than their fitness for such offices. There is reason to think that even Oliver Cromwell, who knew better than most men the value of the right jnan in the right place, when the brunt of the war was over, in the disposal of any considerable officer's place, looked not so much at the man's valour as at his opinions.^ And the two greatest rulers that England ever had, Queen Elizabeth and Oliver Cromwell, in the selection of a successor, showed no more discrimination and foresight than the feeblest and most short-sighted of the sons or daughters of Adam. Elizabeth had an intelligent agent at the Court of James in Scotland who kept her well informed, as his despatches prove, of what passed there, and she must have known what manner of man she was imposing as a king upon England. Yet such was her prejudice in favour of kings that she considered all men not bom kings as "rascals'' in her phraseology, and declared that "no rascal" but the thing which at tliat time in Scotland " the semblance of a kingly crown had on " should be her successor on the throne of England. And Oliver Cromwell, although he knew that he with all his capacity and valour could hardly keep his seat, so far forgot, we may say, all his former self as to imagine that his son Richard could succeed him. It took a struggle of near a hundred years* duration to repair the mistake of Elizabeth, for it was supported by a gigantic 1 Richard Baxter's Life by Himself. Part I. p. 57, folio. Loudon, 1696. 184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. array of blind and barbarous prejudices that carried with them the force of an old religion. Oliver's mistake as far as it regarded the choice of his son Eichard was repaired in almost as many hours, but as it regarded wider interests than those of the ftxmily of CromweU, it left consequences lasting and disastrous, and will remain to all time one of the most remarkable " foUies of the wise." Though the stringent legislation of the Long Par- liament against immorality and against stage-plays and other amusements had undoubtedly the effect which attends all such legislation, the deeply-corrupted state of society which prevailed after the Eestoration in England cannot be justly viewed as altogether due to that legislation, but must be considered not as an innovation, as has been usually supposed, but only as a restoration. The great puritan rebellion had a twofold character. It was an insurrection against tyranny and it was also an insurrection against vice — vice in the revolting and infamous shape it had assumed at the Court of James the First. It was this latter feature of the insurrection which gave to it so much of the character of interfering with matters beyond its reach, of attempting to make men saints by Act of Par- liament, instead of being content to confine its authority to the legitimate object of protecting religion and public morals from insult. As it was, when the Royalists returned to power, a Court more resembling that of James the First than that of Charles the First returned with them. Although the personal character of Charles II. difiered very much from the personal character of James I., contemporary writers describe the character of the Court of Charles in language very similar to that applied by contemporaries to the Court of James. In one place Pepys writes " Mr. 1649.] REINFORCEMENTS FOR IRELAND. 185 Povey says * of all places, if there be hell, it is here, [at Court].' " ^ And again under date July 27th, 1667. "He [Fenn] tells me that the king and Court were never in the world so bad as they are now for gaming, swearing, women, and drinking, and the most abominable vices that ever were in the world.'' ^ This was not a new deluge of vice, the creation of the Puritan legislation. It was the fiend returned to his abode with all his evil passions and appetites only strengthened by his temporary expulsion, during which he had wandered through dry places seeking rest and finding none. During the winter Cromwell received considerable rein- forcements from England. On the 19th of October, the " report of the recruits of foot for Ireland " having been brought in to the Council of State, it was ordered " That the 5000 recruits be divided into 5 regiments. That for the raising and conducting of each of the said regiments to the waterside and so into Ireland there be appointed by the Lord-General out of the several regiments of the army 1 major, 4 captains, 5 lieutenants, 20 sergeants, 10 drums. That as soon as the said men are landed in Ireland, they are to be taken into the several regiments there, and receive pay as other the soldiers there. That the ports where they are to ship the said men be Appledore and Minehead for the west, Milford Haven for South Wales and counties adja- cent ; Liverpool and Chester for those that shall march from London and so northward, and Anglesey for North Wales. That the Council give order that moneys be sent down to the several ports, to be there delivered to the several treasurers for the payment of quarters and providing of * Pepys's Diary, vol. i. p. 436. 1st * Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. p. 99. 4to edition, 1825. 186 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. shipping and victuals for transportation as aforesaid, viz. To "Appledorej ^ ^ ^ ^ ^1330 " Minehead ) "Milford .... <^570 " Chester " Liverpool "Anglesey ^ Total ,£>2850 j^4750 i> 1 It appears from the minutes cited below that the Coun- cil of State granted blank commissions for the officers who were to conduct the recruits over to Ireland, and that the Lord-General had the power of filling up the names of the blank commissions granted by the Council of State.^ The following minute furcher shows the care of the Council of State formerly noted to guard against oppression in the way of soldiers' quarters. " In respect of the season of the year and the former sufferings of the country by soldiers, that there be an allowance of ScZ. per diem [instead of 6cZ. per diem] to pay their quarters." ' Colonel Pride was ap- pointed to command the recruits in chief.* On the * Order Book of the Council of State, 19 and 25 October, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 ** That the charge of transportation of the 5000 recruits for Ireland shall be borne out of the deans and chapters' lands— and that my Lord General be desired to give out commissions.*' — Ibid. 19 October, 1649. — " That hlank commissions for the officers that are to conduct the recruits now to be sent over to Ireland be granted by the Council of State." — Ihid. 20 October, 1649. Another minute of the same date shows the principle of paying officers adopted by the Council — "That the Scout - Master - General shall have £4 per diem when there is any action in the field as he hath had hitherto. But for that there is no action at present [i. e. in England] that he shall have 20s. a day during the time there is no action in the field." Ihid. 20 October, 1649. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, 23 October, 1 649, a Meridie. * Order Book of the Council of State, 23 October, 1649. Further by a mi- nute of the 25th of the same month it was ordered " Tiiat £200 be im- 1649.] REINFORCEMENTS FOR IRELAND. 187 8rd of November a warrant was issued to Charles Walley, Esq., treasurer for the paying of quarters at Chester, to impress all ships belonging to or coming into any of the ports of Lancashire, Cheshire and North Wales for this service.^ Besides the 5000 foot, a reinforcement of horse was also sent to Ireland. On the 15th of November it was ordered " That the Report brought in by the committee for the affairs of Ireland be approved of, viz. " That it be reported to the Council in order to the sending of recruits of horse into Ireland out of e/ery troop of the several regiments following, viz. '' The Lord General's regiment of horse. " Major-General Lambert's regiment of horse " Col. Whalley's do. do. *' Col. Fleetwood's do. do. " Col. Rich's do. do. " Col. Tomlinson's do. do. " Col. Twisleton's do. do. " Col. Robert Lilburne's do. do. " Col. Desbrow's do. do. « Col. Sanders' do. do. prested to Colonel Pride toward the conduct of the soldiers to the water- side. That sergeants shall have 12g?, per diem in place of ^d. and that drums shall have Qd. in place of 6rf." On the same day it was ordered ** That Mr. Frost do write unto Mr. Parker secretary to the army in Ireland to take care that a constant knowledge may be given to the Council of State of all matter of fact which passeth in Ireland." — Order Book of the Council of State, 25° Octobris, 1649. On the following day there is an order "To write to Mr. Walley to dispatch away the foot of Colonel Moore and Colonel Fenwicke with all expedition to Belfast if he can and with them so many musquets as he can in regard there are no arms there — but if it cannot be done thither or that you cannot arm them, then let them l>e sent to Carling- ford, to which place if they go, there will be no need of the said arms. We leave it to you there to do it in such manner as you conceive may be best for the service, but to send them away with all expedition." — Order Book of the Council of State, 26° Octob.1640. * Order Book of the Council of State, 3° Novemb. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 188 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. « 1. That there be 20 troopers reduced out of every troop of the said several regiments. « 2. That the said horsemen so to be reduced be taken on for recruits to go into Ireland, or so many of them as are willing to go. <' 3. That, instead of such of the said recruits of horse as shall refuse to go recruits as aforesaid, the officer or officers to be appointed to take the charge of marching them to the waterside and so into Ireland may have power to entertain any other well-affected person or persons that shall, well furnished with horse and arms, be willing to go until the number be completed. «4. That a captain, lieutenant, quartermaster, three corporals, and two trumpets be chosen by the colonel of every regiment to take the charge." ^ Further directions are added that the colonels take especial care that the men save their pay to discharge their quarters tHl they be shipt. Wexford is appointed as the port where they are to land in Ireland. Letters are also ordered to be written to Colonel Blake and Colonel Deane to provide convoys at the several ports and to assist the treasurer for paying quarters at those ports to press and provide shipping. On the 1 6 th of November there is a minute " That the committee for the affairs of Ireland do take care to advance ^20 to a messenger who is to be sent over into Ireland express to the Lord-Lieutenant according to what Mr. Scot hath moved in that behalf." ' Mr. Scot, whom John Lil- burne called their Secretary of State, was a very active member of the Council of State, and among other business committed to him had the charge of the secret service. » Order Book of the Council of State, 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 15° Novemb. 1649. MS. State Paper 16° Novemb. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. Office. 1650.] IRETON APPOINTED LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND. 189 CromweU having allowed his troops to remain in winter quarters about two months, again took the field early in February. He made himself master of Kilkenny and Clonmel, and many other places of less importance. At Clonmel he met with a vigorous resistance. "We found in Clonmel,'* says one of his officers, " the stoutest enemy that our army has encountered in Ireland," Thus Cromwell had reduced the greater part of Ireland to sub- jection in the spaoe of about ten months, from the middle of August 1649 till May 1650, "a time inconsiderable'' says a contemporary writer,^ " respect had to the work done therein, which was more than ever could be done in ten years before by any king or queen of England. Queen Elizabeth, indeed, after a long and tedious war there, at last drove out the Spaniards that came in to the assistance of the rebellious natives, but could never utterly extin- guish the sparks of that rebellion." When Cromwell was recalled from Ireland, there remained only Limerick, Water- ford, and some few inconsiderable garrisons to be reduced. This business was left to the charge of Ireton, who was appointed Cromwell's successor in Ireland with the title of Lord Deputy, and performed the work assigned to him with great ability and success. There is an anecdote preserved by tradition respecting a certain bridge in a remote part of Ireland which gives a very vivid idea of the impression which Cromwell left behind him in Ireland — an impression not dissimilar to that he made on the boy Bill Spitfire in Woodstock, who described his face as " a face one would not like to say No to." Cromwell seeing the importance of a bridge at the particular point to which the story refers, and knowing something of the habits of the people of the neighbour- ' Perfect Politician. 190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. III. hood, told them that if there was not a bridge built there by the time he returned to that place, he would hacg a man every hour till the work was completed. " They knew," says the story, - that the ould villain was a man of his word, and so they took care to have the bridge built by the time he came back." ft^MirtJ'Ma-ttiBfjt CHAPTER IV. THE TRIAL OF LIEUT. -COL. JOHN LILBURNE. On Thursday the 25th of October 1 649, John Lilburne was brought to trial at Guildhall before the extraordinary tribunal specially appointed for his destruction. The trial lasted two days. But the first day was entirely consumed in preliminary discussion between the prisoner and the judges, and the jury were not sworn till the second day. At the opening of the Court on the first day the Lieutenant of the Tower of London brought up the prisoner, who was guarded by a special guard of soldiers. When he was brought to the bar, the sheriffs of London were directed to take him into custody. Lilburne being ordered to hold up his hand, turned to Keble, one of the commissioners of the Great Seal, and President of the Court, and made a long speech, in the course of which he introduced some passages of his life that have a public interest. " I have several times," he said ** been arraigned for my life already. I was once arraigned before the House of Peers for sticking close to the liberties and privileges of the nation, and those that stood for them, being one of those two or three men, that first drew their swords in Westminster Hall against Col. Lunsford and some scores of his associates. At that time it was supposed they intended to cut the throats of the chiefest men then sitting in the House of Com- mons.'' On that occasion, he said, when arraigned before the House of Peers he had free liberty of speech. 192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. Again, he said, with reference to the affair at Brentford when he as yet only served as a volunteer, " we were but about 700 men at Brentford, that withstood the king's whole army in the field above five hours together, and fouf^ht it out to the very sword's point, and to the butt-end of the musket ; and thereby hindered the king fi'om then possessing the Parliament's train of artillery, and by con- sequence the City of London, in which very act I was taken a prisoner, without articles or capitulation, and was by the king and his party then looked upon as one of the activest men against them in the whole company, yet, said Lord Chief Justice Heath" (at his trial at Oxford for levying war against the king) " we will not take advan- tage of that to try you by the rules of arbitrary martial laws, or any other arbitrary ways ; but we will try you by the rules of the good old laws of England : and what- soever privilege in your trial the laws of England will afford you, claim it as your birthright and inheritance, and you shall enjoy it with as much freedom and willingness, as if you were in Westminster Hall, to be tried amongst your own party And accordingly he gave me liberty to plead to the errors of my indictment, before I ever pleaded Not Guilty ; yea and also became willing to assign me what counsel I pleased to nominate, fi-eely to come to prison to me, and to consult and advise with me, and help me in point of law. This last he did imme- diately upon my pleading to the indictment before any fact was proved : all which is consonant to the declared judgment of Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle of the laws of England, whose books are published for good law by special orders of Parliament, dated May 12, 1 641, and June 3, 1642."^ ^ State Trials, rol. iv. pp. 1271, 1272, 1273. njJM'iaiaiigfflaaaEAt-iaawtA'.si , 4fA- 1649.] LILBURNE SHOWS BKADSHAWS INCONSISTENCY. 193 Lilburne then went on to say—" By the laws of this land all courts of justice always ought to be free and open for all sorts of peaceable people to see and hear and have free acce.ss unto; and no man whatsoever ought to be tried in holes or corners, or in any place, where the gates are shut and barred, and guarded with armed men : and yet, sir, as I came in, I found the gates shut and guarded, which is contrary both to law and justice." "Judge Keble. Mr. Lilburne, look behind you, and see whether the door stands open or no." "Lt.-Col. Lilburne. WeU then, sir, I am satisfied as to that." The prisoner then entered into a long argument against the legality of a special commission of Oyer and Terminer, and also of the constitution of the Court before which he' was now brought for trial. He also attempted to show the inconsistency of the pre.sent proceedings of some membei-s of the present Government with their former pro- ceedings, thus. " I say and aver, 1 ought to have had the process of the law of England, due process of law accord- ing to the fore-mentioned statutes and precedents ; for I never forcibly resisted or contended with the Parliament • and therefore ought to have had my warrant served upon me by a constable, or the like civil officer ; and upon no pretence whatsoever, ought I to have been forced out of my bed and house by mercenary armed officers and soldiers But, sir, coming to Whitehall, I was there also kept by armed men, contrary to all law and justice ; and by armed men against law, I was by force carried before a company of gentlemen sitting at Derby House, that looked upon themselves as authorized by the Parliament to be a com- mittee or Council of State, (who by the law I am sure in any kind had nothing at all to do witli me in cases of pre- 194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. X i,„-^ T was brought before Mr. John tended treasons) where I was oroug Bradshaw sometime a counsellor for myself before the lottorLords. against my uniust Star-Chamber judges; ^ Hhere in my^ behalf, Feb. 1^45 did urge a^m re lord, of the Star-Chamber, as the highest crimes the lords ot ^^^^ ^^^j^ ^^^ ^ •rialcUber should censure - ^ ^e ^^^^^^^^^ piUoryed, &c., for no other cause but for r^^^^, answer their interrogatories against myselj A ^ T was brought before the said Council ^^ *= laid unto my charge was s\x. i^ ^ui.ouc^h I am Cook were my ^^^ _^^j vehemently : ll:::: ^H^tuUo. eo.aem„ .e^^s o^ - freemen, m ««"'""°f ^^^^^ ^^.^ yet notwithstanding questions concerning themse es , y ^^^^ talked with his dealing with me in tl^^jery p Lmerly he had bitterly condemned in the Star-Chamber '"SC Judge Jermin interrupted him, saying-" Mr. ilere uuu„ Bradshaw is now de- Lilbume, you very well know Mr c nominated by another name, namely. Lord ^~* Council of Stat, of England ; and it wouM wjU become vou in your condition so to have styled him. mt SLl W-. ...n. »y ...» -- ;»; r :^ _-By their power and will I had my v I state Trials, vol. iv. PP. 1279, 1280. 1649.] LILBURNE'S CHARGE AGAINST HASELRIG. 195 L % chamber ^ searched to find out advantages against me ; and was also locked up close prisoner, with centinels night and day set at my door, and denied the access and si^rht of my wife and children for some certain time ; and for about twenty weeks together in the heat of summer kept close prisoner, and denied the liberty of the prison, and my estate with a strong hand taken away from me, without any pretence, or due process of law, to the value of almost dg'SOOO, that was legally and justly vested in me, and in my possession. But being I will avoid (at this time especially) provocations as much as I can, I will name no person by whose power and will it hath been done, although he be notoriously known ; ^ but the gentleman that took it away by his pleasure, without all rules of law or justice, told my father to this purpose. That I was a traitor, and under the Parliament's displeasure : and therefore he would secure it from me, although I were not in the least con- victed of any crime, neither in law then, or for many months after had I the least pretence of crime laid unto » ^' That a warrant be issued to the by Lilbume, whose property was in Berjeant at arms to search Lt.-Col. that part of England. Keble the Lilbume, Mr. Walwin, Mr. Overton, president of the Court in reference and Mr. Prince, their chambers, closets, to this charge, said ''If there be any- trunks, boxes, and other places to them thing that hath been done by others belonging, for all treasonable, seditious, in the north, there is no man here and scandalous books, papers, and other that will justify them in their evil " writings and seal them up and bring —State Trials, vol. iv. p 1285 them to this Council. "-Ord^r ^00^0/ Now if Lilburne's charge against the Council of State, 4th July, 1649. Haselrig had been notoriously the crea- MS. State Paper Office. This is ture of his own busy brain, the judge exactly what when done by Charles I. would not have referred to it in such led to the civil war. terms. M. Guizot in his Essay on The individual here alluded to Monk describes Haselrig as **arapa- was Sir Arthur Haselrig. The' state- cious, headstrong, and conceited ment in " The Mystery of the Good agitator." He had more, however of Old Cause" charges Haselrig with great the wisdom of the serpent than poor rapacity in the neighbourhood of New- John Lilbume, whose unresting agi- castle, of which town he was govemor tation was productive of much nc under the Rump ; and this lends a toriety but little profit to himself, colour to the charge made against him o 2 ]96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. my charge. And although my own estate by force, against law, was taken from me, yet was I also denied in my close imprisonment that legal allowance that should have kept me alive ; for in all this miserable condition I never yet received a penny of my legal allowance." * By way of answer to Lilburne's objections to the com- mission, Judge Jermin said : " For the commission itself, it is in general for the trial of all treasons whatsoever. But the grand inquest have found out no other traitor, that they may accuse, but Master John Lilburne, who is now here at the bar. But it is not a bare accusation, but it is the solemn verdict of almost a double jury that hath appeared upon the roll ; and upon their oaths do conceive those crimes of treason that are laid against you, to be of so dangerous consequence against the State and Common- wealth, that they do call for justice against you as a traitor already found guilty. And therefore I do require you, as you are an Englishman, and a rational man, that you do conform yourself and tell us plainly what you will do, as in reference to your putting yourself upon your trial by the law, and hear with patience those offences of treason that are laid to your charge.'*^ But Lilburne fought every point. He had desired to hear the commission by which the court was instituted read. *' But," he said, " you have positively denied me that. And therefore I desire all my friends, and all the people that hear me this day, to bear witness, and take notice, that you, contrary to reason and common equity, denied me to let me hear read your commission, by virtue of which you go about to take away my life ; which I cannot choose but desire them to take notice, I declare to * State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1280, 1281. 2 State Trials, toI. iv. p. 1287. 1649.] LILBURNE OBJECTS TO THE COMMISSION. 197 be very hard measure. — But, sir, to save myself from your forelaid snares and desired advantage against me, 1 will come a little closer to the business. You demand I should hold up my hand at the bar ; and I know not what it means, neither what in law it signifies. It is true, I have read the most part of the laws that are in English, which I take to be the foundation of all our legal English privileges ; and in them I cannot find anything that doth clearly declare unto me the full signification or meaning of a man's holding up his hand at the bar In which regard, for me to hold up my hand at the bar before I understand the true signification of it in law, (which tells me it is in itself a ticklish thing), were for me to throw away my own life upon a punctilio or nicety that I am ignorant of ; and therefore truly I think I should be a very fool, in my own ignorance, to run that danger. And therefore, sir, I humbly desire the clear explanation of the meaning of it in law, and after that I shall give you a fair and rational answer. " Lord Keble. Mr. Lilburne, you shall see we will deal very rationally with you, and not ensnare you in the least manner, if that be all. The holding up of your hand, we will tell you what it means and signifies ^ in law. The call- ing the party to hold up his hand at the bar is no more but for the special notice that the party is the man enquired for, or called on ; and therefore if you be Mr. John Lilburne, and be the man that we charge, do but say that you are the man, and that you are there, and it shall suffice. ''Lilburne. Well then, sir, according to your own ' The Judge and Lilburne both use two words of equivalent meaning — *' means and signifies" — which, like '* love and affection," so much used in English deeds, may perhaps be ascribed to the same cause, the notion that it was proper, if not necessary, to have a word of Saxon and a word of Latin origin to express the same idea. 198 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. explanation, I say my name is John Lilburne, son to Mr. Eichard Lilburne of the county of Durham, a freeman of the city of London, and sometime lieutenant-colonel in the Parhament's army ; and if you will not believe that I am the man, my guardian the Lieutenant of the Tower there (pointing to him) will aver that I am. " Lord Kehle. So then you are the man. " Judge Jermin, Ask him again : Hearken, Mr. Lilburne, hearken what he says, and use that moderation, and temper, and discretion that you have promised. "Lilburne. One word more, and I shall have done ; and that is by the law of England — '' [But being in- terrupted he cried out] " With your favour, sir, I will come to the main thing ; I hope you do not go about to circumvent me, therefore hear me, I beseech you. " Lord Kehle, Hear the Court, Mr. Lilburne, there shall be nothing of circumvention or iuterruption : but as you have professed to be a rational and understanding man in words, let your deeds so declare you. " Lilburne. Sir, I beseech you, do not surprise me with punctilios or niceties, which are hard things for me to lose my life upon. I tell you again, my name is John Lilburne, son to Mr. Richard Lilburne. " Lord Kehle. Talk not of punctilios with us, nor talk not of judges made by the laws ; you shall not want law : but if you talk of punctilios here in this room, we will stop that language. " Lilburne. Truly, sir, I am upon my life, and shall my ignorance of the formalities of the law, in the practic^ part thereof, destroy me ? God forbid ! Therefore give me but leave to speak for my life, or else knock me on the head, and murder me where I stand ; which is more * Practic or practick, the old word for practical. aanmng sagtaE. 1649.] ASKS FOR A COPY OF THE INDICTMENT. 199 righteous and just than to do it by pretence of justice. Sir, I know that Mr. Bradshaw himself. President of the High Court of Justice, as it was called, gave Duke Hamilton (a hostile enemy) leave to speak to the punctilios of the law ; yea, and to my knowledge, again and again made an engagement unto him, and the rest tried with him, that the Court nor he would not, by virtue of their ignorance of the niceties or formalities of the law, take advantage against them, to destroy them ; but did declare, again and again, that all advantages of formalities should be totally laid aside, and not in the least made use of against theui to their prejudice. And I hope you will grant me, that have often been in arms for you, but never against you, as much favour and privilege as was granted to Duke Hamilton, never of your party, but a general of a numerous army against you. " Lord Kehle, Take it as you will, we have had patience with you, and you must and shall have patience with us. We will pass over all that is by-past, but take heed, by your surly crossness, you give not advantage in the face of the Court, to pass sentence against you, without any further proceedings, or proof of your actions, but what our own eyes see. The ceremony is for your advantage more than you are aware of; but if you confess yourself to be Mr. John Lilbm'ne, we have done as to that." ^ Tlie President then ordered the Indictment to be read. Mr. Broughton the clerk of the Court who had been one of the two clerks of the Court at the trial of King Charles, and had, as we have seen, been specially appointed for this trial of Lilburne by an order of the Council of State, having read the indictment, put the question : " What say'st thou, John Lilburne, art thou guilty of this » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1288-1292. 200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. treason whereof thou standesfc indicted, or not guilty ? Here a new struggle ensued between the Court and the un- conquerable Lilburne, who instead of answering " Guilty " or " Not Guilty/' as the Court required, asked to be al- lowed counsel, a copy of the indictment, or so much of it as he might ground his plea upon, and reasonable time to consult with his counsel, although it were but eight or nine days.^ * It is remarkable how often in the course of this trial Lilburne showed a more accurate knowledge of the law than the Court and the law officers. The following is one example of this. "Judge Thorp. Mr. Lilburne, I desire to correct a mistake of yours in the law : You are pleased to condemn it as unjust, for the Attorney-General's speaking with me when your indict- ment was a reading ; you are to know, he is the prosecutor for the State here against you, and he must confer with us upon several occasions, and we with him, and this is law. *' Lilburne. Not upon the bench, sir, by your favour, unless it be openly, audibly, and avowedly, and not in any clandestine or whispering way : And by your favour, for all you are a judge, this is law, or else Sir Edward Coke in his 3rd Institute, cap. High Treason, hath published falsehoods, and the Parliament hath licensed them ; for their stamp in a special manner is to that book. *♦ Judge Thorp. Sir Edward Coke is law, and he says, the Attorney- Ge- neral, or any other prosecutor may speak with us in open Court, to inform us about the business before us in open Court. ** Lilburne. Not in hugger-mugger, privately or whisperingly. " Judge Thorp. I tell you, sir, the Attorney-General may talk with any in the Court, by law, as he did with me. " Lilburne. I tell you, sir, it is un- just, and not warrantable by law, for him to talk with the Court, or any of^ the judges thereof, in my absence, or in hugger-mugger, or by private whis- perings. "Lord Keble. No, sir; it is no hugger-mugger for him to do as he did ; spare your words, and burst not out into passion ; for thereby you will declare yourself to be within the com- pass of your indictment without any ^TOoV State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1301. The reader may easily judge whether the Court or the prisoner declared the law accurately by reading the few words that follow. Coke, 3rd Inst, fol. 30, says :—" Hereupon it fol- loweth that if the peers of the realm, who are intended to be indifferent, can have no conference with the judges or with the high steward in open Court in the absence of the prisoner : d fortiori the king's learned counsel should not in the absence of the party accused, upon any case put, or matter showed by them, privately preoccupate the opinion of the judges." Any doubt as to the meaning of the words "in the absence of the party accused " is removed by the words used by Coke in another place (2nd Instit. fol. 49) — " After the lords be gone together to consider of the evidence, they cannot send to the high steward or ask the judges any question of law, but in the hearing of the prisoner." r 1649.] AND TO BE ALLOWED COUNSEL. 201 '^Lilburne. Under favour thus, for you to come to ensnare and entrap me with unknown niceties and forma- lities that are locked up in the French and Latin tongue, and cannot be read in English books, they being not ex- pressed in any law of the kingdom, published in our own English tongue ; it is not fair play according to the law of England, plainly in English expressed in the Petition of Eight, and other the good old statute laws of the land. Therefore I again humbly desire to have counsel assigned to me, to consult with, what these formalities in law signify ; so that I may not throw away my life ignorantly upon forms. " Lord Keble. You shall have that which is according to the law ; therefore, Mr, Lilburne, I advise you to plead, and you shall have fair play, and no advantage taken against you by your ignorance of the formality of the law. " Lilburne. Well then, sir, upon that engagement, and because I see you are so positive in the thing — this is my answer : That I am not guilty of any of the treasons in manner and form, as they are there laid down in that Indictment '' (pointing to it). "And therefore now, sir, having pleaded, I crave the liberty of England, that you will assign me counsel. " Mr. Broughton. By whom wilt thou be tried ? " Lilburne, By the known laws of England, and a legal jury of my equals, constituted according to law. " Mr. Broughton. By whom wilt thou be tried ? " Lilburne. By the known laws of England, I mean, by the liberties and privileges of the laws of England, and a jury of ray equals legally chosen. And now, sir, I again desire counsel to be assigned me, to consult with in point of law, that so I may not destroy myself through my ig- # ^'^^i'i^^^^i^t.^.^s^msmm^M^xt^-z 200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. ■ treason whereof thou standest indicted, or not guilty ? Here a new struggle ensued between the Court and the un- conquerable Lilburne, who instead of answering " Guilty " or "Not Guilty/' as the Court required, asked to be al- lowed counsel, a copy of the indictment, or so much of it as he might ground his plea upon, and reasonable time to consult with his counsel, although it were but eight or nine days.^ ^ It is remarkable how often in the course of this trial Lilburne showed a more accurate knowledge of the law than the Court and the law officers. The following is one example of this. ' ' Judge Thorp. Mr. Lilburne, I desire to correct a mistake of yours in the law : You are pleased to condemn it as unjust, for the Attorney-General's speaking with me when your indict- ment was a reading ; you are to know, he is the prosecutor for the State here against you, and he must confer with us upon several occasions, and we with him, and this is law. " Lilburne. Not upon the bench, sir, by your favour, unless it be openly, audibly, and avowedly, and not in any clandestine or whispering way : And by your favour, for all you are a judge, this is law, or else Sir Edward Coke in his 3rd Institute, cap. High Treason, hath published falsehoods, and the Parliament hath licensed them ; for their stamp in a special manner is to that book. ** Judge Thoyp. Sir Edward Coke is law, and he says, the Attorney- Ge- neral, or any other prosecutor may speak with us in open Court, to inform us about the business before us in open Court. *' Lilburne. Not in hugger-mugger, privately or whisperingly. *' Judge Thorp. I tell you, sir, the Attorney-General may talk with any in the Court, by law, as he did with me. " Lilburne. I tell you, sir, it is un- just, and not warrantable by law, for him to talk with the Court, or any of ^ the judges thereof, in my absence, or in hugger-mugger, or by private whis- perings. "Lord Keble. No, sir; it is no hugger-mugger for him to do as he did ; spare your words, and burst not out into passion ; for thereby you will declare yourself to be within the com- pass of your indictment without any i^TooV— State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1301. The reader may easily judge whether the Court or the prisoner declared the law accurately by reading the few words that follow. Coke, 3rd Inst, fol. 30, says :—" Hereupon it fol- loweth that if the peers of the realm, who are intended to be indifferent, can have no conference with the judges or with the high steward in open Court in the absence of the prisoner : a fortiori the king's learned counsel should not in the absence of the party accused, upon any case put, or matter showed by them, privately preoccupate the opinion of the judges." Any doubt as to the meaning of the words *'in the absence of the party accused " is removed by the words used by Coke in another place (2nd Instit. fol. 49) — *' After the lords be gone together to consider of the evidence, they cannot send to the high steward or ask the judges any question of law, but in the hearing of the prisoner." 1649.] AND TO BE ALLOWED COUNSEL. 201 ''Lilburne. Under favour thus, for you to come to ensnare and entrap me with unknown niceties and forma- lities that are locked up in the French and Latin tono-ue, and cannot be read in English books, they being not ex- pressed in any law of the kingdom, published in our own English tongue ; it is not fiiir play according to the law of England, plainly in English expressed in the Petition of Right, and other the good old statute laws of the land. Therefore I again humbly desire to have counsel assigned to me, to consult with, what these formalities in law signify ; so that I may not throw away my life ignorantly upon forms. ^' Lord Keble. You shall have that which is accordinsj to the law ; therefore, Mr. Lilburne, I advise you to plead, and you shall have fair play, and no advantage taken against you by your ignorance of the formality of the law. "Lilburne. Well then, sir, upon that engagement, and because I see you are so positive in the thing — this is my answer : That I am not guilty of any of the treasons in manner and form, as they are there laid down in that Indictment'" (pointing to it). "And therefore now, sir, having pleaded, I crave the liberty of England, that you will assign me counsel. " Mr. Broughton. By whom wilt thou be tried ? " Lilburne, By the known laws of England, and a legal jury of my equals, constituted according to law. " Mr. Broughton. By whom wilt thou be tried ? " Lilburne. By the known laws of England, I mean, by the liberties and privileges of the laws of England, and a jury of ray equals legally chosen. And now, sir, I again desire counsel to be assigned me, to consult with in point of law, that so I may not destroy myself through my ig- 202 HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. norance. This is but the same privilege that was granted at Oxford unto me, and the rest of my fellow-prisoners arraigned with me. " One of the Clerks. You must say, by God and your country ; that's the form of the law. ^^Zilburne, Why must I say so ? Judge Jermin then explained to him the meaning of the form of words — " by God and your country "' — by God as God is everywhere present ; by your country, that is by your country or neighbourhood, by a jury of the neigh- bourhood. ** Lilhurne. Sir, under your favour thus ; then in the negative I say God is not locally or corporally here present to try me, or pass upon me ; but affirmative, I return this answer. That I desire to be tried in the presence of that God, that by his omnipotent power is present everywhere, and beholds all the actions that are done upon the earth, and sees and knows whether any of your hearts be pos- sessed with a premeditated malice against me, or whether any of you come with so much forethought of malice against me, as that in your hearts you intend to do the utmost you can, right or wrong, to destroy me : and before this all-seeing God I desire to be tried, and by my country, that is to say, by a jury of my equals, according to the good old laws of the land. " Justice Thorp. You have spoken very well. " Lord Kehle. You have done like an Englishman so far as you have gone ; and I do assure you, that in any formalities (as you express or call them) there shall be no advantage against you, if you mistake in them. Now what you have the next to think upon, is your jury of your countrymen or neighbours of your equals ; and ^^^J^&*^,,fiass -^SiSsS^ffiiMBM^^jj^S^v -v 1649.] LILBURNE'S ARGUMENT IN REGARD TO COUNSEL. 203 I promise you, we will take care of that, that they shall be good and lawful men of England.'' ^ But here Lilburne entered into another contest with the Court as to the matter of counsel. There is great force in some of his remarks, a force which proves that modern writers have underrated his abilities, which are very con- spicuous on this trial, where he fought singly and without a legal education against so many professional lawyers and judges. He showed the glaring inconsistency of a body of men who pretended to be the instruments of introducing a new era of liberty and happiness and of abolishing the old servitude and misery, and nevertheless not only maintained when it suited them the most unjust of the old laws of treason, but created new treasons before unheard of. " I know very well,'' said he, **and I read it in your own law-books, such a prerogative, as that in cases of treason no counsel shall plead against the king, hath been some- times challenged to be the king's right by law ; but, let me tell you, it was an usurped prerogative of the late king,^ with all other arbitrary prerogatives and unjust usurpations upon the people's rights and freedoms, which has been pretended to be taken away with him. And, sir, can it be just to allow me counsel to help me to plead for » State Trials, pp. 1292-1295. 2 It was not correct to say that this particular prerogative was an innova- tion of the late king, since it was a rule at common law that no counsel should be allowed a prisoner on his trial for any capital crime, unless some point of law should arise — '* a rule" says Blackstone, '* which seems to be not at all of a piece with the rest of the humane treatment of pri- soners by the English law." — 4 Com. 355. But Lilbume's conclusion was quite correct for, whether this par- ticular tyranny originated with Charles the First or not, it was a strange spec- tacle to see it exercised by those who styled themselves * * custodes libertatis Anglise*' and who ordered the king's statues to be taken down and the words ' ' Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus, Anno Libertatis Anglise restitutje primo — Anno Domini 1648 (9). Jan. 30 " to be inscribed on the places where they stood. The *' last of the kings," however, was evidently not the last of the tyrants. 204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. my estate, the lesser ; and to deny me the help of counsel to enable me to plead for my life, the greater ? ^ Nay, sir, can it be just in you judges, to take up seven years' time in ending some suits of law for a little money or land, and deny me a few days to consider what to plead for my life ? Sir, all these pretences of yours were but all the prero- gatives of the king's will, to destroy the poor ignorant and harmless people by, which undoubtedly died with him ; or else only the name or title is gone with him, but not the power or hurtful tyranny or prerogative in the least. Therefore seeing all such pretended and hurtful prerogatives are pretended to be taken away with the king, by those that took away his life, I earnestly desire I may be assigned counsel to consult with, knowing more especially no pre- tence wliy I should be denied that benefit and privilege of the law, of the just and equitable law of England, having put myself upon a trial according to the privileges thereof'^ Lilburne further insisted on the fact that when he ap- peared at the bar at Oxford and pleaded '* Not Guilty " to his indictment and made exceptions against his indictment, he and the two other gentlemen arraigned with him had counsel assigned them and a week's time to consider with their counsel what to plead for their lives. But the Court would not admit that what was done at Oxford was a pre- cedent for them, declaring that they knew at Oxford that it was no treason and also knew that whatsoever was done to any of those fighting for Parliament, the like would be * No one who reads this trial care- assistance be denied to save the life of fully can speak slightingly of Lil- a man, which yet is allowed him in burne's capacity. About a century prosecutions for every petty trespass ? '* later Blackstone uses in his Commen- — 4 Com. 355. taries an argument precisely analogous ^ State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1301, to Lil burne's. Blackstone says — " For 1302, upon what face of reason can that 1649.] COUNSEL. 205 done to those fighting for the king and therefore gave them more privileges than were their right by law. This opinion of the Court is partly supported by Lilburne's own account of the use he made of the week's time allowed him to con- sult with counsel. " In which time,'' he said " being freed of my irons, and of my close imprisonment, and enjoying pen, ink, and paper at my pleasure, by special order fi-om the other two gentlemen, I writ a letter to my wife, and in it inclosed another to your Speaker, and another to young Sir Henry Vane, then my familiar acquaintance ; all which I sent in post-haste away to my wife by the hands of Captain Primrose's wife, which Captain Primrose was prisoner there ; and his wife, who brought up the letter to my wife, is now in London. Which letter my wife delivered to the Speaker, &c. and by her importunate solicitation procured the decla- ration of Lex Talionis ; the substance of which, in a letter from Mr. Speaker, my wife brought down to Oxford, and delivered to the Lord Heath's own hands upon the Sun- day after the first day of our arraignment. And the third day before we were to appear again, my wife arrived at Oxford with the Speaker's letter, which she delivered to Judge Heath himself ; which letter taking notice of our trial, threatened them with Lex Talionis, to do the like to their prisoners that they did to us, or any of us. And they having many of their great eminent men prisoners in the Tower and in Warwick Castle, and other places, did induce them to stop all further prosecution of Colonel Vivers, Captain Catesby, and myself And if it had not been for this threatening letter, in all likelihood we had all three been condemned by a commission of Oyer and Terminer, and executed : for my wife did hear Judge Heath say to some of his associates, at the reading of the letter, that as for all the threatening part of it, as to his 206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [CHiP. IV. particular self, ' I value it not ; but ' said he, ' we must be tender of the lives of the lords and gentlemen that serve the king, and are in the custody of those at Westminster. ' And that clause of Lex Talionis put a stop to our pro- ceedings, and further trials at law." ' Lilburne then desired that his solicitor might speak two or three words for him. But Mr. Sprat, his solicitor, beginning to speak, was stopped by the Court, Judge Jer- min exclaiming " What impudent fellow is that, that dare be so bold as to speak in the Court without being called ? " and proceeded to say that the Court would allow him counsel, "if matter of law, upon the proof of the fact, do arise : but for any other counsel to be assigned you before that appear, is not by law warranted : we shall tread the rules of justice." " Lord KebU. And this, Mr. Lilburne, I will promise you, that when there comes matter in law, let it be a lawyer, or yourself, he shall speak in your behalf; but before he cannot. " LiVmrTie. Sir, the whole indictment, under favour, is matter of law; and the great question that will arise (admit the fact should be true, and admit it should be granted) is. Whether the words be treason in law, yea or no ? And also it is matter of law in the indictment, whether the matter in the indictment be rightly alledged as to matter, time, and place. And it is matter of law in the indictment, where there are divers several pretended treasons committed in divers and several counties, put into one and the same indictment, whether that be legal, yea or no? " Lord KehU. Upon proof of the matter of fact, you shall hear and know whether matter of law will arise ; and tiU ' State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1304. 1649.] COUNSEL. 207 the words be proved, we cannot say whether that be the law that you suppose. "Lilburne. Truly, sir, you promised me a fair trial, and that you would not take advantages of my ignorance in the law's formalities ; but the Lord deliver me, and all true-hearted Englishmen, from such unjust and unrighteous proceedings as I find at your hands, who go about, I now clearly see, to destroy me by my ignorance, in holding me to a single and naked plea, which is purely as bad, if not worse, than all the prerogatives, in a more rigorous manner than they were used in his lifetime, to be thus pressed upon me at this day, after he hath lost his life for pretended tyranny and injustice ; liberty and freedom in public decla- rations declared to the kingdom : I say, if there be justice and equity in this, I have lost my understanding ; and the good Lord God of Heaven deliver me from all such justi- Claries ! Then came some of the stereotyped eulogies by the Court on the excellence of the laws of England — that " the law of God is the law of England " — that " the laws of God, the laws of reason, and the laws of the land are all joined in the laws that you shall be tried by ; '' ^ — the truth of which may be judged of by the fact that this very law of which Lilburne justly complained and which the judges extolled was, after this country had been finally delivered from the tyranny of the Stuarts as well as that of those who destroyed the Stuarts but retained their instruments of tyranny, altered by a statute^ of William the Third, and that measure of justice was granted to persons indicted for high treason for which Lilburne had pleaded so well and so bravely in vain. When Lilburne found that he pleaded to * State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1305, 1306. 2 State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1307. 3 7 W. 3, c. 3. 208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IY. 1649.] LILBURNE'S PLEA TO THE INDICTMENT. 209 no purpose for counsel, for a little time to consult with them and to produce his witnesses, and for a copy of his indictment, he said : '* Sir, I have no more to say. It is but a vain thing to spend any more words. Sir, I have cast up my account, and I know what it can cost me : I bless God I have learned to die, having always carried my life in my hand, ready to lay it down for above this twelve years together, having lived in the favour and bosom of God ; and I bless his name, I can as freely die as live." ^ In answer to Lilburne's further request for time to bring in his witnesses, some of whom he said lived eighty or a hundred miles off, and others were parliament men, and others officers of the army who would not come in without subpoenas, Keble replied, " For your witnesses, you should have brought them with you ; we will give you leave to send for them ; we will give you time to do this, and to consider with yourself what to say for yourself; you shall have till seven o'clock to-moiTOw morning.*' Accordingly the Court adjourned till the next morning, and the prisoner, after humbly thank- ing the Court for what favour he had already received, was remanded to the Tower.^ In order to render intelligible what follows it will be necessary to state here that general orders had been issued to the army Feb. 22, 164^ forbidding any private meet- ings of officers and soldiers, such as had been found useful to their commanders in 1647, to be held without previous permission from the Council of War. And a committee was appointed to consider of a way in which those might be punished who should endeavour to breed any discontent in the army, not being themselves members of the army.^ This last provision was expressly pointed against Lil- i\ » state Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1308, 1309. 2 State .Trials, pp. 1312—1314. 3 Whitelock, Feb. 22. burne, who was not then a member of the army, though he had been formerly, and had risen by his own merit as one of its best soldiers to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. And by the acts of the 14th of May 1649, and I7th July 1649, declaring what offences shall be adjudged treason, it was enacted '' that if any person shall maliciously pub- lish, by writing, printing, or openly declaring, that the pre- sent Government is tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful ; or that the Commons in Parliament assembled are not the supreme authority of this nation ; '' and further, " if any person, not being an officer, soldier, or member of the army, shall , plot, contrive, or endeavour to stir up any mutiny in the said army, or withdraw any soldiers or officers from their obedience to their superior officers, or from the present Government : that every such offence shall be adjudged by the authority of this present Parliament to be High Treason." On the second day of the trial, Friday the 26th of October, the prisoner was again brought to the bar, and his brother, Col. Robert Lilburne, his solicitor Mr. Sprat, and others of his friends standing beside him, the Court objected to this. "Lord Kehle, Mr. LUburne, I will have nobody stand there, let all come out but one man. ''Lilburne, Here^s none but my brother and my solicitor. "Lord Kehle. Sir, your brother shall not stand by you there ; I wiU only have one hold your papers and books, and the rest not to trouble you ; wherefore the rest are to come out." * The jury having been sworn, after Lilburne had challenged several who were set aside, Mr. Broughton » State Trials, rol. iv. p. 1215. 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. 1649.] QUESTION OF THE ''AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE." 211 read the indictment which was very long, enumerating various of Lilburne's alleged publications and also containing passages from several of those publications. Lilburne then declared that on the previous day he had pleaded conditionally and that he was much wronged in their saying that he pleaded Not Guilty : " and now/' he said, " I make ray absolute plea to the indictment, which is this : That I except against the matter and form of it, matter, time, and place, and humbly crave counsel to assign and plead to the errors thereof/' To this request the Court returned answer "that we have done we must maintain." * The Attorney-General first proceeded to call the witnesses against the prisoner, then ordered the clerk to read the Acts of the 14th of May, 16-i9 and of the l7th of July, 1649, declaring what offences shall be adjudged treason, and also to read certain passages from the publications alleged by him to be Lilburne's. The passages read were numerous and some of them long. As it is absolutely necessary for the comprehension of this critical period of English History to have a clear view of this trial, I will give a few of the passages read by order of the Attorney-General. "Mr. Attorney. I shall produce his book, entitled 'The Legal and Fundamental Liberties of England revived, &c.' Eead the title-page. " Clerk. * The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England revived, asserted and vindicated : or an epistle written the 8th of June, 1649, by Lieut.-Col. John Lilburne (arbitrary and aristocratical ^ prisoner in the * State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1329, constitutional power of the oli- 1330. garchy or aristocracy, calling itself a 2 He means by this word that he is commonwealth that then ruled in imprisoned by the arbitrary and un- England by the power of the sword. \ t Tower of London) to Mr. William Lenthall, Speaker to the remainder of those few knights, citizens and burgesses, that Col. Thomas Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster, (as most fit for his and his masters' designs, to serve their ambitious and tyrannical ends, to destroy the good old laws, liberties, and customs of England, and by force of arms to rob the people of their lives, estates and properties, and subject them to perfect vassalage and slavery, as he clearly evinceth in his present case, &;c., they have done) and who (in truth no otherwise than pretendedly) stile themselves the Parliament of England.' " Mr. Attorney. Read page 2. ''Clerk. 'Sir, for distinction- sake, I will yet stile you Mr. Speaker, although it be but to Col. Pride's juncto, or Parliament sitting at Westminster (not the nation's, for they never gave him authorit}^ to issue out writs to elect or constitute a Parliament for them)/ "Mr. Attorney. Read page 28. " Clerk. * The hke of which tyranny the king never did in his reign ; and yet by St. Oliver's means lost his head for a tyrant.' "Mr. Attorney, Read page 37. " Clerk. * For if ever they had intended an Agreement, why do they let their own be dormant in the pretended Parhament ever since they presented it? seeing it is obvious to every knowing eye, that from the day they presented it, to this hour, they have had as much power over their own Parliament now sitting, as any school- master in England had over his boys.' ^ It will be seen that this passage opens a most momentous question. The " Agreement of the People " to which he » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1355, 1356. P 2 212 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. 1649.] PASSAGES FROM LILBURNE'S WRITINGS. 213 refers and which he calls " their own '' meaning that of the chiefs of the army, is the Agreement of which I have given an account in a preceding chapter and which is commonly stated to have been chiefly drawn by Ireton. Now Lilburne's opinion evidently was that neither Crom- well nor Fairfax nor even Ireton himself wished this Agreement to be acted upon, that if it lay dormant in the pretended Parliament, it lay dormant with their consent, since they ruled the army which ruled the Parliament. It is manifest also that a much better and really more effective answer to those they called Levellers than putting some of them to death by the sword or the provost- martial,^ and attempting to put to death others such as Lilburne by new and unconstitutional laws of treason, would have been to have put that " Agreement " in force and to have called a new Parliament in accordance with its provisions. The measure might have failed after all, but then those who, as it is, have left their names a doubt to some, an object of execration to others, might at least have been entitled to the verdict of having acted consistently. In regard to the question how fe.r Ireton acquiesced in the putting aside or postponement sine die of the *' Agreement of the People,'' which he had drawn up, I think the more probable explanation is that Ireton 1 Provost-ma7*sAaZ is an error — the word having no relation to maresckal but meaning a provost to execute martial law. The word is thus spelt in the Order Book of the Council of State :— as appears by the following minute— "That Col. Pride shall be allowed for the recruits to be raised for Ireland— a Martiall at 3s. 4d per diem, a Quarter Master at 35. id. per diem. And for two carriage-horses to carry the money that is to pay the soldier's quarters 6s. 8d. per diem ; and the arms following, viz. 50 drums at 20s. a piece, 100 halberts at 5s. a piece." — 07'der Book of the Council of State, 24 Oct. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. On the same day it was ordered that two apothecaries more be sent to Ireland at 5s. per diem each, in consequence of letters from the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland signify- ing the want of them. t prevailed on ' Cromwell to acquiesce in the drawing up and presenting to Parliament the "Agreement of the People,'' but could prevail no farther with him. As to Ireton's opposing Lilburne, assuming both to have had honest in- tentions, and both to have been in their ways men of ability, Ireton would see soon enough that, whatever might be Lilburne's ability and courage, and honest and dis- interested views, neither his peculiar character nor his rank and power in the army gave him the least chance of con- tending successfully with Cromwell. As I have said before, in every such case it must always depend on the victorious general whether a military despotism or a constitutional government be the result ; and such men as Ireton and Blake might be honest as well as able and brave men, though they submitted to a fate which their practical good sense told them no resistance of theirs could have averted. ''Mr. Attorney. Read page 58. " Clerk. ' And let the present generation of swaying men, that under pretence of good, kindness, and friend- ship, have destroyed and trod underfoot all the liberties of the nation, and will not let us have a new Parliament , but set up by the sword their own insufferable tyranny.' " Mr. Attorney. Read page 68. ** Clerh. * That the High Court of Justice was altogether unlawful, in case those that had set it up had been an unquestionable representative of the people, or a legal Parliament : neither of which they are in the least ; but, as they have managed their business in opposing all their primitive declared ends, are a pack of traitorous, self- seeking, tyrannical men, usurpers of the name and power of Parliament.' *' Mr. Attorney. My lord, that which we shall offer you next is the * Salva Libertate/ which the lieutenant 214 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. 1649.] PASSAGED FROM LILBURNE'S WRITINGS. 215 of the Tower had from Mr. Lilburne himself. Read at the mark. ''Clerk 'A Salva Libertate :' * although I then told you I judged a paper warrant (although in words never so formal) coming from any pretended power or authority in England, now visible, to be altogether illegal ; because the intruding General Fairfax and his forces had broke and annihilated all the formal and legal magistracy of England, yea the very Parliament itself; and by his will and sword (absolute conqueror like) had most tyrannically erected and imposed upon the free people of this nation a Juncto or mock-power, sitting at Westminster, whom he and his associates call a Parliament; who, like so many armed thieves and robbers upon the highway, assume a power, by their own wills, most traitorously to do what they like, yea, and to fill the land with their mock and pretended magistrates, amongst the number of which is the pretended Attorney-General; in perfect opposition of whom, to the utmost of my might, power, and strength, I am resolved by God's gracious assistance, to spend my blood, and all that in this world is dear unto me, supposing him not really and substantially worthy the name of an English freeman, that in some measure, in this particular, is not of my mind." * The Attorney-General then said '' My lords, I hope you and the gentlemen of the jury will take notice of it, as to be very clear proof that Mr. Lilburne hath thus published, and thus said. And besides this, you see what he does go to. He denies magistracy. So that now we are all alike, a class, a confusion.'' Upon this in the original edition of the report of the trial thei'e is this note : " He doth no such thing; but at most saith, the army hath destroyed ' State Trials, vol. iv. p. 3357. all the legal magistracy of the nation ; and they are the men that thereby are the real Levellers and Rooters." The Attorney- General had said a short time before " Mr. Lilburne is a very great rooter, not a leveller, but a rooter to root out the laws of England by the roots.'' The Attorney-General thus proceeded: "My lords, I shall not aggravate ; and if I did say no more, it were enouf^h. But I come to the second general head of the charge ; which is, that he hath plotted and contrived to levy or raise forces to subvert and overthrow the present established Government, in the way of a free state or com- monwealth. My lords, if I should say nothing more to the jury, this that hath been already read is evident proof of that: For certainly those that shall say that the governors be tyrants, that the Parliament is tyrannical, that they are men of blood, destroyers of laws and liberties ; this cannot be of any other use but to raise force against them, for subverting and destroying of them, as he himself saith, as so many weasels or polecats ; especially if you consider to whom these words were declared, to the army in general, especially to the general's regiment of horse, that helped to plunder and destroy Mr. Lilburne's true friends, defeated at Burford ; and some of which were most justly, as traitors, executed." ^ Upon this there is the following note in the original edition of the report : " In calling tyrants weasels and polecats, he hath said no more but what he hath learned out of St. John's Argument of Law against the Earl of Strafford: at which you have no cause to be angry, because they are the words of one of your own brother lawyers." The Attorney-General after quoting some passages from » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1358, 1359. 216 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. Lilbume's " Impeachment of High Treason against Oliver Cromwell/' proceeded to cite passages from his ''Agreement of the People/' to show that it amounted to High Treason, inasmuch as it set forth how many the Parliament should consist of, the time when the present Parliament should dissolve, and the time when the new Parliament should meet. And yet this was no more than Ireton's " Agree- ment of the People '' had done, the only difference in one respect being that Ireton had fixed the last day of April, 1649, as the day upon or before which the present Par- liament should end and dissolve, and Lilburne, finding that the men who sat and talked at Westminster let the last day of April, 1649, pass without taking any notice of Ireton's Agreement of the People, put forth his Agreement of the People on the 1st day of May, 1649, and had fixed the first Wednesday in August, 1 649, as the day on which the said Parliament should end. And if the Parliament had not neglected Ireton's Agreement of the People, there would have been no need to set forth Lilburne's or any other Agreement of the People. It is also a very signifi- cant fact that the outbreak of that part of the army called the Levellers did not take place till the Parliament, by letting the month of April expire without acting in the least on Ireton's Agreement of the People, showed that they considered themselves as ruling by a sort of right divine almost as much as the Stuarts whom they had deposed. They were, as I have said, most able and ener- getic administrators ; but if they had possessed that higher statesmanship which can employ a comprehensive survey of the past in a wise divination of the future, they might have seen clearly enough what the end of such a course would be. Perhaps the only man that could, if he had been so minded, have saved them from such a disastrous as 1649.] PASSAGES FROM LILBURNE'S WRITINGS. 217 well as disgraceful end was Cromwell. And yet one can only say "perhaps," for more than two years after they had thus neglected Ireton's Agreement and prosecuted Lil- burne for his, we find the following entry in their Journals: — *' Friday, the 14th of November, 1651 — The question being propounded That it is now a convenient time to declare a certain time for the continuance of this Parliament, beyond which it shall not sit, and the question being put (which is now termed " the previous question "),* " That this question be now put," was carried by a majority of 50 to 46, the Lord General Cromwell being one of the Tellers for the Yeas. It was then resolved " That this business be resumed again on Tuesday evening next."* Accordingly on Tuesday the 18 th of November it was resolved " That the time for the continuance of this Par- liament, bej^ond which they resolve not to sit, shall be the Third day of November, 1654 ;"^ a day which they did not live to see. The Attorney- General then thus proceeded : " My lord, we shall go on with more yet, and that is with his Outcry. My lord, if you please to see the title, and see to whom it is directed, what was intended to. be done with it : it is in titled, * An Outcry of the Young Men and Apprentices of London, directed August 29, 1649, in an epistle to the private soldiery of the army, especially all those that signed the 'Solemn Engagement' at Newmarket-heath, the 5th of June, 1647, but more especially to the private soldiers of the general's regiment of horse, that helped to * I hare before (page 179) given an example of this. 2 Commons' Journals, Friday the 14th of November, 1651. It is curious that on the first division, namely on the previous question "That this question be now put," the majority of the Yeaa was 50 to 46, when on the main ques- tion being put, the majority became only 49 while the minority became 47. ^ Commons' Journals, Tuesday, the 18th of November, 1651. 218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. plunder and destroy the honest and true-hearted English- men, traitorously defeated at Burford, the 15th of May, 1649/ A good encouragement ! they were traitorously defeated at Burford ; but we are rebels and traitors, and our army murderers and butchers, for giving some of those declared traitors their due deserts. But that you may see his tendency by this Book, read page 11. " Clerh. ' You, our fellow-countrymen, the private soldiers of the army, alone being the instrumental authors of your own slavery and ours ; therefore, as there is any bowels of men in you, any love to your native country, kindred, friends or relations, any spark of conscience in you, any hopes of glory or immortality in you, or any pity, mercy, or compassion, to an enslaved, undone, perishing, and dying people ! help ! help ! save and re- deem us from total vassalage and slavery, and be no more like brute-beasts, to fight against us or our friends, your loving and dear brethren after the flesh, to your own vas- salage as well as ours ! And as an assured pledge of your future cordialness to us, (and the true and real liberties of the land of your nativity) we beseech and beg of you (but especially those amongst you that subscribed the Solemn Engagement at JSTewmarket-heath, the 5th of June, 1647,) speedily to chuse out amongst yourselves two of the ablest and constantest faithful men amongst you in each troop and company, now at last, by corresponding each with other, and with your honest friends in the nation, to con- sider of some effectual course, beyond all pretences and cheats, to accomplish the real end of all your engagements and fightings, viz. the settling of the liberties and freedom of the people ; which can never permanently be done, but upon the sure foundation of a popular agreement, for the people in justice, gratitude, and common equity, cannot 1649. J PASSAGES FROM LILBURNE'S WRITINGS. 219 chuse but voluntarily and largely make better provision for your future subsistence, by the payment of your arrears, than ever your officers or this pretended Par- liament intends, or you can rationally expect from them : witness their cutting off" three parts of your arrears in four for free-quarter ; and then necessitating abundance of your fellow-soldiers (now cashiered, &c.) to sell their debentures at 2s. 6d, 8s., and at most 4s. for the pound.' " ^ " Mr. Attorney, See, my lord, here we are styled tyrants, usurpers, introducing government oppressions of the people ; and Mr. Lilburne is resolved with his friends to join together, and to lay down their very lives for this. This, I think, is a trumpet blown aloud for all the discon- tented people in the nation to flock together, to root up and destroy this Parliament, and so the present Govern- ment. But read also the same book, page 9. ''Cleric. 'For the effectual promotion of which said Agreement, we are compelled to resolve in close union to join ourselves, or our commissioners, with our foresaid Bur- ford friends or their commissionei's ; and to run all hazards to methodize all our honest fellow-prentices, in all the wards of London, and the out-parishes, to chuse out their agents to join with us or ours, to write exhortative epistles to all the honest-hearted freemen of England, in all the counties thereof, to erect several councils among them- selves ; out of which we shall desire and exhort them to chuse agents or commissioners, empowered and entrusted by them, speedily to meet us and the agents of all our (and the Agreement of the People) adherents at London, resolvedly to consider of a speedy and effectual method and way how to promote the elevation of a new and equal representative, or Parliament, by the agreement of the » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1363-1365. 220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. free people : Seeing those men that now sit at Westminster, and pretendedly stile themselves the Parliament of England, and who are as they say (although most falsely) in the Declaration for a free state, dated March 17, 164f, page 27, intrusted and authorized by the consent of all the people of England, whose representatives they are ; make it their chiefest and principallest work continually to part and share amongst themselves all the great, rich, and profitable places of the nation ; as also the nation's public treasure and lands; and will not ease our intolerable oppressions, no not so much as of late receive our popular petitions." ^ The truth of the words of the last passage of this extract sent the sting of the libel home. The language ^ of many passages produced from Lilbume's > State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1365. - In addition to the specimens al- ready given of the language used by Lilbume, I will add here a few more examples. From "The Apprentices' Out-cry " the Attomey-Greneral ordered the clerk to read the following pas- sages : *'But even our Parliament, the very marrow and soul of all the people's native rights put down, and the name and power thereof trans- mitted to a picked party of your forcible selecting, and such as your officers, our lords and riders, have often stiled no better than a mock parliament, a shadow of a parliament, a seeming authority, or the like, pre- tending the continuance thereof, but till a new and equal representative by mutual agreement of the free people of England, could be elected ; although now for subserviency to their exalta- tion and kingship, they prorogue and perpetuate the same, in the name, and under colour thereof, introducing a Privy Council, or, as they call it, a Council of State, of superintendency and suppression to all future parlia- ments for ever, erecting a martial government, by blood and violence impulsed upon us," page 2. — " Trade is decayed and fled ; misery, poverty, calamity, confusion, yea, and beggary grown so sore and so extreme upon the people, as the like never was in Eng- land, under the most tyrannical of all our kings that were before these in present power, since the days of the Conqueror himself : no captivity, no bondage, no oppression like unto this ; no sorrow and misery like unto ours, of being enslaved, undone, and de- stroyed by our large pretend ed friends, page 3. "And yet nothing but the groundless wills and humours of those aforementioned men of blood rageth and ruleth over us," page 4. " We are compelled to do the utmost we can for our own preservation and the preservation of the land of our nativity, and never by popular petitions, &c., address ourselves to the men sitting at Westminster any more, or to take any more notice of them, than as 1649.] nLBURNE EXCEPTS TO COL. PUREFOY AS A WITNESS. 221 publications was clearly enough treason according to the new laws of treason of May and July last, which new laws going beyond the law of treasons of Edward the Third made bare words treason. The charge of stirring up mutiny in the army was not established farther than that written words such as I have quoted, addressed to the soldiers specially, have a tendency to stir up mutiny. Moreover the Attorney- General and the Court appear not to have considered the case against the prisoner strong on this point, and to have felt the force of Lilbume's obser- vation in his defence : " the testimony doth not reach to accuse me of any evil or malicious counsel given them [three soldiers whom he met accidentally] or any aggrava- tions of spirit, as though I did incense them against their officers, thereby to stir them up to mutiny and rebellion. For truly I have made it my work, to be as sparing of my discourse as I could be, in the company of any belonging to the army ; yea, and to shun coming nigh the place, if I can avoid it, where they are." ^ When Colonel Purefoy was sworn as a witness against the prisoner, Lilbume said : — '* Under favour but one word, I crave but one word, I have an exception. First, Colonel Purefoy is one of those that call themselves the keepers of the liberties of England ; and for committing crimes against them I am indicted, and he is one of them and therefore a party, and in that respect in law he can be no witness against me. It would have been very hard for the king to have been a witness against that man that was indicted for committing crimes against him, such a thing in of so many tyrants and usurpers," page 11, in State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1353, 1354. From " The Prepara- tive to a Hue-and-Cry after Sir Arthur Haselrig" — ** That those men that now sit at Westminster are no parliament either upon the principles of law or reason." Page 2, in the margin. — Staie Trials, vol. iv. p. 1354. » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1384. 222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. all his reign was never known." * To this the Attorney- General's answer was : — -** Mr. Lilburne, you are mistaken ; Colonel Purefoy is a Member of Parliament, he is none of the keepers of the liberties of England.'' This is a strange assertion on the part of the Attorney-General, when the writ of the Parliament ran thus — " Custodes Libertatis Anglise, auctoritate Parliament! Vicecomiti salutem.'"^ Does not this prove that the members of the Parliament in the aggregate and the Custodes Libertatis Anglise in the aggregate were identical ? and that each member of Par- liament was a member of this body constituting the sovereign in England at that time. Lilburne also showed that one of the publications specified in the indictment, namely his " Agreement of the People," which, as has been shown, was very difierent in some things (though similar in many others) from Ireton's '* Agreement of the People,'' bore a date anterior to the date of any of those new acts under which he was indicted, and therefore was not within the compass of it/ When the Attorney-General had ended his address to the jury, the foreman said, " We desire the Act of Treasons to make use of" " Lilburne. I beseech you hear me a few words : they desire to have it along with them. Sir, with your favour, I shall humbly crave liberty to speak a few words : I shall keep me close to that which is my right and my duty, and that is to the matter of law in my indictment. There are many things put into the indictment by the testimonies of witnesses now sworn, that are pretended to be acted in several counties. Whether that be according to law, or no, I do not know whether you will judge it so or no ; but > State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1342. 7 Martii, 164§. = Commons' Journal, Die Mercurii, 3 State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1388. 1649.] NOT TWO WITNESSES TO ANY ONE FACT. 223 sure I am, if either those express statutes that I have already cited to the jury, or the third part of Coke's Insti- tutes, be law, I ought not to be tried for treason but by a jury of the next neighbourhood, in the self-same county the fact is pretended to be committed in. And therefore it is very questionable to me, whether my indictment be legal, for that it chargeth me with facts of treason committed in three several counties ; and that being matter of law, I desire counsel to argue that point, in the first place. There are also a great many things arise out of the matter of fact that will be points of law likewise. There were never two clear and positive witnesses to one fact sworn against me ; but to most of the particular [alleged] treasons there is but one a-piece ; and I cannot yield that to be legal, but questionable in law, which I desire counsel to dispute. I know not of any of all the books fixed upon me, but the " Outcry," that hath two plain witnesses to it ; and yet it is not sworn that I am the author of it. The state of the fact is this : that I was at the printer's before the copy was taken away ; and that I gave one of those books to a soldier. To sum up the notes of the matter of fact that thereon hath been endeavoured to be proved, is too hard a task to be done by me immediately ; and there- fore I conceive it but just for you to assign me counsel, to agree with the counsel against me what are the points of fact upon the proof, from which the points of law are to be deducted. This, with a larger privilege, was granted by one of your own brother judges to Major Eolfe last year, as his right by law ; and I do again appeal to Mr. Justice Nichols, then one of Eolfe's counsel, for the truth of this. I pray speak, sir ; is it not true ?" [But the judge sitting " as if " says the contemporary report, " he had neither life nor soul," Lilburne went on :] — " I hope, sir, it doth not 224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. enter into your thoughts presently to put me to an un- digested extemporary answer to so large an indictment as that is that hath been read against me, that it is impossible for any man, if his brain were as big as the biggest magazine in London, to carry it in his head. I hope you do not lie upon the catch, to weary and tire me out, by putting more upon me than a horse is able to endure ; and then go about to hang me, because I, through tiredness, want bodily strength and abilities to make and pronounce my defence." ^ To this the answer of the Court was — " Free yourself from the matter of fact, if you can, and then make it appear that from the matter of fact law arises. But if you do not first make out this, which is the issue upon the point, to answer the matter of fact, we cannot allow you any counsel." " Lilhurne. There is Judge Nichols, that I understand was one of Major Eolfe's counsel : and I understand from Mr. Maynard's own mouth, that he and Mr. Maynard were by Baron Wyld assigned of Rolfe's counsel, in case of the highest treason that the law of England ever knew, and that before the grand inquest found the indictment ; and that Mr. Maynard, &c. had liberty as Major Rolfe's counsel, by Baron Wyld's order, to stand in the Court, not only to hear the witnesses sworn, but also to hear the words of their testimony, then caused by the judge to be given in open Court. And there being but two witnesses to two facts contained in the indictment, Mr. Maynard, upon the allegation of the two statutes of Edward the 6th, that requires two witnesses to the proof of every fact of treason, and that to be plain and clear, overthrew Rolfe's indict- ment in law, that it was never found ; and so saved the > State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1373-1375. 1649.] THE COURT REFUSES THE PRISONER TIME. 225 poor man's life. And all this Mr. Justice Nichols knows is very true, and that I have told you nothing about it but what is just.*' ^ " Lord Keble, Mr. Lilburne, you at this time have here such a Court, which never any of your condition ever had in England, so many grave judges of the law. " Lilhurne. Truly I had rather have had an ordinary one ; sir, I mean a legal and ordinary assize or sessions. " Lord Kehle. But this you have, and this is to take off, or prevent that which you would do now, if there had been one judge, and no more ; and if you had not had this great presence of the Court, you would have been malapert, and have out-talked them ; but you cannot do so here. " Lilhurne. Truly, sir, I am not daunted at the mul- titude of my judges, neither at the glittering of your scarlet robes, nor the majesty of your presence, and harsh austere deportment towards me ; I bless my good God for it, who gives me courage and boldness.'' ^ The Court then called on the prisoner to make his defence. ''Lilhurne. I have been a great while yesterday pleading my right by law for counsel, and now I have stood many hours to hear your proofs to the indictment. I hope you will not be so cruel to put me to a present answer when my bodily strength is spent. " Lord Kehle. Dispute no more, we must go on. ''Lilhurne. I desire but a week's time to return you an answer to your large indictment ; and if not so long, then give me leave but till to-morrow morning to consider of my answer. I am upon my life. " Lord Kehle. No, you must dispatch it now. » State Trials, pp. 1375, 1376. » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1377. 226 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. 1649.] LAW AND FACT. 227 " Lilhurne. Then give me leave but to withdraw into any private room for an hour to recollect my thoughts, peruse my notes, and refresh my spirits/' Here Judge Jermin whispered the President of the Court, Keble, in the ear ; and presently Judge Jermin said " It is against the law to allow you any more time ; the jury stand here charged, the evidence is given, you must immediately go on, or yield that for truth which hath been proved against you. " Lilburne. Well, then, if it must be so, that you will have my blood, right or wrong ; and if I shall not have one hour's time to refresh me, after my strength is spent, and to consider that which hath been alleged against me, then I appeal " [" which " says the contemporary report, " he uttered with a mighty voice "] " to the righteous God of heaven and earth against you, where I am sure I shall be heard and find access ; and the Lord God Omnipotent, and a mighty Judge betwixt you and me, require and requite my blood upon the heads of you and your posterity, to the third and fourth generation V Immediately after the uttering of these words the scaffold on the left hand fell down, which occasioned a great noise and some confusion, by reason of the people's tumbling down. Silence being made, the prisoner was busy at his papers and books, having been invited by Sheriff Pack to come out of the bar, for fear he should have fidlen with the rest, and so the sheriff might have lost his prisoner. " Lord Keble. How came the prisoner there ? " Lilburne. I went not thither of my own accord, but by Mr. Sheriff's invitation ; and if I am in a place where T ought not to be, blame Mr. Sheriff, and not me. " Lord Keble, Dispatch, sir. " Lilburne. Sir, if you ^vill be so cruel as not to give me leave to withdraw to ease and refresh my body, I pray you let me do it in the Court. Officer, I entreat you " Here there was a short pause till the prisoner had obtained what he asked for. " Lord Keble, Proceed, Mr. Lilburne." But the prisoner pressed for a little respite^ which was granted him with much ado, as also a chair to sit down upon. But w^ithin a very little space the Lord President Keble said " The Court cannot stay for you, proceed on to answer. " Lilburne. Good sir, would you have me to answer to impossibifities ? Will you not give me breath ? If you thirst after my blood, and nothing else will satisfy you, take it presently without any more to-do. ''Lord Keble. Ihe Court can stay no longer; take away his chair, for I cannot see the bar, and plead what you have to say, for it grows very late. " Lilburne. Well, seeing I must do it, the will of God be done ! " But his brother Col. Eobert Lilburne being next to him was heard to press him to pause a little more. " No, brother," said he, " my work is done ; I will warrant you, by the help of God, I will knock the nail upon the head." And so he went into the bar, and set the chair before him, and laid his law books open upon it in the order in which he intended to use them. He then before commencing his defence entered into a contest with the Court for the establishment of the position that by the law of England the jury are not only judges of fact but of law also, in the course of which he said " You that call yourselves judges of the law are no more but Norman intruders ; and indeed Q 2 228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IY. 1649.] LAW AND FACT. 229 and in truth, if the jury please, are no more but cyphers to pronounce their verdict/' ^ ** Judge Jermin. Was there ever such a damnable blasphemous heresy as this is, to call the judges of the law cyphers ? " Lilburne, Sir, I entreat you give me leave to read the words of the law, then ; for to the jury I apply, as my judges, both in the law and fact. " Lord Kehle. We will not deny a tittle of the law. " Judge Jermin. Let all the hearers know, the jury ought to take notice of it, that the judges that are sworn, that are twelve in number, they have ever been the judges of the law, from the first time that ever we can read or hear that the law was truly expressed in England ; and the jury are only judges, whether such a thing were done or no ; they are only judges of matter of fact. " Lilhurne, I deny it ; here's your own law to dis- prove you ; and therefore let me but read it. It is a hard case where a man is upon the trial of his life, that you will not suffer him to read the law to the jury, for his own defence ; I am sure you have caused to be read at large those laws that make against me. " Lord Kehle, But I shall pronounce to clear the righteousness of that law, whatsoever others will pretend against it that know it not. " Lilhurne. Sir, under favour, I shall not trouble my- self with anything, but what is pertinent to my present purpose. Here is the first part of Coke's Institutes ; it is owned by all the lawyers that I know, or ever heard of in England for good law. " Lord Kehle. If you can convince us, that matter of law does concern the jury, you say something. » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1379. " Lilhurne. Sir, I have been shuffled too much out of my liberties already, give me leave to read but the law to the jury." And here it is to be noted, as a confirmation of a remark I have made in a previous note how often in the course of this trial Lilhurne showed a more accurate know- ledge of the law than either the Court or the law officers, that the almost only advantage they obtained over him was on this occasion when, by a slip of the tongue very natural to a man who had not been bred a lawyer, he said " Coke's Commentaries upon Plowden " instead of " Coke's Commentaries upon Littleton." Upon this the President interrupted him. *' Lord Kehle. Have we dealt so fairly with you all this while ? Pray be confident, those that are quotations there, are not for your purpose ; but I thought how good a lawyer you were to set Coke's Commentaries upon Plow- den, when there is no such book or commentary. Go to your matter of fact, whicli is clear ; but for this, let it fall down, and spare yourself, and trouble yourself no more with Coke ; he has no commentary upon Plowden." Here Lilbume pressed to speak. " Judge Jermin. Hold, sir. " Lilhurne. What, will you not allow me liberty to read your law ? O unrighteous and bloody judges ! " Judge Jermin. By the fancy of your own mind, you would puzzle the jury ; we know the book a little better than you do : there is no such book as Coke's Commentary upon Plowden. " Lord Kehle. Sir, you shall not read it. '' Judge Jermin. You cannot be suffered to read the law ; you have broached an erroneous opinion, that the jury are the judges of the law, which is enough to destroy 230 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. all the law in the land ; there was never such damnable heresy broached in this nation before/' The Crier cried out, " Hear the Court/' " Lilburne. Do your pleasure, then here I'll die : Jury, take notice of their injustice ; but seeing they will not hear me, I will appeal to you, and say. It is an easy matter for an abler man than I am, in so many interruptions as I meet with, to mistake Plowden for Littleton. I am sure, here are Coke's Commentaries upon Littleton (366) and these be his [Littleton's] words : ' In this case the recog- nitors may say and render to the justices their verdict at large upon the whole matter/ Which I am sure is good law, for as much as we see it continually done in all actions of trespass or assault, where the jury doth not only judge of the validity of the proof of the fact, but also of the law, by assigning what damages they think is just. And in section 368, Littleton hath these words : * If the inquest [jury] will take upon them the knowledge of the law upon the matter, they may give their verdict generally.' Coke's commentary upon this is — ' Although the jury, if they will take upon them (as Littleton here saith), the knowledge of the law, may give a general verdict/ I am sure this is pertinent to my purpose, and now I have done, sir/' ' Although Lilburne stopt his quotation from Coke's Com- mentary in the middle of a sentence, his statement of the law generally as then in operation appears to have been correct. The sentence in Coke's Commentary concludes thus : " Yet it is dangerous for them [the jury] so to do, for, if they do mistake the law, they run into the danger of an attaint ; therefore to find the special matter " (^. e. the fact without applying the law to it) " is the safest way where the case is doubtful." ^ Originally the consequences, 1 State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1379-1381. 2 Qq, Lj^t. 228, a. 1649.] LAW AND FACT. 231 implied in the word '* attaint," of the jury's mistaking the law consisted of penalties so heavy that they must have deterred the jury in most cases from giving a verdict in- volving the law of the case. But the severity of the old law was mitigated by various statutes and the practice established by this time, as indicated by a case in Moore's Keports, appears to have been that the jury had a right to give a verdict involving both the law and the fe-ct, subject however to revision and correction as to law where they had mistaken the law/ But long after the right of the jury to return a verdict involving the law as well as the fact was admitted in other cases ; their right to do so in the special case of libel, particularly political libel, was questioned and more than questioned by judicial authority, as will appear from the following scene that occurred in 1 784, in a case of trial for libel where the Dean of St. Asaph was indicted for publishing the " Dialogue between a Gentleman and a Farmer," written by Sir William Jones — a case remarkable for the eloquent speech of Erskine which Charles James Fox repeatedly declared he thought the finest argument in the English language, and which is considered to have prepared the way for the intro- duction of Mr. Fox's Libel Bill. " Mr. Erskine, Is the word only to stand as part of your verdict ? " A Juror. Certainly. " Mr. Erskine. Then I insist it shall be recorded. " Mr. Justice Buller. Tlien the verdict must be mis- understood. Let me understand the jury. 1 Lee V. Lee, Moore, 268. " Et les justices diont que lou les jurors trove matter encounter ley, les justices ne pnderont notice de ceo, mes adjudg- eront comme le ley voit." " And the justices said that, when the jurors find matter contrary to law, the jus- tices will not take notice of that, but will give judgment according to law." See also 15 Viu. Abr. 523. 232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. " Mr. Erskine. The jury do understand their verdict. "Mr. Justice Buller. Sir, I will not be interrupted. " Mr. Erskine. I stand here as an advocate for a brother^ citizen, and I desire that the word only may be recorded. " Mr. Justice Buller, Sit down, sir ; remember your duty, or I shall be obliged to proceed in another manner. " Mr. Erskine, Your lordship may proceed in what manner you think fit. I know my duty as well as your lordship knows yours. I shall not alter my conduct." ' By the word " only," the jury meant to find, as Mr. Erskine observed, that there was no sedition. In the course of his speech Mr. Erskine cited the case of Penn and Mead, two Quakers, who in the year 1670 being in- dicted for seditiously preaching to a multitude tumuU tuously assembled in Gracechurch Street, were tried before the Recorder of London, who told the jury that they had nothing to do but to find whether the defendants had preached or not ; for that whether the matter or the inten- tion of their preaching were seditious were questions of law, and not of fact, which they were to keep to at their peril. The jury found Penn guilty of speaking to people in Gracechurch Street ; and on the Recorder's telling them that they meant, no doubt, that he was speaking to a tumult of people there, he was informed by the foreman that they allowed of no such words in their finding, but adhered to their former verdict. The Recorder refused to receive it, and desired them to withdraw, on which they again retired, and brought a general verdict of acquittal, which the Court considering as a contempt, set a fine of forty marks upon each of them, and condemned them to lie in prison till it was paid. Edward Bushel, one of the jurors, refused to pay his fine, and, being imprisoned in » State Trials, vol. xxi. pp. 950, 951. 1649.] LAW AND FACT. 233 consequence of his refusal, sued out his writ of habeas corpus, which, with the cause of his commitment, viz. his refusing to find according to the^ direction of the Court in matter of law, was returned by the Sheriffs of London to the Court of Common Pleas, when Lord Chief Justice Vaughan delivered his opinion as follows: — "We must take off this veil and colour of words, which make a show of being something, but are in fact nothing. If the mean- ing of these words, finding against the direction of the Court in matter of law, be, that the judge, having heard the evidence given in Court (for he knows no other), shall tell the jury, upon this evidence, that the law is for the Crown, and they, under the pain of fine and iniprisonment, are to find accordingly, every man sees that the jury is but a troublesome delay, great charge, and of no use in determining right and wiong, and therefore the trials by them may be better abolished than continued ; which were a strange and new-found conclusion, after a trial so cele- brated for many hundreds of years in this country.'* He then applied the doctrine with double force to criminal cases, and discharged the juror from his commitment.* However Lord Mansfield in delivering the judgment of the Court in the Dean of St. Asaph's case made some obser- vations to the efiect that from the Revolution down to that time, nearly a hundred years, the direction of every judge, as far as it could be traced, had been consonant to the doctrine of Mr. Justice Buller, viz. that the matter for the jury to decide was, whether the Defendant was guilty of the fact or not.^ It will appear however that in the case 1 Penn and Mead. State Trials, vol. ri. p. 999. 2 In 1791 Mr. Fox brought in a bill, which was finally passed in 1792, and became the statute 32 Geo. 3, c. 60, that on trial for libel the jury may give a general verdict upon the whole matter put in issue, and shall not be required by the Court to find a verdict merely on tbe matter of fact. 234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. of Lilburne, though the presiding judge in his charge to the jury told them that they were the proper judges of the " matter of fact/^ and though notwithstanding this, the jury brought in a verdict of " Not Guilty of Treason/' the Court took no exceptions to their verdict. Lilburne now proceeded to make his answer to the proof of the indictment in the same order in which the several witnesses had given their evidence. The principal points on which he insisted were, that there were not two wit- nesses, as required by law, to any one fact sworn against him ; and that his " Agreement of the People '' was before the new law of treason of May and July of that vear, 1G49. The circumstances attending the conclusion of Lilburne^s defence are very characteristic both of the man and of the time. The Lord Commissioner Keble having interrupted him, saying " do not tell us a story, but go on to finish the matter of fxct,^'' and again '' what is material, you shall not be debarred in it,'' Lilburne thus went on and concluded his long defence. - O Lord, sir ! what strange judges are you, that you will neither aUow me counsel to help me to plead, nor suffer me myself to speak for my own life ! Is this your law and justice, sir ? I have no more to say but this, seeing you straiten me ; although you said you would hear me till midnight. I hope I have made it evident to aU rational men, that all or any part of the testimony given in against me does not in the exact eye of the law in the least touch me, although I have been most unjustly imprisoned, and most barbarously used, and tyrannized over ; yea, and my estates by will and power taken from me ; that should have kept me and mine alive, and the legal and customary allowance of the Tower denied me to this day. And although I have used all Christian and fair 1649.] LILBURNE'S DEFENCE. 235 means to compose my differences with my adversaries, yet nothing would serve their turns, but I must have oppres- sion upon oppression laid upon me, enough to break the back of a horse ; and then if I cry out of my oppressions in any kind, I must have new treason-snares made to catch me, many months after their oppressions were first laid upon me, that if I so much as whimper or speak in the least of their unjust dealing with me, I must die therefore as a traitor. O miserable servitude 1 and miserable bond- age, in the first year of England's freedom I I have now no more to say unto you, but only this. Your own law tells me. Sir Edward Coke speaks it three or four times over in his third part of Institutes, That it is the law of England, that any by-stander may speak in the prisoner's behalf, if he see anything urged against him contrary to law, or do apprehend he falls short of urging any material thing that may serve for his defence and preservation. Here is your own law for it, sir ; Coke is full and pregnant to this pur- pose in his third part of Institutes, fol. 29, 34, 37. But this hath several times been denied me in the case of Mr. Sprat, my solicitor ; and now I demand it again, as my right by law, that he may speak a few words for me, according to his often desire both to me and the Court. I have almost done, sir ; only once again I claim that as my right which you have promised, that I should have counsel to matter of law. And if you give me but your own promise, which is my undoubted right by your own law, I fear not my Ufe. But if you again shall deny both these legal privileges, I shall desire my jury to take notice, that I aver you rob me of the benefit of the law, and go about to murder me, without and against law : and therefore as a freeborn Enghshman, and as a true Christian that now stands in the sight and presence of God, with an upright 236 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. 1649] ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S MISSTATEMENTS. 237 heart and conscience, and with a cheerful countenance, I cast my life, and the lives of all the honest freemen of Eng- land, into the hands of God, and his gracious protection, and into the care and conscience of my honest jury and fellow- citizens ; who, I again declare, by the law of England are the conservators and sole judges of my life, having inherent in them alone the judicial power of the law, as well as fact : you judges that sit there being no more, if they please, but cyphers to pronounce the sentence, or their clerks to say Amen to them : being at the best in your original but the Norman Conqueror's intruders. And therefore you, gentlemen of the jury, are my sole judges, the keepers of my life, at whose hands the Lord will require my blood, in case you leave any part of my indict- ment to the cruel and bloody men. And therefore I desire you to know your power, and consider your duty both to God, to me, to your own selves, and to your country : And the gi-acious assisting spirit and presence of the Lord God Omnipotent, the governor of heaven and earth, and all things therein contained, go along with you, give counsel and direct you, to do that which is just, and for His glory ! " ^ When Lilburne had ended, the people with a loud voice cried. Amen, ATnen, and gave an *' extraordinary great hum ; " which made tlie judges look " something un- towardly " about them, and caused Major-General Skippon to send for three more companies of foot- soldiers.^ Mr. Attorney- General Prideaux in his reply exhibited an instructive lesson to all after-ages ; for he showed that the " servile subtlety of crown lawyers '' could be exercised as shamelessly for this remnant of a Parliament, which boasted that it had put down tyrants and tyranny in Eng- land for ever, as it had been exercised to gratify the lust » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1394, 1395. » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1395. of unjust dominion of any single tyrant bearing the name of Tudor or of Stuart. He also exhibited in a remarkable degree, if not the *' ingenium velox,'' the insensibility to shame, the *' audacia perdita " which has characterized too many advocates, and has also most unhappily raised too many of them to an eminence at the bar from which they have *' rotted into peers.'' Many, many have been the Attorney-Generals who have lied as audaciously as Prideaux, and few the prisoners who have dared to tell* them what Lilburne told Prideaux when he said " I wonder, Mr. Pri- deaux, you are not ashamed to aver such notorious false- hoods, as you do, in the open face of the Court, before thousands of witnesses." " The prisoner " said Prideaux, " began to cite you two Acts of Parliament ; the one in the 1st of Edward VI., and the other 5th and 6th of Edward VI. ; and by these two Acts he would signify to you, that you should have two plain and evident witnesses to every particular fact : yet he did forget to cite another statute made in the first and second years of Philip and Mary, that overthrows and annihilates those two statutes that would have two plain witnesses to every fact of treason." Prideaux then went on to say with regard to the evidence of one of the witnesses New- combe : — " The prisoner did not repeat fillly what he said ; for I remember he said this, That Mr. Lilburne and Captain Jones came together, and brought the copy of the last sheet that was to be printed. They came again the same day at night ; and when the first sheet was printed, to be sure it was true and right Mr. Lilburne did take the pains to take one of the copies in his hand, and corrected it.'' Here Lilburne interrupted the Attorney-General with these words : — " By your favour, sir, he urged no such 238 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. thing : by your favour, sir, they are the express words of the testimony to the quite contrary ; and I wonder, Mr. Prideaux, you are not ashamed to aver such notorious falsehoods, as you do, in the open face of the Court, before thousands of witnesses ; for Newcombe said no such thing as you falsely affirm ; neither is there any such statute in Queen Mary's time that doth abolish those two statutes of Edward YI., that I insist upon for two witnesses : name your statute if you can ; here is the statute-book, let the jury hear it read ; do not abuse them with your impudent falsehoods." All the answer Mr. Attorney-General made was this : " Well, sir, I leave it to the judgment of the jury, sir." ^ Now it is important to see how far the Attorney- Gene- ral's assertion was true, as he himself would declare, or false, as Lilburne declared. The Attorney-General asserted as we have seen that Mr. Lilburne " took one of the copies in his hand, and corrected it.'' On the other hand Thomas Newcombe the printer when sworn had said : " My lord, I shall tell you the manner of our trade in this particular. The manner is, that after we have set a form of the letter, we make a proof of it, which proof we have a corrector does read : my corrector he had one, being he corrected it, and Captain Jones looked upon the manuscript. And Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburne had a copy of the same sheet uncorrected ; but he did not correct it, nor read to the corrector." ^ Again as regards Mr. Attorney- General Pri- deaux's assertion that a statute of Philip and Mary repealed the statutes of Edward VI. which required two witnesses in all cases of hioh treason, it is true that the statute 1 Mary sess. 1, cap. 1, is an Act repealing and taking away all treasons but such as are declared by the statute of 1 State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1396. « State Trials, p. 1334. 1649.] ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S MISSTATEMENTS. 239 treasons of Edward III. But this statute did not repeal the statutes of Edward VI. requiring two witnesses, those statutes of Edward VI. being still unrepealed. And the statute 1 &; 2 Ph. & Mar. c. 10, so far from repealing, as the Attorney-General asserts, the statutes of Edward VI. which required two witnesses in all cases of treasons, is as follows (sect. 11) : — "That upon the arraignment of any person which hereafter shall fortune to be arraigned for any treason mentioned in this Act, all and every person and persons (or two of them at the least) who shall here- after write declare, confess or depose any thing or things against the person to be arraigned shall, if living and within the realm, be brought in person before the party arraigned if he require the same, and object and say openly in his hearing what they or any of them can against him, for or concerning any the treasons contained in the indict- ment whereupon the party shall be so arraigned, unless the party arraigned for any such treason shall willingly confess the same at the time of his or their arraignment.'' And the 1 2th section of the same statute is — " That in all cases of high treason concerning coin current within this realm, or for counterfeiting the king or queen's signet, privy seal, great seal, or sign manual, such manner of trial and none other be observed and kept as heretofore hath been used by the common laws of this realm.'' Blackstone's state- ment is this : *^In all cases of high treason, petit treason, and misprision of treason, by statutes 1 Edv\^. VI. c. 1 2, and b k> ^ Edw. VI. c. 11, two ^ lawful witnesses are required to convict a prisoner ; unless he shall willingly and without violence confess the same. By statute 1 & 2 Ph. & Mar. c. 10, a farther exception is made as to treason in counter- feiting the king's seals or signatures, and treasons concerning * The italics ai-c Dliickstoue's. 240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. coin current within this realm.'' ^ So far indeed is this statute of Philip and Mary from repealing that of Edward VI. as to the necessity of two witnesses, that it expressly confirms it on that point, requiring, as before stated, two witnesses at the least, with the exceptions above specified. Such a pro- ceeding therefore as this, which has been exhibited on the part of Prideaux the Attorney- General, was discreditable not only to that law officer, but to the Government which employed and countenanced him in this audacious and shameless mendacity. •Prideaux having again asserted that one witness was "sufficient enough by the forementioned Act of Queen Mary,'' Lilburne again interrupted him, and it will be seen in what follows that both judge and Attorney-General make but a sorry figure. *' Lilburne. Sir, 1 beseech you produce your Act of ParHament in Queen Mary's time, to prove, in cases of treason, there ought to be but a single witness. " Mr. Attorney, Do not interrupt me, Mr. Lilburne. " Lilburne. I pray you then do not urge that which is not right nor true, but notoriously false ; for, if you persevere in it, I will interrupt you, and tell you of it to the purpose. " Justic Jermin. Though you do recite many things, yet I must tell you, the law of the land saith, the Counsel for the Commonwealth must be heard. " Lilburne. I beseech you, then, let there be no more added to the testimony than right and truth ; for my life lies upon it, and I must and will declare the baseness and falseness of it. " Mr. Attorney. I would not do the tenth part of the hair of your head wrong ; but being entrusted I shall do > 4 Blackst. Com. 356, 357. 1649.] ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S MISSTATEMENTS. 241 my duty, and discharge my conscience in my place, which is fully and plainly to open that unto them which in my conscience I think is right and just. " Lilburne. I do repeat it thus, as in my conscience, that he did say, when the copy was first brought. Captain Jones gave him the copy, and Captain Jones did agree with him for the printing of it ; and Captain Jones did read the original to his corrector, which corrector amended the printer's faults, and that I had an uncorrected sheet away ; and that his forms were taken before he had per- fected that. "Mr, Attorney. And Mr. Lilburne came the second time. " Lilburne. Will you spend all day in vain repetitions ? You would not give one leave to breathe, nor freely to speak truth, without interruption, although you were laying load upon me for hve hours together ; I pray, sir, do not now go about to tire the jury with tedious repetitions, nor to sophisticate or adulterate their under- standings with your falsehoods and untruths. " Justice Jermin. Mr. Lilburne, the law of the land is, that the counsel for the State must speak last. '^Lilburne. Sir, your law is according to the law of God, 3^ou said ; and that law, I am sure, will have no man to bear false witness : why doth Mr. Prideaux tell the jury such falsehoods as he doth, and take up six times more time to take away my life, than you or he will allow me to defend it." * It will be observed that this Justice Jermin did not put in his word to admonish the Attorney. General with respect to his false statements, both of law and fact. Yet one should think that this was the principal, the first and » State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1396, 1397. R 242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. paramount duty of a judge. Why this sacred and para- mount duty was left unperformed in 1649, and why it is still left unperformed after the lapse of two centuries of boasted civilization ; is a question which may seem easier to answer to those who know only the theory of law than to those who know how much the practice of law is complicated by causes that lie deep in the darkest recesses of human nature. But one remark is obvious enough, that in the present state of society where what passes at a trial in a court of justice is immediately circu- lated by the press to an extent unknown and unimagined in the 1 7th century, a very few cases of such bold exposure of mendacity in a counsel as Lilburne's exposure of the mendacity of Prideaux would go far to keep the " licence of counsel " within some bounds of decency. The Attorney-General admitted that Lilburne's " Agree- ment of the People" was dated the 1st of May, 1649, and was therefore before the new law of treason of May and July, 1649. But he asserted that when Lilburne "came to bring in those books in August last, then he does now publish that * Agreement of the People.' "^ And he afterwards made use of some words which, besides containing a clear admission that, by the old constitutional laws of England, they had no case of treason against Lilburne, evinced an injudicious and even indecent eager- ness on the part of the Government for his destruc- tion. Indeed, whatever might be the want of respect evinced by Lilburne towards the Court, the defects both of the Attorney-General and of the judges as regards tact, acuteness, constitutional knowledge, and regard for con- stitutional rights are very apparent throughout this whole proceeding. The words are these : *' Mr. Lilburne 1 State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1397, 1398. 1649.] ATTOENEY-GENERAL'S MISSTATEMENTS. 243 had been tried for his life sooner, upon my knowledge ; I say, Mr. Lilburne had been sooner tried, and sooner condemned and executed, if the law had been sooner made and published. But, as he saith right well, ' where there is no law, there is no transgression;' and therefore there being a law against which he hath offended, he must smart for it." ^ " LilbuTne. I am sure I was imprisoned most unjustly, without any the least shadow or colour in law, many months before your acts were made, and extremely oppressed ; and now you go about to hang me as a traitor, for at most but crying out of your oppression. O unrighteous men ! The Lord in mercy look upon me, and deliver me and every honest man from you, the vilest of men ! ''Mx. Attorney, And that law was published and proclaimed in this city, by means of which, Mr. Lilburne and others had timely notice that they should not do such things as are there forbidden ; it is also told them the penalties of it, which are those that are due for the highest high treason : and yet notwithstanding you see with what boldness, with what conscience, in despite of all law and authority, these books have been made and published by Mr. Lilburne. And whereas he is pleased to say many times, that many men have petitioned for him to the Parliament, he will not affirm to you that ever he petitioned himself; but in all his discourses here, he calls them 'the present men in power, the gentlemen at Westminster;' nay, my lord, he hath not so much as owned the power of the Court, since he came before you, but hath often caUed you cyphers, and the like. ''Lilburne. That is no treason, sir, they entitled them. * State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1400. R 2 244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. selves ' the present power \ and would you hang me for not giving them a better style, than they themselves give to themselves ? I think the style of ' present power or present government/ is a very fit style for them. '^ Mr. Attorney. My lord, I have told you long, it is the juiy that are judges upon the fact ; and to you I must appeal for law, if you do believe the evidence is plain and full against him, for which he stands indicted ; and so God direct all your judgments ! I have done. " Lilhurne, Sir, by your favour, I shall desire to address myself in one word to you ; which is, to desire that the jury may read the first chapter of Queen Mary, in the statute-book, and the last clause of the chapter of the 1 3th of Elizabeth ; where they shall clearly see, especially in the statute of Queen Mary, that they abhorred and detested the making of words or writing to be treason ; which is such a bondage and snare, that no man knows how to say or do, or behave himself, as is excellently declared by the statutes of Hen. 4, c. 2} I have done, sir."^ The presiding judge, Keble, now commenced his charge to the jury. He began by informing or at least remind- ing the jury that they are men of conscience, gravity, and understanding ; by telling them of the sacredness of an oath " which a man must not transgress in the least, not to save the world ;' and then at once proceeded to deal with the matter of two witnesses upon which the Attorney-General had already tried his forensic powers. The judicial attempt to remove the difficulty is a little difi'erent from that of the advocate but not more successful. « Mr. Lilburne," said the judge, " hath cited two statutes of Edward VI. to prove there must be two witnesses ; I By the statute 4 Hen. 4, c. 2, an indictment. ^o2Miatoresviarur..nAdep^u. ^ Stute Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1400, lutorcs aunymm are not to be used in 1401. 1649.] JUDGE KEBLE'wS MISSTATEMENT OF THE LAW. 245 but I must tell him, were there but one to each fact, it were enough in law ; for as for that which was cited of King Edward VI., you have had it fully amended by a latter law of Queen Mary, which doth over-rule that, and also enacts that the common law of England shall be the rule by which all treasons shall be tried ; which reacheth to this case too, that there need no more but one witness, and this is law.'' ^ It will be seen from this that, whereas the Attorney- General had cited the statute of Philip and Mary which * State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1401. It in the walks ; from thence to dinner : is worthy of notice that in an edition thence back to his study, and at six to of the "Statutes at Large, with the the walks again." That is, when he titles of those expired and repealed," was not in the Court of King's Bench, folio, London, 1676, by Joseph Keble which he attended constantly for near of Gniy's Inn, Esquire, a son of this 50 years, from 1661 to 1710. In Judge Keble, both these statutes of the vacation time he usually walked Edward VI. requiring^two" witnesses are to Hampstead, having purchased a printed in full. Lord Campbell in his small copyhold estate at North-end. Lives of the Chancellors confounds The writer of his life in the Biogra- this Joseph Keble, the reporter, with phica Britannica says he is informed his father, Richard Keble, serjeant-at- by Mr. Samuel Keble, Bookseller in law, and one of the commissioners of Fleet Street, that his relation generally the Great Seal under the Common- performed the walk in the same wealth. Lord Campbell says (vol. iii. number of steps, which were often p. 351, 4th edition), "A drowsy counted by him. "He continually Serjeant of the name of Keble, known laboured with his pen, not only to only for some bad law reports, was report the law at the King's Bench added to the number [of Commissioners Westminster, but all the sermons at of the Great Seal], and joyfully ac- Gray's Inn Chapel, both forenoon and cepted tlie appointment." Now Joseph afternoon, amounting to about 4000. Keble the reporter was born in 1632 This was the mode in those times (Biog. Brit. Keble, Joseph), and was when he was young." — Biog. BHt. called to the bar in 1658, consequently Kchle^ Joseph, note [B]. Wood (Ath. according to Lord Campbell he must Oxon. Joseph Keble) saya Joseph have been appointed a commissioner of Keble was made fellow of All Souls' the Great Seal before he was called to College (from that of Jesus where he the bar and at the age of 17. Neither first studied) by the visitors appointed was Keble the reporter ever a serjeant. by Parliament in 1648 ; and after- The account of the even tenour of life wards settling in Gray's Inn, became a of this Joseph Keble gives an idea of barrister and at length a bencher, the life at the Inns of Court in those But there is no evidence whatever that days. "Rising before six in the Keble the reporter was ever a serjeant ; morning he employed himself in his or that Keble the serjeant, the father study till eleven ; then met company of the other, was ever a reporter. 246 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. i, went directly against liim in expressly requiring two witnesses " at the least/' the judge suppressed all allusion to that statute of Philip and Mary, and grounded his argument on the repealing statute of the first year of Queen Mary, which was made for the purpose of removing from the statute book the new treasons introduced by the tyranny of Henry VIII. The argument of the judge was so far less blundering than that of the Attorney- General, inasmuch as it relied more on a suppression of the truth, whereas the argument of the Attorney- General was grounded on not a mere suggestion but on a positive assertion of a falsehood. This jury however who tried Lilburne proved themselves on this occasion better keepers of the liberties of England than those who had conferred that title upon themselves, for when the judge's charge to them was ended, the foreman of the jury desired to have the act for treason.^ At the same time one of the jury desired to drink a cup of sack, assigning as a reason for his request, that they had sat long, and how much longer the debate of the business might last he knew not ; he therefore desired that they might have amongst them a quart of sack to refresh them. But a quart of sack was, it seems, too strong a dose for the con- science of Mr. Justice Jermin, who said, " Gentlemen of the jury, I know for my part in ordinary juries that they have been permitted to drink before they went from the bar ; but in case of felony or treason, I never so much as heard it so, or so much as asked for ; and therefore you cannot have it." One of the judges moved they might have it. But Justice Jermin was firm in the matter of sack, saying, — " I may not give leave to have my conscience to err ; I dare not. And thus if the rest of the judges » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1404. 1649.] LILBUBNE'S ACQUITTAL. 247 be of opinion, you shall have a light if you please, the fellow that keeps you shall help you to it ; but for sack, you can have none, and therefore withdraw about your work.'' The Jury went forth about five o'clock. The Court adjourned till six o'clock, commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower and the Sherifis to carry the prisoner into the Irish Chamber; which they did. The prisoner staid there about three quarters of an hour ; at the end of which time the Jury being come into the Court again, the prisoner was sent for; and after the Crier had caused silence, the Jury's names were called. The Clerk then asked " Are you agreed of your verdict ? *' Jury. Yes. " Clerk. Who shall speak for you ? " Jury, Our Foreman. " Cryer. John Lilburne, hold up thy hand. What say you, look upon the prisoner, is he guilty of the treasons charged upon him, or any of them, or Not Guilty ? " Foremcin. Not guilty of all of them. " Cleric. Not of all the treasons, nor of any of them that are laid to his charire ? ''Foreman. Not of all, nor of any one of them. '' Clerk Did he fly for the same ? " Foreman. No." Which " No " being pronounced with a loud voice, imme- diately the whole multitude of people in the Hall, for joy of the prisoner's acquittal, gave, says the contemporary report, " such a loud and unanimous shout, as is believed was never heard in Guildhall, which lasted for about half an hour without intermission ; " a shout " which made the judges for fear turn pale, and hang down their heads ; " * a shout ' suite Trials, vol. iv. p. 1405. 248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. which Milton had most probably heard and remembered when he more than ten years after described that scene " At which the universal host up sent A shout that tore hell's concave." Meanwhile the prisoner stood silent at the bar, rather more sad in his countenance than he was before. Silence being at last made, the Clerk said : " Then hearken to your ver- dict, the Court hath heard it: You say, that John Lilburne is Not Guilty of all the treasons laid unto his charge, nor of any one of them ; and so you say all, and that he did not lly for it ? ''Jury. Yes, we do so. " Clerk. Gentlemen of the Grand Inquest, the Court doth discharge you. And you gentlemen of life and death, the Court doth discharge you also. Lieutenant of the Tower, you are to carry your prisoner to the Tower again, and Major General Skippon is to guard you : and all whom you desire are to assist you/' The prisoner was then removed, and the Court adjourned till Wednesday following. Extraordinary were the acclamations for the prisoner's deliverance, " as the like '' says the contemporary narrative " hath not been seen in England." These acclamations " and loud rejoicing expressions " went quite through the streets with him to the very gates of the Tower, and for joy the people caused that night abundance of bonfires to be made all up and down the streets. And yet notwith- standing his acquittal by the law, his adversaries kept him afterwards so long in prison, that the people wondered, and be^an to grumble that he was not discharged ; and several of his friends went to the judges, the Parliament, and Council of State, by whose importunities, and by the » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1405. 1649.] LILBURNE'S ACQUITTAL. 249 seasonable help of the Lord Grey of Groby, Colonel Lud- low, Mr. Robinson, and Colonel Martin, his discharge was procured, for which a warrant was issued bearing date the 8th of November, 1649.^ It is observable that the conduct of the Attorney-General and of the judges, though discreditably marked by palpably dishonest dealing with evidence and misstatement of law, was not disgi-aced by the brutality and insolence which, superadded to the cruelty and violation of law, have stamped with imperishable infamy the political trials of the Stuarts. Their demeanour towards the prisoner at the bar compared with that of Scroggs and Jefferies in similar circumstances was humane and courteous. If the Parliament and Council of State had been men of greater wisdom and foresight, and greater knowledge of the English constitution, they would have taken warning from the very unequivocal demonstra- tion of public opinion at Lilburne's trial and acquittal. The assertion of one of their advocates that the greater part of those who rejoiced at Lilburne's acquittal consisted of " women, boys, mechanics, and the most sordid sediment of our plebeians,'' with " some few Royalists, or tm^bulent Levellers," amounting to *' some ten or twenty thousand » State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1405. '* Whereas Lieut. Colonel John Lil- burne hath been committed prisoner to the Tower, upon suspicion of High Treason, in order to his trial at law ; which trial he hath received and is thereby acquitted : These are therefore to will and require you, upon sight hereof, to discharge and set at liberty the said Lieutenant Colonel John Lil- burne from his imprisonment ; for which this shall be your sufficient warrant. Given at the Council of State at Whitehall this 8th day of November, 1649. — Signed in the name and by the order of the Council of State, appointed by authority of Par- liament. John Bradshaw, President." **To the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, or to his Deputy." On the same day a warrant was issued for the discharge of Mr. Wil- liam Walwyn, Mr. Thomas Prince, and Mr. Richard Overton from their im- prisonment in the Tower ; and Orders in their case as well as in that of Lt.- Col. John Lilburne were made by the Council of State accordingly. — Order Book of the Council of State, 8 Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 250 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IV. 1649.] LILBURNE'S ACQUITTAL. 251 Ijeads in all/* ' besides coming badly from those who called themselves the rulers or guardians of the commonwealth of England, refutes itself when amid much weak and irre- levant verbiage its author, in reference to Lilbume's argu- ment that the law required two witnesses, can do no more than reiterate the misstatements of the Attorney-General and the Judges.^ But with all their talk about liberty this rump of the Long Parliament and their Council of State appear to have become as great enemies to constitu- tional liberty as the Stuart whose tyranny they had over- thrown. So difficult has it always been, as I have before said, to get rid of one tyrant without the substitution of another in his place. For there seems to be considerable truth in the saying that the most violent " liberty boys " are often the greatest tyrants when they have the power. But this being an imperfection incident to human nature can only be guarded against or remedied by those safe- guards which good constitutional laws interpose between the subject and the will of any man or any body of men. The Long Parliament may in this way furnish a warning to their successors. And fortunately they were neither the first nor the last who fought for English constitutional liberty. The great barons had fought before them, and had left to England the germs at least of much of what dis- tinguished her from all the nations of the earth. It is worthy of observation that such an acquittal as this of Lilburne could not have taken place in Scotland, in France, or anywhere else but in England. It proved that some spark of the old constitutional liberty still lived under the iron heel of the parliamentary armies, though they had marched from victory to victory till their masters had almost forgot that an English Court of Justice was a field where even they might sustain a defeat that would be equal to the loss of a battle, Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne, soon after his ac- quittal on the charge of high treason, ha^^ng been elected a common-council-man of London, a petition was presented to the House on the 26tli of December, 1649, fi'om several aldermen and the sheriffs of London against him ; on which the Parliament resolved, " That Lieut.-Col. Lilburne was, by the late Act * For disabling the election of divers persons to any office or place of trust within the city of London,' disabled to be chosen a common-council-man ; and his election was void.'' ' » Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1344. * Answer to the Account of Lil- buruc'a Trial. State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1469. ^ State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1449. lit ft 1649.] STATE OF AFFAIES IN SCOTLAND. 253 CHAPTER V. We must now direct our attention to the state of affairs in Scotland, where the Presbyterian oligarchy was pre- paring to give effect to the indignation and hatred enter- tained by them against that party which now ruled England, and which they designated by the contemptuous app^'ellation of the " English Sectaries.^' The state of parties had undergone a great change since the times when the predecessor of the " Council of State " had been the " Committee of both Kingdoms," in which together with several members of the present Council of Sttte had sat as the representatives of Scotland, the Earl of Loudon, the Lord Maitland, the Lord Wariston, Sir Charles Erskine, Mr. Robert Barclay, Mr, Kennedy/ In the earlier part of the struggle between King Charles and his Parliament the English and the Scottish Parharaents had a common interest, namely the interest of securing themselves against the King's attempt to make himself absolute. In this earlier period the Presbyterians were the » Journal of the resolutions and proceedings of the Committee of hoth kinj?doms, commencing February 1643. MS. State Paper Oflace. " Orders for the manner of proceeding. 1. A chairman to be chosen to con- tinue a fortnight. 2. The Earl of Northumberland the first fortnight. 3. Tliat the chairman be instructed to provide some miuidtcr of the Assembly to pray daily at the meeting and rising of the Committee." The Committee met first at Essex House ; then Feb. 19, 164f , at Yorke House ; Feb. 20, at Warwick House ; Feb. 21, at Arundell House ; Feb. 22, at Worcester House ; Feb. 23, at Derby House ; and there they continued to meet. Journal, ibid. dominant party in the English Parliament, and during this period the English Parliament and Scottish Parliament agreed in the main ; inasmuch as they both held and acted upon the principle that all the higher offices and commands belonged of right, that is by right of birth, to the nobility. But when the Independents, who held on the other hand and acted on the principle that at least military and naval com- mands were to be conferred, not on men of large rent-rolls or long pedigrees, but on men who knew how to win battles, turned the Presbyterians out of the English Parliament, the Scottish Parliament prepared for war against them. This was the real point on which they were at issue. The question however was complicated by many other con- siderations that entered into it, some of which I will endeavour to explain. Some of these considerations, particularly the Scottish Parliament's professions of zeal to avenge the King's blood, were introduced to attempt to wash out some portion of the infamy of selling their king to the English Parliament. There is perhaps no part of modem history where the truth has been more systematically kept out of sight than the history of Scotland. The explanation of the transac- tion of the sale of King Charles the First to the English Parliament for a sum of money under the name of arrears of pay, given by Sir Walter Scott, is one among a hundred examples of this. Sir Walter Scott says that "this sordid and base transaction, though the work exclusively of a mercenary army, stamped the whole nation of Scot- land with infamy." ^ Now I believe the army and the people of Scotland had no more voice or part in the trans- action than the people of Germany have or had in the sale of their bodies and blood by their princes and * History of Scotland, contained in Tales of a Grandfather, vol. i. p. 464. 254 mSTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. potentates. The Scottish army was not an army of mercenaries at all, but an army levied partly on the feudal, partly on the Celtic clan principle carried into operation with an unrelenting severity. Such men did not serve for pay, but their service was the condition on which they held, some their estates, some their farms, some their kail- yards of their feudal superiors. Arrears of pay were claimed and paid. Paid to whom ? To the covenanted oligarchy for the time being, who paid perhaps some part of the money to the colonels of regiments. Now who were at that time the colonels of regiments in the a,rmy of the Covenanted Oligarchy and Kirk of Scotland ? This is a subject somewhat dark ; but after much digging in the rubbish heaps and fossil remains of Scotch records and Scotch peerages and baronages, we obtain some glimpses of light. Thus in 1644 we find a certain individual styled the Laird of Lawers petitioning the Scotch Parliament that his troop of horse may be mustered and paid.^ Again, we find that the body of horse under Strahan that defeated and captured Montrose in Koss-shire was partly composed of 36 musquetaires of Lawers' regiment.^ Again, we are told that, at the battle of Dunbar, Lawers' regiment of Highlanders " stood to the push of pike and were all cut in pieces." ^ Now the first impression naturally is that this Laird of Lawers must have been some long tried and very distinguished officer ; probably some hardy old veteran of Gustavus Adolphus. Some small misgiving is indeed con- J Balfour, vol. iii. p. 176. At the same time, as the infantry regi- 2 Balfour, vol. iv. p. 9. It is ob- ments were then composed partly of servable that the word ''musque- musketeers, partly of pikemen, when taires " is here used in the sense of the the word " musketeers" is used with French " mousquetaires " who corre- reference to English regiments, it sponded to the English or Scottish must be understood to mean infantry, regiments of Life or Horse Guards. ^ Gumble's Life of Monk, p. 38. 1649.] THE SCOTTISH OLIGARCHY. 255 veyed by two or three words of Monk's old chaplain — " the colonel was absent of the name of the Campbells." But then though Monk, as he led on his brigade of foot himself pike in hand, could not fail to know what regiment offered most resistance to his charge, he was not likely to know or care very much about the family names of the Scotch lairdships. And the question still remained who was this Laird of Lawers who had such distinguished regiments of horse and foot ? Now we find on the authority of " Douglas's Peerage of Scotland," title Camp- bell Earl of Loudoun, that Sir John Campbell of Lawers was created Earl of Loudoun^ by a patent dated at Theobald^ 12th May, 1633. This Earl of Loudoun was also, at tho time he was receiving pay for these troops of horse and this regiment of Highlanders, the Scotch Chan- cellor, and seems to have been a sort of orator and fond of hearing himself talk. Some years before this time, when Whitelock and Maynard as two eminent English lawyers were sent for late one evening to Essex House, where the debates of the Presbyterian chiefs, namely the Scottish Commissioners and such English Presbyterians as the Earl of Essex and Holies, were held, to give their opinion as to the meaning of the word incendiary in English law, Whitelock describes the Lord Chancellor of Scotland as making a speech, the burthen of which was " You ken vary weel that General Lieutenant Cromwell is no friend of ours — and you ken vary weel the accord 'twixt the twa kingdoms, and the union by the Solemn League and Cove- nant, and, if Lt.-Gen. Cromwell be an incendiary between the twa nations, how is he to be proceeded against ?" We shall see this chancellor inflicting on Montrose, when poor * The estate of Loudon belonged by John Campbell of Lawers. inheritance to the wife of this Sir 256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. man he could not escape from it, a large dose of his rhetorical invective. And he is represented as on one occasion '' haranguing to the army the sense of the Kirk and the Committee/' ^ His Lordship probably considered this both a safer and easier way of earning his pay as a colonel of horse and foot, than leading his regiments into action. But the Roman military commanders who were most successful were those members of their ohgarchical body who cultivated the art of war as well as the art of public speaking, and also exposed their own persons where there was most danger. We are also informed that the Lord Lome, the Marquis of Argyle's eldest son, had a regiment ; ^ but of his sharing the dangers and hardships of his regiment we are not informed any more than of Lord Loudoun's sharing the dangers of the troops of horse and the regiment of foot whose pay he found it convenient to receive under the name of the Laird of Lawers.^ Such were some of the men among whom the money paid by the English Parlia- ment for the person of the king under the name of arrears of pay was divided. I do not mean by these words that there was not some agreement between the English and Scottish Parliaments for allowing pay to the army of the Scots. But is it true that the Scottish Parliament or Convention of Estates first taxed the people of Scotland to defray the expense of their army and then claimed pay- » Sir Edward Walker, p. 169. 2 Sir Edward Walker, p. 165. In the Order Book of the Council of State— under date 5 March, 164| (MS. State Paper Office), there is a pass for Mr. Archd. Campbell and his two servants to go to France and return with "the lord of Lome, eldest son of the Marquis of Argyle, and his retinue consisting of ten persons." " There is some confusion in this matter which is not easy to clear up. Spalding says that Campbell of Lawers was killed at Aulderne, with his regi- ment. He also mentions Loudon's (the* chancellor's) regiment as being there. Lawers' regiment was probably led by a relation of the chancellor. 1649.] THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. 257 ment of the English Parliament ? If so, did they return the money they had taken from the poor people's pockets ? Wishart, who is not indeed a conclusive authority on such a point, says that to defray this expense they imposed much higher taxes and subsidies upon the people than had been ever before known. ^ It is not in the least surprising that a Government composed of such men should be anni- hilated by a Government the colonels of whose regiments were such men as Cromwell, Ireton, Lambert, and Monk, who, whatever their faults might be, did not receive the pay of regiments which other men led into action. There was some years ago, and may be still, a sword kept at Douglas Castle, bearing two hands pointing to a heart placed between them, and the date 1329, being the year in which Robert Bruce charged Sir James Douglas, commonly known a^ the Good Lord James, to carry his heart to the Holy Land. The sword resembles a Highland claymore of the usual size, is of an excellent temper, and admirably poised. Could its original owner, whose knightly truth and honour were as undoubted as his valour and military genius, have looked up from his grave after the lapse of three hundred years, and beheld the stain which a few sordid hypocrites or fanatics had brought upon the country for which he had fought so well, he might have said in answer to the taunts of Clarendon,^ Sidney,^ and Mrs. Hutchinson,* in the sorrowful words of Othello— ** I am not valiant neither, But every puny whipster gets my sword : — But why should honour outlive honesty ? Let it go aU" * Mem. of Montrose, p. 37, Edin. 1819. 2 Clarendon in his History generally, and particularly in his account of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester. ^ Algernon Sidney in his Discourses concerning Government, chap. ii. sect, 28, p. 222, folio, London, 1698. * Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson generally, and particularly in her account of the death of Colonel Thornbagh. S 258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. When a man has committed such an act, probably the least thing he can do next is to go and hang himself like Judas Iscariot. A portion of these Scottish Iscariots composed of what was called the more moderate part of the Presbyterians, led by the Duke of Hamilton, his brother the Earl of Lanark, the Lord Chancellor Loudoun, and the Earl of Lauderdale, when they saw all the conse- quences of their act of treachery, repented themselves ; and, though they did not follow the example of their Hebrew- prototype, and bring again to the English Parha- ment the pieces of gold which were the price of blood, they entered into an Engagement to restore the King by force of arms— whence they were called Engagers. The attempt failed and Hamilton was taken and beheaded ; the English Parliament regarding their repentance pretty much as the chief priests and elders of the Jews regarded that of Iscariot, when they said " What is that to us ? See thou to that." But Loudoun and Lauderdale lived and flourished to commit new treacheries, cruelties, and crimes. The base transaction to which I have referred had indeed the sanction of what was called the Scottish Parliament. But it is to be borne in mind that the body of persons so called no more represented the Scottish nation than the Thirty Tyrants represented the Athenian people, or the Decemviri represented the Koman people. The Scottish people were no more responsible for the acts of that oligar- chical assembly than the Roman people were responsible for the crimes of the Decemviri, or the Athenian people for the crimes of the Thirty Tyrants, or the French peasants for the crimes of the French nobility.' The Scottish Par- 1 Barrington quotes an old French Scotland : — and an old Scotch proverb to show that ' ' Oignez vilain, il vous poindra ; the peasants or villeins were regarded Poignez vilain, il vous omdra in the same light in France and in ^'' which we apply to spaniels at pre - 1649.J POWER OF THE NOBILITY IN SCOTLAND. 259 liainent was an assembly in which there was no freedom of debate and no freedom of vote. The representatives of the counties and of the boroughs sat in the same house ^ or chamber with the peers and '' ran in a string,^' to use the words of Baillie,^ now " after the vote '' of Hamilton, now after that of Argyle, according as the faction of one or other of these " great men " might happen to be uppermost : and on the heads of the members of that wretched oligarchy rest the guilt and the shame of the treacliery, rapacity, hypocrisy, of the misgovernment, disaster, and defeat, which have long stamped with infamy a whole nation of brave, high-spirited, and honourable men. Between the fall of the old nobility and the rise of the new to political power in England there was a long interval, extending from the accession of the Tudors to the expulsion of the Stuarts, during which the new nobility constituted neither an aristocracy nor an oligarchy in the proper sense of those terms, but were the mere creatures and satellites of the Court. In Scotland the old feudal or military aristocracy may be considered to have existed for about a century longer than in England. The successful armed opposition of the nobility to the misgovernment of Queen Mary is a proof of this. And, though on the accession of James to the throne of England, such of the nobility as were adherents of the Court became thoroughly sei-vile, and ready to follow the king to whatever extent he pleased in all sent. Thus likewise the Scotch pro- verb : ' ' Kiss a carle, and clap a carle, and that's the way to tine a carle, Knock a carle, and ding a carle, and that's the way to win a carle." Barrington on the Statutes, p. 310, note, 5th ed. 4to, London 1796. The French nobility reaped the fruit of this at the French Revolution. The Scotch nobility escaped reaping similar fruit by the union of Scotland with England. * House anciently meant room or chamber. ' Letters and Journals, vol. iii. p. 35, Edinburgh 1842. S 2 2G0 HISTORY OV ENGLAND. [Chap. V. matters, either of Church or State ;* during a great part of the 17th century, the power which the Scottish nobility still retained over their vassals, the strength of their fastnesses, and their distance from the seat of Government, gave them when banded together so much power of a not ineffectual armed resistance, that they might stiU be considered as re- taining some of the features of a military aristocracy. But the Parliament of England and its General CromweU showed them that neither their feudal power, nor the military habits of their vassals, nor the rugged and mountainous nature of their country could resist a military aristocracy, compared to the valour, skill, and resources of which their pretensions to military aristocracy were but a shadow and an empty name. For this, among other reasons, I will in these pages generally designate them as an oligarchy rather than an aristocracy. Tlie Reformation or religious revolution in England and Scotland in the sixteenth century, and the political revo- lution in the seventeenth century stand to each other in the relation not only of antecedent and consequent, but of cause and effect. May,' as it appears to me, makes a great mistake in saying that mixing up religion in the dispute about laws and liberties rather injured the cause of the Piirliament. On the contrary the forces of the Parliament had the worst of it till Cromwell beat up his drum for the ardent and energetic souls lodged in strong bodies, who had long been groaning under a most grievous spiritual thral- dom, and were burning to do battle against the Powers of Darkness, which in their vocabulary meant the Powers * Lord Fleming in a letter to King James expresses his zealous desire to follow his master in all matters, either of Church or State, declaring that different conduct was inexcusable in a subject.— XorcZ Hailes's LeUers of Hie Time of James I. Letter 2nd. 2 History of the Parliament, lib. i. p. 115. 1649.] THE CAUSE OF THE POVERTY OF THE CHURCH. 261 Spiritual and Temporal tliat then ruled in England. M. Guizot ^ endeavours to account for the important part which the religious revolution played in the political revolution by saying that in England the religious revolution had been brought about by the king and nobility, not, as in Germany, by the people ; that consequently, while royalty, nobility and episcopacy divided among them the rich spoils of the papal church, the religious revolution left many of the popular wants unsatisfied. The case of Scotland mi^^ht appear at first sight to bear more resemblance to the case of Germany than to that of England, inasmuch as in Scot- land the religious revolution presented some popular fea- tures which it did not in England, and the form of church government which the Reformation established in Scotland was democratical. But I much doubt whether the popular will had more to do with the Reformation in Scotland than it had in England. There were moreover many amuse- ments and not a few things of a more substantial kind, (when the church lands passed into the hands of laymen), which the people lost by the change, and the loss of which was grievous to them at the time. For instance, the exhi- bition of Robin Hood and his band was a favourite amuse- ment in Scotland as well as in England. And though in 1555 it was ordered by a statute of the ParHament of Scotland that "na manner of person be chosen Robert Hude, nor Little John, Abbot of Unreason, Queen of May nor otherwise," we find six years after, in 1561, John Knox complaining that " the rascal multitude were stirred up to make a Robin Hude, whilk enormity was of many years left and damned by statute and Act of Parlia- ment ; yet would they not be forbidden." Thej' raised a ' Histoire de la Civilization en Eui'ope, Le9on 13. 262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. serious tumult, and made prisoners the magistrates who endeavoured to suppress it. They continued these festivities down to 1592. It is evident that the furious presbyterian /./ zeal of the Jenny Geddeses and Maiise Headriggs was the growth of a later period — was the product in fact of the teaching of a church rendered democratical (at least as far as democratical implied poverty) by the aristocracy or oli- garchy who brought about the reformation in Scotland. For, though it may appear somewhat paradoxical, the popu- lar or democratical form which the Church government assumed in Scotland was really owing to the intensely aris- tocratical nature of the religious revolution in that country.* And the aristocratical nature of that religious revolution was owing to the power of the aristocracy in Scotland. This power, though it was in part, in great part no doubt, a consequence of the low state of manufkctures and com- merce, of the comparatively small power of the Crown, and . of the physical character of the country itself, was also connected with moral causes which had exercised for many ages a deep and strong influence on the minds of the people of Scotland, an influence which it required many ages of misgovemment, of injustice, of oppression, and cruelty to destroy.^ The reformed clergy complain that those who « The Scottish nobility and gentry are directly charged by the Scottish historians with preferring the Presby- terian form of church government from the hope of plunder. John- ston, Hist. Rer. Brit. Lib. I. p. 16, 1655, says two classes of men ap- proved the Presbyterian form " unum genus laicorum, qui ad proprietatem ac directum dominium bonorum Ec- clesiae munitam banc viam putarunt, alterum cleri, qui ambitione lapsi, et gloriae cupidi, in licentiara turbarum efirenatam ac indomitam eruperunt ; disputatiouibus ac tribunitiis con- cionibus populum paratum incitarunt." See also Spottiswood, pp. 86, 164, folio, London, 1677. 2 That this influence still continued in great force in the middle of the 17th century appears from abundant evidence. Captain Hodgson, when he first entered Scotland with Cromwell in Septr. 1648, was struck with it. " The gentry of the nation " he says, Memoirs, p. 124, *' have such influence 1649.] THE SCOTTISH FEUDAL ARISTOCHACY. 263 had got possession of the Church lands, and tithes, and who had before made a great outcry against the exactions of the Romish Church, " are now more rigorous in exacting tithes and other duties paid before to the Church, than ever the papists were, and so the tyranny of priests is turned into the tyranny of lords and lairds. For this we require that the gentlemen, barons, lords, earls, and others be content to live upon their own rents, and suffer the Church to be restored to her right and liberty, that by her restitution the poor that heretofore have been oppressed may now receive some comfort and relaxation." ^ But the lairds, lords, and earls turned, as might have been expected, a deaf ear to the requisition of John Knox and his clerical bre- thren. There was an essential difference between the English and Scottish feudal aristocracies. The English feudal aris- tocracy consisted of the leaders of a conquering caste ; and, though they might inspire fear and perhaps admiration not unmixed with hatred, could call up none of that other class of emotions which were associated in the mind of a Greek with Miltiades, Leonidas, Themistocles, in that of a Roman with Camillus and the Scipios, in that of a Scotchman with Wallace, Bruce, and Douglas. There are, or at least were, no names that an English poet could invoke with such effect as a Greek poet or orator could invoke the names of those who fought at Marathon, at Salamis, at Plataea, or as over the commonalty that they can lead them what way they please." his is however an exaggerated state- ment, since, as we shall see, they often could not lead them to serve in these wars. They were obliged to use force, to drive not lead. * Spottiswood, p. 161. The extract in the text is from a form of Church policy framed by John Knox, partly in imitation of the reformed churches of Germany, partly of that which he had seen in Geneva, and presented in the Convention held at Edinburgh in January 1559-60. 264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. .[Chap. V. Scott invoked the to a Scotchman talismanic names in these lines — ** What vails the vain knight-errant's brand ] Douglas, for thy leading wand ! Fierce Randolph for thy speed ! for one hour of Wallace wight, Or well-skiU'd Bruce to rule the fight !" While the English feudal aristocracy owed their lands to their conquest of those who tilled those lands, the Scottish feudal aristocracy, or the best portion of them, held or were understood to hold lands which had been granted to their ancestors for services done with their swords in the defence of Scotland against foreign invaders, Danish or English. This at least was the theory. But this theory did not apply to that large extent of lands which had belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and were seized by the nobility at the Reformation. The root of the title to the other lands remained however undisturbed, and entwined with many heroic memories. The names of those who had once held those lands are linked indissolubly with many an old but well-remembered battle-field, with many a mountain, with many a grey rock, with many a wild glen and moun- tain-stream, which, though there now only the solitary angler throws his fly, and the as solitary water-ouzel seeks its food, roEs on haunted for ever by the spirits of those who in times long gone by fought and bled and died for religion and liberty. It is this historic renown that gives a tenfold charm to scenes wild and rugged indeed but of great natural beauty. The stream clear as crystal pursues its course at the bottom of a deep glen, the sides of which are crags of stupendous height and fantastic shape, hoary with the storms of innumerable ages, and rugged and bare, save where some solitary birch-tree, or oak, or wych-elm, or 1649.] CHURCH PROPERTY IN SCOTLAND. 265 mountain-ash has twined its roots amid the rocky crevices. But the wild ravine is associated with memories not its own. Rock, cave, tree, torrent speak still of the deeds and sufferings of those who bled and died for the independence of Scotland, who " fell devoted, but undying." And though those men have been dead near 600 years, the eye of the dullest peasant in Scotland will still brighten at the very sound of their names. The heaths, the mountains, the crumbling ruins of the rock-built castles are all conse- crated by the same memories : and form the imperishable monument of those who have no other sepulchre, to whom the barbarous policy of the English invader refused even a grave ; afibrding a striking illustration of the truth of the words in the funeral oration of Pericles, in Thucydides, that " of illustrious men all their native land is the sepulchre.'' ^ In Scotland, the whole of the property which had belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and which has been estimated as amounting at the time of the Reformation to " little less than one-half of the property in the nation," ^ was seized by the nobility and gentry. This seizure, in all cases an act of pubhc robbery, was in some instances attended with the most savage cruelty. Nor was it likely that those, who had thus gotten possession of all this pro- perty, would give up their prey at the solicitation of the reformed clergy. When the latter proposed a plan for the Thucyd. II. 43. Hobbes translates these words *' to famous men all the earth is a sepulchre," which, though the word yti is ambiguous, was not what was here meant ; the meaning, as is apparent from the context, being not the whole earth absolutely, but only the whole earth or territory of Attica. '■^ *' The Scottish Clergy paid one- half of every ttix imposed on laud ; and as there is no reason to think that, in that age, they would be loaded with any unequal share of the burden, we may conclude that, by the time of the Reformation, little less than one-half of the property in the nation had fallen into the hands of a society which is always acquiring and can never lose." — Rohertsoiis Hist, of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 141, 142, 4th edn., London, 1761. 26Cj HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. maintenance of a national Church out of this national pro- perty, and also of hospitals, schools, and universities, though they did not go farther than Henry the Eighth so liberal in promises had done, the lords who had seized the Church property said the plan of John Knox was a " devout imagination," but visionary and impracticable ; and they retained by force the whole of the church pro- perty for their own use. Hence not only the poverty of the church, but of the universities in Scotland, and the consequent discouragement and decay of sound learning, together with many consequences of this, tending to a slavish subjugation on one side and an exorbitant insolence on the other. And hence those revenues of a few indi- viduals in Scotland ; revenues which at the present day by the enormous increase of rent within the last century, if devoted to their legitimate purpose, would not only edu- cate the great bulk of the people well, and give to those who evinced superior abilities a superior education, but would relieve all classes nearly altogether fi'om taxation. The passage which I have quoted in a note a page or two back from a contemporary historian ^ describes the Presbyterian form of Church government as supported by two classes of men, the one consisting of the powerful lay- men who looked to the plunder of the old Church, tlie other of the clergy who hoped to attain power and popu- larity by popular eloquence. Besides these two classes, there was a third class consisting of the great body of the people who, having been kept in a state of very dense ignorance by the Komish priesthood, were in a condition to receive any impressions which their new teachers and preachers sought to stamp on their dark and uncultured minds. For convenience these two last classes, the clergy * Johnston, Her. Brit. Hist. Lib. I. p. 16, lGo5. 1649.] SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIANS. 267 and the people, may be treated as one, as they both partook largely of the popular or democratical element. We have thus two classes of Scottish Presbyterians, the one oli- garchical, the other democratical. It is a remarkable feature in the history of the Scottish Presbyterian Church that, though in the scramble at the over- throw of the power of the Church of Eome in Scotland, the nobility contrived to appropriate to themselves even more of the wealth of that church than the nobility in England had done, leaving in fact nothing at all to the Reformed Church, while in England a good deal had been left to the church" and universities, yet in Scotland the reformed clergy, unlike the reformed clergy in England, arrogated to them- selves all, if not more than all, the power which the pope of Rome had formerly claimed. In the second declinature of Black, of the King and Council, God, it is said, has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to the church ; and the clergy — (the clergy being " they whom Christ hath called — Christ's servants "^ — ) " are empowered to admonish, rebuke, convince, exhort, and threaten, to deliver unto Satan, to lock out and debar from the kingdom of heaven.'' ^ And Mr. Black further says, " the discharge and form of delivery of my commission should not nor cannot be lawfully judged by them to whom I am sent, they being as both judge and party, sheep and not pastors : to be judged by this word, and not to be judges thereof." ^ The Scottish Presbyterians being composed of several distinct parts, we must be careful to assign to each part what belonged to it. Such care is the more needed inasmuch as the clerical part has come in for a larger share of blame than belongs to it. Nevertheless with all the care we can » Calderwood, pp. 329, 330, ■' CalJerwood, p. 347. ^ Calderwood, p. 348. 268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. bestow on the subject, though some modern writers have written about the clergy's treatment of Charles II. and tlieir interference with military affairs with as much con- fidence as if they had been present, it is extremely difficult if not absolutely impossible to give an account which shall be more than an approximation to the truth. We have nothing approaching to a good contemporary picture of the Scottish Presbyterian clergy of that time. The representations of them drawn by two literary artists more than a century after, Hume and Scott, are rather caricatures than pictures. There can be no question of one thing, namely, that they and their successors for some two or three generations, whatever may have been their merits and their virtues, contrived to render themselves extremely disagreeable to many pei-sons, some of whom could repay the intolerance and the long prayers and longer preachings with which they had been exercised or assailed with, the shafts of ridicule, others with even sharper weapons. The Scottish Presbyterian clergy were more- over so far true to what they announced as their mission that they were by no means disposed to look upon the sins of Charles the Second and the Duke of Buckingham with the lenient eye with which Archbishop Laud had regarded the sins of Charles's grandfather and Buckingham's father. Besides the exaggerated picture of the interference of the Presbyterian clergy in pohtical and military affairs, (and it can be shown that the interference with the military commanders that led to so many disasters at Li K^syth, at Preston, at Dunbar, was not by the clergy but by the nobility of the Committee of Estates), I am inclined to think that, though the clergy no doubt interfered much, though not very much more than the Independent zealots^ in matters of religion and moraHty, their interference was 1649.] SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN CLERGY. 269 not regarded with any gi-eat degree of observance far less of terror by the more powerful classes in Scotland. Lord Dartmouth tells a story, told him by Duke Hamilton, of the old Earl of Eglinton, which seems to show that men of that rank took the censures of the church very easily. The Earl of Eglinton was on the stool of repentance for fornication, and on the 4th Sunday the Minister called to him to come down, for his penance was over. ** It may be so,'' said the Earl, "but I shall always sit here for the future, because it is the best seat in the kirk, and I do not see a better man to take it fi-om me." * This Earl of Eglinton, who belonged to the party of Argyle and the rigid Presbyterians, evidently found the censures of his kirk as well as her prayers and sermons bearable, if not even pleasant, provided he had a comfortable seat in the kirk, even though that seat was the stool of repentance. The truth is, the stool of repentance had in that age been made too common and general to be so much of a distinction any way as it was in the last generation when an eccentric old Scotch peer, being told that a moderate pecuniary fine paid to the kirk session would answer all the purposes of the stool of repentance, replied — " No, he should very much prefer sitting on the stool of repentance." Whitelock says under date Feb. 5, 164f "Letters from Scotland that they bring all to the stool of repentance that were in the last invasion of England." Loudon the Chancellor, whose wife had in her own right the estate of Loudon, and threatened to divorce him for his manifold adulteries, unless he submitted to the penance enjoined by the clergy, sat on the stool of repentance in his own parish church, received a rebuke in the face of the whole » Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. i. p. 281, note D, Oxford, 1833. 270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. congregation. The scene as described was very charac- teristic of the time. The Chancellor with many tears deplored his temporary departure fi^om the covenant, when he joined the party of the Engagement, that is, the party of the Duke of Hamilton wliicli engaged to restore the king by force of arms, and solicited in his behalf the prayers of the congregation, who at such a refreshing spec- tacle were dissolved in tears of joy. Mr. JBrodie says that in a MS. of Wodrow's which he had seen it is said that Archbishop Sharpe was at first for the Engagement ; but, finding that it was not a politic game, he brought to the stool of repentance all his parishioners who had in the least inclined that way.^ Hume and Scott, while they indulge their powers of ridicule in speaking of Puritanical or Presbyterian intole- rance, see or appear to see nothing ridiculous and nothing hateful in the absurd yet savage intolerance of Laud. Now while we object equally to the intolerance of both, we are prepared to show (not indeed that either party abounded in wisdom, but) that the Presbyterians of that time had among them on the whole more wisdom than the Prelatists, Laud and the churchmen of his school, among whom I of course do not include any of those great thinkers and excellent writers, who, ''by the strength of their philo- sophical genius or by their large and tolerant spirit have given imperishable lustre to the Church of England/' ^ might have more of what is called learning than Baillie and his Presbyterian beethren ; but Queen Elizabeth, no mean authority, had said long before to the Bishop of St. David's " I find the most learned clerks are not always the - * Brodie's History of the British ^ Austin's Province of JurispniclenC::fy Empire, vol. iv. p. 137, note. determined, p. 81. 1649.1 SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIAN CLERGY. 271 wisest men ; '' and we have looked in vain among Laud's letters, diaries, and other writings for any such proof of wisdom as is found in the following sentence of Baillie : — " I am more and more in the mind that it were for the cfood of the world that churchmen did meddle with ecclesiastical afiliirs only ; that, were they never so able otherwise, they are unhappy statesmen." ^ There are no collections of papers relating to those times from which so much true knowledge of them may be ob- tained as the Earl of Strafford's Letters and Dispatches and Principal Baillie's Letters and Journals. In the letters between Laud and Strafibrd are stamped, as no hands but their own could stamp them, the characters of the prelate and the peer who licked the dust before the Stuart kings, and were as domineering and insolent to their fellow-sub- jects as if the Stuarts were already as absolute as the CsDsars or the Bourbons, and they wielded the power of Sejanus or Eichelieu. It has been truly said " tell me when a man laughs and I will tell you what he is." The very jokes that pass between Laud and Strafford, the grim, cruel, insolent, tyrannical, and withal base and pusillani- mous jokes, tell more of the two men's nature than volumes of grave history could tell. Now turn from those volumes, which contain the correspondence of Laud and Strafford, to the Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie the Covenanter and Presbyterian minister. Here also indeed you find narrowness enough of intellectual vision, and intolerance enough too. But as regards Baillie and his brethren, the Presbyterian clergy — apart from the Scot- tish oligarchy and a few of the more furious fanatics and fire- brands among the clergy by nature tyrants like Laud and Strafford — you find yourself at least among human beings 1 Baillie's Lettei-s and Journals, vol. iii. p. 38. Edinburgh, 18i2. 272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. — like their countryman Baillie Macwheeble, men of earthly mould after all — men indeed with many human infirmities, but likewise with human hearts in which the fountains of honesty, simplicity, and pity have not been dried up by that pride and ambition which had transformed Laud and Strafford into such ruthless tyrants. This balance of humanity in favour of the Presbyterian clergy was partly the effect of the absence of the objects of worldly ambition, which the constitution of the English hierarchy set before the eyes of such men as Laud. Yet the Presbyterian church did not really possess that absolute independence of the State which it professed. For the Scottish oligarchy required for their purposes a poor church as the English kings required for their purposes a rich church ; and Argyle and his oligarchical committee made use of the Scottish kirk precisely as King James and King Charles made use of the English church.^ And Oliver Cromwell made a similar use of the religious element among the Independents or sectaries, as the Presbyterians contemp- tuously called them, a use which leads me to call attention to a main cause of the Independents' strength as it was of the Presbyterians' weakness. It is important to remark that the troops of Cromwell, whose religious enthusiasm combined with discipline and valour proved more than a match for the high spirit and impetuous onset of the Cavaliers, appear to have enlisted of their own free will, and not to have been forced to serve as the poor oppressed Scottish peasantry were by their lords and lairds. Beside • this, every man, however humble his original rank in life, who entered the parliamentary army, might rise by his own merit to the highest military rank ; ^ Sir Edward Walker's Historical Scotland in 1650, p. 194. London, Discourses— Journal of Affairs in folio, 1705. 1649.] PRESBYTERIANS AND INDEPENDENTS. 273 and moreover if he felt or fancied he had a call from Heaven to preach or teach the peculiar conclusions which he had come to from reading the Bible, he was as much entitled, in the opinion of his comrades and officers, to act as a preacher, as if he had studied at a university and taken orders from a bishop or a presbytery. Yet their toleration admitted the preaching of men who made reli- gion a profession. Thus we are informed that - on Sunday the 27th Oct. 1650 there preached in the cathedral at Carlisle m the forenoon the Governor's chaplain, in the after- noon an officer of our army/'' CromweU would indeed take care with his wary eye «ne quid detrimenti respub- Ilea caperet,- that no harm might come of any preacher un- usually violent or mad in his notions ; and he would for the most part be able to do that by first listening with an air of edification and then praying and preaching himself. It IS clear that by this process such evils as are alleged to have befallen the Presbyterians could not have happened in Crom weirs army. Cromwell did his work by being reaUy supreme in his army, by being at once king, priest, and prophet among his soldiers. He was not the man to permit any holy Mr. Blattergowl or gifted Gilfillan to stop his march or prevent him from fighting on a Sunday on the ground of saving the nation from the sin of Sabbath- breaking ; or, under pretence of revelations obtained from Heaven by much wrestling with the Lord in prayer, to force him to fight against his own better judgment. Oliver could wrestle with the Lord in prayer himself, and he had his own revelations and his own signs and visions from on high, of which he knew the interpretation better than any * Letters from the Head-Quarters of our Array in Scotland, p. 323 -pub- lished in Sir H. Slingsby's and Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, with notes by Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh, 1806. 274 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. ordained interpreter of them all. And as Cromwell thus suffered himself to be controlled by no theocracy in the shape of a Kirk Commission, established at his head- quarters, neither would he have marched as he did to unin- terrupted victory, if he had submitted as Baillie did at Kilsyth,^ and Preston, and David Leslie at Dunbar,^ to be dictated to by the oligarchical members of the Committee of Estates, The Independents were also in their own opinion of themselves a peculiar and chosen people. For they too claimed a monopoly of God, and declared, like the Presby- terians, that their enemies were God's enemies. A favour- ite expression of CromwelFs was *' to have the execution of," or "to be the executioners of the Lord's enemies.'' Nevertheless they were undoubtedly more tolerant towards other forms of Protestantism than the Presbyterians : and in some matters connected with toleration they evinced on several occasions a spirit very different from the Presby- terian. Tims Mr. Howard, the Sheriff of Cumberland, having applied to the Council of State for special assis- tance on the subject of witchcraft, is curtly informed that the Council can give him no directions concerning the dis- covery or punishment of witches, but refer him to the usual course of law.^ In estimating the character of fanatics an error, I appre- hend, of some magnitude slips into the calculation by assuming that honest fanatics are necessarily honest men. Whereas, without professing to state the proportions with epigrammatic point at the cost of accuracy by saying that a man is half fanatic and half knave, we may say truly * See Lieut. -Gen, Baillie's **Vindi- ' See Baillie's Letters and Journals, cation for his own part of Kilsyth, and vol. iii. p. 111. Edinburgh 1842. Treston " in Principal Baillie's Letters ^ Order Book of the Council of State, and Journals, vol. ii. p. 420-f. May 13, 1650. MS. State Paper Office. 1649.] CHARACTER OF FANATICS. 275 enough of some men that all of them that is not knave is fanatic, or that all of them that is not fanatic is knave. The keeping this in view will assist somewhat in furnishing a key to the character of such men as Cromwell, where the addition of other ingredients to the composition of the character will of course alter the above-stated proportions, but where the existence of pure or true fanaticism will be no guarantee for the existence of pure or true honesty. An honest man however, if he be a fanatic, wiU be an honest fanatic and not the less an honest man. But in the c^se of a knave, in consequence of the falsehood which is a part of his cbara<3ter, if he profess himself a fanatic, it will be always difficult to say how much of his fanaticism is real and how much pretended, for of course a knave is capable of being a fanatic, as he is capable of being a maniac ; and in both cases he may pretend to be more than he is : for a man who trades in falsehood may feign fanaticism as he may feign madness or anything else. Among the Independents as among the Presbyterians of that time there were undoubtedly many honest men, who were likewise honest fanatics. Those men were peculiarly liable to be deluded by men of their respective parties who, though they might be more or less honest in their fanati- cism, were as regarded the other part of their nature actuated by motives of self-aggrandizement and worldly ambition. It was thus that Cromwell was able to deceive so long his old friends among the leaders of the Inde- pendents, and that the Covenanted Oligarchy of Scotland were able to delude stiU longer so many of the Scottish Presbyterians. To Cromwell and his parasites the " Good Old Cause " became a thing to sneer at. To Vane, to Scott, to Harrison, and to many more, it was " a cause not to be T 2 27G HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. repented of," though such adherence was the inevitable path to the scaffold and the grave. So, while to the Covenanted Oligarchy (for it were an abuse of language to call that knot of paltry tyrants an aristocracy) the " Covenant " was an instrument, drawn in legal form by that wretched Chancellor, not only to perpetuate their possession of the plunder they had already obtained, but to add to their spoil large shoes of the fat lands of the English arch- bishops, bishops, deans and chapters, archdeacons and all other ecclesiastical officers, depending on that hierarchy,^ who had anything worth taking ; and to reduce those noble foundations for the encouragement of sound learning, the English Universities, to the miserable starved condition of the Scotch Universities ; to many of the poor people of Scotland the " Covenant '' was a cause for which they were ready to suffer persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death. The Scottish Presbyterians being thus composed of two principal distinct parts or parties, we must be careful, as I have said, to assign to each party what belonged to it. On the side of the popular or democratical party there was in the laymen much sincerity and much ignorance ; and in the clergy such pretensions as we have quoted, combined with much vehemence, a little learning, and mental faculties in such a state that, while their credulity was boundless in the matter of witches and hobgoblins,^ In See the 1st and 2nd clauses of the " Solemn League and Covenant." These clauses were evidently drawn with care by lawyers, while most of the others savour strongly of the Pres- byterian pulpit of that day. The words in the first clauses of the Instru- ment as agreed to by the English Parliament, "according to the word of God " were inserted by Vane, and enabled the English Parliament to deny that they had sworn to adopt the Presbyterian form of Church govern- ment. ' A remarkable examijle of this is afforded in the trial, in 1688, of Philip Standsfield for the murder of his father. Sir James Standsfield, of New Mills, in Scotland. One of the wit- nesses was Mr. John Bell, minister of 1649.] SCOTS CLERGY AND NOBILITY. 277 they would have rejected Galileo's doctrine about the motion of the earth ; and to them, as to the Pope and the Jesuits, " the starry Gahleo, with his woes," would have appeared but an impious and blasphemous impostor. On the side of the oligarchical party there were pride, ferocity, rapacity, cruelty and fraud. It was the oligar- chical party that roasted men alive to get possession of Church lands ; that sold their king to his deadly enemies, and then turned round when it suited their purpose and in the name of tliat king's son tortured with iron boots and thumbscrews their old Presbyterian friends and allies. But though this oligarchy may have looked upon humanity, justice, and honesty as plebeian virtues, unworthy of their regard, there was one virtue which it was im- portant to them that they should possess under the cir- cumstances of those troubled times. I mean that quality to which the Komans principally applied the word virtue, and which may be called military virtue. And military vii-tue, which has been considered to belong especially to an the gospel, aged forty years. In his written declaration this clergyman, who was a guest in Sir James Stands- field's house on the night of the mur- der, says: — "I declare that having slept but little, I was awakened in fear by a cry (as I supposed) and being waking I heard for a time a great din, and confused noise of several voices, and persons sometimes walking, which affrighted me {mpposing them to he evil wicked spirits); and I apprehended the voices to be near the chamber- door sometimes, or in the transe [pas- sage], or stairs, and sometimes below, which put me to arise in the night and bolt the chamber door further, and to recommend myself by prayer, for pro- tection and preservation, to the majesty of Grod : and having gone again to bed, I heard these'voices continue. ... I could testify that Sir James was in his right reason at ten o'clock ; wherefore / inclined to think it was a violent murder committed hy wicked spiiits." — Hargrave's State Trials, voL iv. p. 283 ; and Howell's State Trials, vol. xi. p. 1403. The Presbyterian clergy also arrogated to themselves some of the powers of the Hebrew prophets. Ac- cording to Wodrow, Mr. John Welsh had predicted that this Philip Standsfield would come to a public death by the hands of the hangman. "This was accomplished," says Wodrow, ''and Mr. Standsfield acknowledged this in prison after he was condemned, and that God was al)out to accomplish what he had been warned of." 27S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. aristocracy, did certainly once belong to them — when they were an aristocracy and not an oligarchy. They were now fallen upon times that looked lowering enough to suggest a prayer for the aid of some of those heroes of their race, who in days long gone by had, fighting against the most fearful odds, secured by their valour and conduct the in- dependence of their country ; whose very names sounded still to their countrymen like a spell of invincibility. For the time had been when the Scottish aristocracy had abounded in virtues not merely military but even heroic. In one family, in particular, that of Douglas, the most powerful and heroic in the annals of Scotland, there had never been wanting, for more than ten generations, men capable both of managing state affairs and of commanding armies. But that well-spring of military qualities had for ages ceased to flow. And this oligarchy throughout these wars employed soldiers of fortune to lead their armies — men who had made war a profession or trade, but were not the more on that account masters of the art. Yet even at that time that Scottish oligarchy possessed one member whose military talents, if they had known how to employ them to advantage, might have given a different issue to this contest from that which it had. The history of James Graham, Earl and afterwards Marquis of Montrose, is a remarkable instance of that particular weakness of an oligarchy which Thucydides, who had opportunities of observing the practical working both of oligarchies and democracies which we do not possess, pointed out more than two thousand years ago. Thu- cydides indeed confines his observation to the case of an oligarchy made out of a democracy, as exemplified in the events which he was narrating as having then taken place at Athens — and when Thucydides's leanings anrainst de- 1649.] THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 279 mocracies and demagogues are taken into account, his opinion in this case, being contrary to his general bias or his party or class prejudices, is entitled to the more weight. The substance of what he says is that an oligarchy made out of a democracy is chiefly destroyed by every one, that is, every member of the oligarchy, claiming not to be equal, but to be far the first — but in a democracy, election being made, a man bears the result better, as not beincr defeated by his equals.^ It is certainly true of oligarchies generally, whether made out of a democracy or not, that their internal feuds or quarrels arising out of jealousy or rivalry have produced great mismanagement of affairs both in war and peace, and in consequence great disasters to themselves and the country which had the misfortune to be misgoverned by them. Dr. Arnold excepts the Roman Senate as being, with respect to the conduct of a war, no fair specimen of oligarchies in general. But Venice, he says, "shows that no democracy, no tyranny, can be so vile as the dregs of an aristocracy suffered to run out its full course ; the affairs of Athens and of Carthac^e were never conducted so ably as when the popular party was most predominant ; nor have any governments ever shown in war greater feebleness and vacillation and igno- rance than those of Sparta, and, but too often, of England." 2 The history of Scotland affords a vast body of facts corroborative of these views ; for it is the history of a country in which, though the Government had always been monarchical in form, the king had gene- rally been so weak and the nobility so powerful, that the Government might be truly said to be in substance more oligarchical than monarchical. Even in this war, accord- ing to one who possessed a very minute as well as accurate » Thucyd. viii. 89. » History of Rome, vol. ii. p. 558. 280 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. knowledge of such parts of Scottish history as did not involve a very laborious sifting and weighing of evidence, " the cause of Prelacy or Presbytery, King or Parliament, was often what was least in the thoughts of the Scottish barons, who made such phrases indeed the pretext for the war, but in fact looked forward to indulging, at the expense of some rival family, the treasured vengeance of a hundred years."* The case of Montrose was a notable instance of this. Montrose began his career as a Covenanter, but found himself supplanted by Argyle, ^ a man of considerable political craft, but of no military talent. Now, as the experience of all history from the earliest to the most recent times proves, military talent in any high degree is rare and extremely difficult to discover ; for indeed it can only be discovered by practical experiments of the most costly kind. To the rivalry, which as we have seen is inherent in the nature of oligarchies, there was added on this occasion a deadly ancient feud between the families of Montrose and Argyle. Moreover, while the dark crafty character of Argyle had to ordinary observers the show of prudence and wisdom, Montrose appeared to them, though a bold and to some extent able, a vain and rash young man, whose fiery character and great ambition might » Sir Walter Scott. History of neral Baillie's "Vindication for his Scotland continued in Tales of a Grand- own part of Kilsyth and Preston " father, vol. i. p. 455. Edinburgh, Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. 1846. ii. p. 420.t Edinburgh, 1841. 2 Argyle did not nominally command Robert Baillie says of Montrose's the army, but the soldiers of fortune, desertion of the Covenanters, ** His Alexander Leslie, David Leslie, and first voyage to Aberdeen made him Baillie, appointed by his influence, swallow the certain hopes of a Gene- were controlled completely and with rallat over all our armies ; when that most disastrous consequences, as ap- honour was put on Leslie, he incon- peared at Kilsyth, Preston, and Dunbar, tinent began to deal with the king." by Argyle and other noblemen of the Vol. ii. p. 261. Committee of Estates. See Lieut. -Ge- 1649.] STATE OF PARTIES IN SCOTLAND. 281 render him perhaps rather a dangerous friend tlian a for- midable enen)y. The covenanted oligarchy of Scotland accordingly committed the great political blunder of throwing him aside for Argyle, whose abilities were worse than useless at such a time, and they soon learned to their cost that Montrose, whatever he might have been as a friend, was a very formidable enemy. I am no admirer of Montrose's character, though his great abilities are beyond a question ; for, if he was a poet and a scholar, these accomplishments do not appear to have been able to make him a man either of principle or humanity ; yet during these wars his must on the whole be considered as coming nearest to the highest standard of military genius. It is true that he was surprised by David Leslie at Philiphaugh. But with such resources as Leslie possessed, Montrose was not likely to have committed the blunders committed bv Leslie at Dunbar, even though the first and greatest blunder, that of moving his troops from Down Hill, was not Leslie's but that of the Committee of Estates. And neither Leslie nor Cromwell ever showed military genius approaching to that displayed by Montrose in the battle of Aulderne, which only wanted numbers and slaughter on a greater scale to place it on a level with some of the most wonderful achievements of the genius of Hannibal and Frederic. With such an incapable king as Charles insisting on giving orders and on being obeyed, the ablest general could hardly have achieved final success ; but if Montrose had taken the strong instead of the weak side, or rather if the strong side had taken him (for his taking the weak side was n#t matter of choice, but of necessity), I think it extremely probable that Cromwell would neither have won the battle of Dunbar, nor of Worcester, would not have con- quered Scotland, and would not have been Protector. 282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. We should then have had two very able men opposed to each other, the one with the greater military, genius ; the other with the greater political sagacity ; Hannibal to the Roman consul ; but Hannibal with more resources and more vantage ground than the Carthaginian had in Italy. Who shall say what might have been the issue of the contest ? There were at this time three parties in Scotland, the rigid Presbyterians, the moderate Presbyterians, and the Royalists. The first, headed by Argyle, was made up of a few of the nobility, Eglinton, Cassilis, Lothian, and others, of the greater part of the clergy, and of the people of the middle and lower ranks, chiefly in the western counties. But though many persons of the middle and lower classes might be said to belong to this party, the influence of such persons on its counsels was extremely small. The aristo- cratical portion of the party, which though small in number, preponderated in influence, was in favour of a republic, so far as a republic might transfer the power of the king to themselves, while they held fast to the appear- ance of monarchy as necessary to the preservation of their exclusive privileges. This party was determined not to restore monarchy except on certain conditions, which should limit the power of the king and extend their own. The second party was chiefly composed of the nobility and gentry and the representatives of the larger towns, and was headed by the Hamiltons, Lauderdale, Dunfermhne, and others. This party, like the first-mentioned, professed to adhere to the Covenant ; and perhaps the principal dis- tinction between these two parties may be stated to be that the leaders of the moderate Presbyterians more mani- festly made use of the Covenant as an instrument for their own worldly aggrandizement. If Lauderdale may 1649.] PRINCE CHARLES PROCLAIMED KING OF SCOTLAND. 283 be in any degree taken as a type or even as a specimen of this party, the figure which he subsequently made as not only a renegade, but a cruel and tyrannical persecutor of those stern enthusiasts who acted up to what they under- stood to be the meaning of that Covenant which he had professed as well as they, would lead us to form a very unfavourable opinion of its honesty. The third party consisted of the absolute Loyalists, fi:iends and followers of Montrose, such as the Marquis of Huntly, Lord Ogilvy, a few other noblemen and gentlemen, and some Highland chiefs. And if Montrose may be taken as a specimen of this party, as Lauderdale of the last-men- tioned, the absolute Loyalists, though they committed many savage and unjustifiable acts, may nevertheless, when their crimes are placed beside the hundred villanies and cruelties of Lauderdale, be pronounced brave and honourable men.^ After the death of King Charles, the rigid Presbyterians in accordance with their doctrine of monarchy in the State and republicanism in the Church, and likewise in accordance with their doctrine of forcing their opinions upon all other men, — a doctrine expressed in the words of their Covenant, in which they swear that they shall not " give themselves to a detestable indiflerency or neutrality in that cause," were bound to call to the throne Charles, the eldest son of their late king, provided he would con- sent to take the Solemn League and Covenant, for the sup- port of Presbytery, and the putting down of all other forms of religion. Accordingly, in the beginning of Feb- ruary 164f Prince Charles was at Edinburgh solemnly proclaimed King of Scotland by consent of the Scottish * Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. iii. p. 35, et. seq. ed. Edinburgh, 1842, Burnet's Mem. of the Hamiltons, p. 336. Thurloe's State Papers, vol. i. pp. 73, 74. 284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. Parliament ; aud it was agreed that commissioners with certain instructions should be sent to invite him to Scot- land.^ The instructions given to the Scotch commissioners were : 1. That he take the covenant. 2. That he put from him all who have assisted his father in the war, particularly Montrose — else not to treat with him. 3. That he brine*' but one hundred with him into Scotland, and none who have assisted his father in arms. 4. That he brincr no forces into Scotland from other nations without their con- sent.' And he was not to be admitted to the actual power as king, until he should bind himself to ratify all acts of Parliament by which Presbyterian Government, the Directory of Worship, the Confession of Faith, and the Catechism were established ; and in civil affairs to conform himself entirely to the direction of Parliament, and in ecclesiastical to that of the Assembly. Commissioners were sent to Charles at Breda to offer him the throne of Scotland on these terms. On the 26 th of February the Speaker of the English Parliament acquainted the House with a letter the Scots Commissioners had sent him, at their going away, which was without leave. The letter was full of bitterness against the Parliament and their late proceedings against the king, the House of Lords, and the secluded members. The House ordered guards to be sent to Gravesend after the Scots Commissioners to apprehend them, and at the same time passed the following declaration. " The Parliament having received a paper dated Feb. 24th subscribed by the Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chiesley, and Mr. Glendinning, in the name of the Kingdom of Scotland, and taking the same into their serious considera- tion, they do declare, that the said paper doth contain » Whitelock, p. 381. Feb. 12, 164». 2 Whitelock, p. 392. Mar. 27, 1649. I m 1649.] SCOTS COMMISSIONERS SENT HOME BY LAND. 285 much scandalous and reproachful matter against the just proceedings of this Parliament ; and an assuming, on the behalf of that kingdom, to have a power over the laws and government of this nation to the high dishonour thereof; and lastly, a design in the contrivers and subscribers of it, to raise sedition and lay the grounds of a new and bloody war in this land ; that, under the specious pretences in that paper contained, they may gain advantages to second their late perfidious invasion." It was ordered that a message with a duplicate of this declaration be sent to the Parliament and kinofdom of Scotland, to know whether they do or will own and justify what hath been presented to this Parliament in their names. On the 28th of February the House was informed that according to the above order the Scots Com- missioners had been apprehended at Gravesend, as they were embarking on their return home, and were now under a guard : and the question being put, whether to send them back to Scotland by land so guarded, it passed in the affirmative/ On the 27th of February the Council of State ordered that fifty pounds shall be imprested to Mr. Eowe, who held the post of Scout Master General in the army, for his journey into Scotland to ride post to carry a letter and message to the kingdom of Scotland, and that a post warrant be granted unto him for the more quick dispatch of his journey :^ and in his instructions he is directed not to stay above a certain number of days for an answer/ 164«. 1 Whitelock, p. 384, Feb. 26, Commons' Journals, 26 and 28 Feb. 164|. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie, Die Martis, 27 Feb. 164§. MS. State Paper Office. * Ibid, same day — "Instructions to William Rowe Esquire, Envoye from the Council of State to the Parliament of Scotland: srnd ibid. 28 Feb. 164|, " An additional Instruction for Mr. Rowe." 286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. On the same day the Council also ordered " that it be returned in answer to Mr. Sexby that this Council takes notice of his care and diligence used in the execution of the order of the House concerning the staying of the Scotts [sic] Commissioners ; that they do approve of the civilities offered by him unto them in tendring unto them the use of the best Inn in Gravesend for their accomoda- tion/'^ On the 1st of March the Council ordered '' that the whole business of the sending of the Scotts Commissioners with a guard into Scotland be referred to the consideration of the Lord General (Fairfax), Lieut.- General (Cromwell), and Sir William Constable, who are to report back their opinion concerning it to this Council."^ In the after- noon of the. same day the Council ordered "that the necessary charges of the Commissioners of Scotland shall be defrayed by the State in their journey home ; and that two hundred pounds be advanced out of the public revenue upon account to the captain of the guard who shall be commanded to the service of conveighging [sic] the Scotts [sic] Commissioners to Scotland." ^ On the following day, the 2nd of March, it was ordered " that a letter be written to the Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chiesly, and Mr. Glendinning,* to let them know that the House did order that they should be sent to Scotland by land, and that we have appointed Captain Kichard Dolphyn to command the guard, and that he hath money to provide them diet, horses, coaches, and other necessary accomoda- tions by the way ; that this notice is given that they may put themselves into a posture for their journey." On the > Order Book of tlie Council of State, 27 Feb. 1641 MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 1 March, 164|. MS State Paper Office. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, a Meridie ; 1 March, 164|. * In the Order Book this name is written * ' Lendonyng." 1649.] THE SCOTS COMMISSIONERS. 287 same day there are the following minutes : " That there be also an instruction to Captain Richard Dolphin to keep a journal of all remarkable passages by his way, and that he take witnesses of any special matter that shall fall out so as oath may hereafter be made of it:" "That an order be sent to Commissary General Ireton to send a convoy of horse to Tilbury side to go with the Earl of Lothian and the rest to Scotland, and to be relieved at Ferry Briggs.'' ^ Instructions are likewise given to Captain Dolphin : — 1. As to safe conduct, to protect from all violence and incivilities on the journey. 2 " You are to take care that none be suffered to speak with them upon the way in England but in your presence, that nothing may be done by them to the prejudice of the Commonwealth/' 3. " When you shall be come to Berwick you are to dispatch away a messenger with the letter to the Parliament or Committee of Estates of Scot- land. And if they shall desire that they [the Scots Com- missioners] may come to Edinburgh or any other place in Scotland you are to suffer them to go accordingly." 4. " Out of the dP200 in your custody upon account you are to provide coach horses, diet, and other necessary accomodations." 2 On the 5th of March a ''Private Instruction " was added, which savours of the military caution and foresight of Cromwell, who was, as we have seen, one of the committee of three to whom this business "was referred. "When your messenger that carries your letter to Edinburgh shall be returned, if you find by him that Mr. Rowe [the English envoy before mentioned] be deteyned [sic'] there or elsewhere in Scotland, j^ou are then only to dismiss the Earl of Lothian and Mr. Lendoning and » Order Book of the Council of State, 2 March, 164g. MS. State Paper Office. Ibid. 288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. 1650.] deteyn Sir John Chieslie until Mr. Eowe be returned to you or that you have other order from the Parliament or this Council/' Od the 5th of March it was also ordered " that it be delivered to Captain Dolphin as a verbal in- struction that if the Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chieslie, and Mr. Lendonyng will bear their own charges by land, that he is to let them do it, notwithstanding anything in his Instructions." ' On the 7th of March the following "Additional In- struction for Captain Dolphin'' was entered in the minutes. "Whereas the Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chieslie, and Mr. Lendonyng have signified that they will bear their own charges in their journey and not accept the defraying of their charge by this State ; you have therefore herewith imprested to you upon account J^lOO in lieu of the .^£^200 formerly appointed for that service, which is for supply of such extraordinary occasions which may fall out in your journey." And on the same day a post warrant is ordered to be granted to Captain Dolphin for the taking up of twenty horses upon the way for the use of the Scots Commissioners and their retinue, they paying for them the rates usual upon the road. The warrant, after reciting that the Scots Commissioners had resolved to make use of horses from stage to stage for themselves and their retinue, requires all justices of the peace, &;c. "upon sight hereof to furnish twenty good and sufficient horses with two sufficient guides from stage to stage and place to place from Blackwall to Berwick for the said service, they the said Earl of Lothian, &;c. paying for the same the ordinary and usual rates." ^ At the same time the discharge of the " ship John of Kircaldie " is notified in the minutes. » Order Book of the Council of State, « Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunae, 5 March, 164|. MS. State 7 March, 164|. MS. State Paper Paper Office. Office. MONTROSE'S LAST EXPEDITION. 289 All this appeared a proceeding of a very high nature on the part of a government the leading members of which were designated by Mr. Denzil Holies as "mean trades- men, ' and who certainly were men who did not trouble themselves to go for their pedigrees beyond the battle of Naseby, towards an oligarchy of which the principal members valued themselves on the imagination of pedigrees gomg back to or beyond the Flood. It appears from the Order Book of the Council of State that the English rulers were fully aware that they would have a war with Scotland upon their hands soon. The followmg orders evince their unrelaxing vigilance "That aU the guns which were at Pontefract Castle (except only the two guns and mortar-piece belonging to the garrison ot Hull) be delivered to such as Sir Arthur Ha^elric. shall appoint for the better defence of the garrison at Berwick "» " That a letter be written to Sir Arthur Haselrig [governor of Nev^^castle] to have special care that Berwick and Car- hsle be carefully garrisoned."^ " That it be reported to the House that the letter sent to the Parhament of England by that of Scotland is of such a nature as it lays an in- capacity of prosecuting the former demands by way of treaty. And Sir H. Vane is to make the report " ' " That a letter be written to the commander of the two troops of horse of Col. Hacker's regiment that lately were about Oarhsle to continue in those parts till they receive further order and in the meantime that they do what they can to repress the mischiefs that are daily done to the country by the moss-troopers."* "That a letter be written to the 1 Order Book of the Council of State aMeridie, 26 March, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunfe, 2 July, 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Ibid, same day. * Ibid. 23 Octob. 1649, a Meridie. U 290 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. Commissioners for the Customs to give order unto the several ports of England, That no goods whatsoever which may be made use of for the furnishing of arms or raising of war be permitted to go out of this nation into Scotland upon any pretence whatsoever/' ' We have seen that one of the instructions given to the Scottish commissioners who were sent to treat with Prince Charles was to insist on his putting from him all who had assisted his father in the war, particularly Montrose. On the other hand Montrose advised Charles to reject the terms of the Presbyterians, and offered his services to place him on the throne by force of arms. Charles was willing to treat with both of these parties at the same time ; and he granted a commission to Montrose to attempt a descent on Scotland, while he kept on foot a negotiation with the Presbyterian commissioners. Montrose, who was somewhat more than suspected of having headed or directed ^ the royalist ruffians who mur- dered Dorislaus, the resident of the English Commonwealth in Holland, and who is reported by Clarendon and proved ^ by other evidence to have offered to assassinate the Hamil- tons and Argyle, but who must be admitted to have been, as Scott has said of Dundee, careless of facing death him- * Order Book of the Council of State, Die Veneris, 23 Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Even Hume says that the royalists who murdered Dorislaus were " chiefly retainers of Montrose." Chap. 60, Burnet says *' Whitford, son to one of their [Scotch] bishops before the wars — the person that had killed Dorislaus in Holland — had committed many barbarous murders with his own hands in Piedmont of women and children." Hist, of His Own Times, vol. iii. p. 115. 8vo. Oxford, 1833 ; and see Whitelock, p. 460. ^ Hume endeavours to prove that Clarendon must have been mistaken in ascribing such an ofier to Montrose : since, during the time when he was reported to have undertaken the as- sassination, Montrose was in prison. But see the evidence taken before a secret committee of the Parliament, and published by Mr. Laing, in his History of Scotland. 1650.] MONTROSE DEFEATED AND TAKEN. 291 self. If he was ruthless in inflicting it upon others, accord- mgly set out on this his last expedition. The events of this expedition showed that in his former enterprises what might at first sight have looked like rashness partook not a little of a daring yet wise and far-sighted policy But in the present enterprise there appeared far more of rashness than of wisdom of any kind. If it be true as has been aUeged, that he was misled by a pretended prophecy or prediction that to him alone it was reserved to restore the king's authority in all his dominions, we must bear in mind that in that age the giving credence to such predic- tions did not by any means warrant such inferences respect- ing the minds of those who gave such credence as it would do now. To say nothing of minor instances, Wallenstein was a believer in astrology, a man who in the excesses com- mitted by his brutal soldiery and perhaps in some other points, bore some resemblance to Montrose, though with far greater forces at his disix)sal than Montrose ever had, Wallenstein never showed either Montrose's military genius, or his i^ersonal hardihood and endurance of fatigue and privation. In the spring of 1650 Montrose sailed from Hamburgh for the Orkney Islands with some arms and money and about six hundred German mercenaries, officered chiefly by Scottish exiles. The 6shermen who inhabited those remote islands were unprepared for resistance, and about eight hundred of them were forced into his service, though unac- customed to the use of arms. He then crossed^ to the main land, where he hoped amid the northern clans to be able to raise a large army. But as he marched through Caithness and Sutherland, the natives fled at his approach, remembering his former cruelties. Strachan, an officer under David Leslie, was dispatched against him with about two u 2 292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. hundred and thirty horse/ while Leslie followed with four thousand more. Montrose had no horse to bring him intelligence, and his cause must have been as unpopular in tliat part of the country as it was formerly in the neigh- bourhood of Philiphaugh, where none of the country people gave him any information of the nearness of the enemy. But he probably thought that his affairs were in that con- dition that he must advance at any risk. However that might be, here as at Philiphaugh, Montrose, whom his enemies on other occasions had never found unprepared, was surprised. As he advanced beyond the pass of Inverchar- ron, on the confines of Koss-shire, Strachan issued from an ambuscade in three divisions and attacked him. The first division was repulsed ; but the second, headed by Strachan himself, routed the whole of Montrose's troops. The Orkney men threw down their arms, the Germans retreated to a wood and surrendered ; the few Scottish companions of Montrose made a brave but vain resistance. Montrose's own horse had been shot under him. His friend Lord Frendraught gave him his, and the marquis throwing off his cloak bearing the star, fled from this his last fight. He afterwards changed clothes with an ordinary Highland kern, and swam across the river Kyle. Exhausted with fatigue and hunger, he was at length taken by a Eoss- shire chief who was out with a party of his men in arms. Montrose discovered himself to this man, who had once been one of his own followers, as to a friend. But, tempted by a reward of four hundred bolls of meal, this chief deli- vered his old commander into the hands of David Leslie. The career and fate of Montrose furnish an instructive example of the evils of civil war ; and the accounts given * Balfour, vol. iv. p. 9. He adds : Rosse came up to the execution with ** Capt. William Rosse and Capt. John 80 foot out of the country forces." 1644.] MONTROSE'S CRUELTIES AT ABERDEEN. 293 by various writers of that career and that fate afford a not less instructive illustration of the effects of faction in per- verting truth, and in turning into poison what should be wholesome food. Some men have sought power and what IS called glory by deeds of the most detestable cruelty, not merely shedding blood in battle, but shedding the blood of unarmed men, nay of women and children. And other men have sought to make the evil spirit that prompted such men to seek ^lory through such deeds assume the semblance of an angel of light. If a time shall ever come when men shall be seen as they are or were, and not darkly through the coloured clouds which poets and historians have thrown around them, and their deeds ; and if those men in whose deeds the evil greatly preponderated over the good shall be judged according to their deeds ; a corre- sponding judgment will be pronounced on those who have held up such men as fit objects for the unqualified approval of mankind. It is undoubtedly the part of a mean spirit to celebrate Its victory over an honourable enemy by dragging him m triumph fiom town to town in a mean garb °But they who thus treated Montrose would no doubt deny that a man who carried on war as Montrose carried it on was an honourable enemy. Sir Walter Scott says that his "un- worthy victors now triumphed over a heroic enemy in the same manner as they would have done over a detected felon.'" Yet what account does Sir Walter Scott himself give of Montrose's treatment of the town of Aberdeen ? " Many were killed in the street ; and the cruelty of the Irish in particular was so great, that they compelled the wretched citizens to strip themselves of their clothes before they ' History of Scotland contained in chap. 46 p 479 "Tales of a Grandfather," toI. i., ' • • 294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. killed them, to prevent their being soiled with blood. The women durst not lament their husbands or their fathers slaughtered in their presence, nor inter the dead which remained unburied in the streets until the Irish departed/' ^ There were other frightful outrages com- mitted by those barbarians on the women and children which Sir Walter Scott does not mention. The defence made by Sir Walter Scott for Montrose is that he " neces- sarily gave way to acts of pillage ajid cruelty, which he could not prevent, because he was unprovided with money to pay his half-barbarous soldiery/' ^ -^y^^ {f Montrose wanted the citizens' money, might he not have taken it without permitting his soldiers to murder them and their children ? Such cruelties were not only a crime but a blunder and proved that Montrose, while he undoubtedly possessed military genius of no common order, altogether wanted political genius. Cromwell's severity in Ireland was partly dictated by policy, partly meant as punishment not merely to ordinary rebels, but to mutineers and murderers who had committed crimes with circumstances of almost unexampled cruelty. Montrose's cruelty at Aberdeen (for it cannot be called mere severity), as regarded policy, only served to make about three-fourths of the population of Scotland the mortal enemies of him and his cause, and, as regarded punishment, so far was the town of Aberdeen from deserv- ing punishment for rebellion against Charles, that Montrose himself had actually on a former occasion punished it for its loyalty. Altogether then Montrose's treatment of Aber- deen seems the conduct of a man in whom the logical errors of the head were not corrected by the instincts of the heart, which saves many men from the errors of the head. ' History of Scotland, contained in 42, p. 437. ' ' Tales of a Grandfather, " vol. i. chap. 2 75^^^ 1650.] MONTROSE'S CHARACTER. 295 It is not easy to analyse the heart of that man who in his dying hour could look without remorse or even regret on those four days of September, 1644, including that Sun- day, the 15 th of September, when there was neither preach- ing nor praying in Aberdeen and nothing but the death- groans of men and the shrieks and wail of women through all the streets, and when the king's lieutenant, who had in the name of " King Charles the Good " caused all these things, could not enter or leave his quarters in Skipper Anderson's ^ house without walking upon or over the bloody corpses of those not slain in battle and over streets slippery with innocent blood. Montrose's chaplain and panegyrical biographer Bishop Wishart has prudently thought fit to pass over the proceedings of his hero in Aberdeen alto- gether in silence. Montrose himself declared that he had never shed blood except in battle. But the facts are proved by Spalding, a townsman of Aberdeen, present on the occasion, who was firmly attached to episcopacy and the king's cause, and a well-wisher to the general success of Montrose, who must consequently in this case have been an unwilling witness, and whose testimony may therefore be considered as conclusive. We therefore have before us the strange phenomenon of a man, who cannot be consi- dered as a pure barbarian by bloody birth, and education, performing deeds that place him on a moral level with Nana Sahib, and for what? to enable King Charles the First to do with impunity whatever had been done by King James, who had murdered by divine right two of Montrose's uncles. The explanation may be found partly perhaps in two qualities which entered largely into the character of Mon- * Spalding, vol. ii. p. 266. 296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. trose, unbounded pride ^ and strong fanaticism. The pride of a Scottish oligarch was then, as it is now, bound- less. To such a man the body of the people of Scotland were, if they are not still, a mere mass of base gutter- bloods; whose ignoble blood was, to borrow the words which Sir Walter Scott has put into the mouth of Mon- trose's antitype Graham of Claverhouse, but ^' the red puddle that stagnated in the veins of psalm-singing mecha- nics, crack-brained demagogues, and silly boors." To murder such human beings in the most cruel and cowardly manner in cold blood was, it seems, to judge from what we know of Montrose and Dundee, an act of which there was no need to be ashamed. Their fanaticism, for those men were fanatics too and worshipped an idol as loathsome and as cruel as the superstition which they imputed to their enemies, altogether silenced within them the voice of con- science. There is no mild remedy to cure such fanaticism as this. In those days the charge of CromwelFs cuirassiers and the shock of his pikemen did something ; in later times the crash of the guillotine and the thunder of Bonaparte's cannon have done something more towards giving to the class of Montrose and Dundee in Scotland and elsewhere a rather dim perception that they had made some slight errors in their reckoning concerning the canaille or gutter-bloods. Is it surprising that Montrose as he was led a prisoner through the country and the towns where his troops had committed so many deeds of rapine and cruelty should have been assailed with curses ? Is it not rather surprising * Montrose's inordinate pride is par- so proud a spirit is strange, tic.ilarly recorded by his contempo- He, Antrim, Huntly, Airlie^ Nithsdale,' raries ; and it was united with great and more are ruined in their estates '; power of dissimulation, by no means so public commotions are their private unusual a combination as Baillie seems subsistence."— ^aiVZie's Letters and to imagine. " The man " says Baillie, Journals, vol. ii. p. 74. Edinburgh ''is said to be very double, which in 1841. 1650.] MONTROSE'S CHARACTER. 297 that he should not have been torn in pieces ? Let any one place himself in the situation, not of a man who had lost his male relatives in battle against Montrose—that would have been a thing in the ordinary course of events— but of a man whose fields had been laid waste, whose houses had been burned, whose father, mother, wife, daugl)ters, sisters had been butchered by this hero after the model of one of the heroes of Plutarch, (many of whose heroes were in truth but sorry scoundrels), and then let such a one say whether he would have considered Montrose entitled to the treatment of an honourable and generous enemy ? Nay more— if there was a man wearing the " semblance of a kingly crown," who commissioned this Montrose and who avowed and sought to profit by his atrocities, will any man say there was no good done by " garring such a king ken that he too had a lithe in his neck ? " The route by which Montrose was conducted to Edin- burgh crossed the river South Esk not far from his own house of Old Montrose. The beautiful valley through which the South Esk flows from the Grampians to the sea is rich in historical associations. Towards the upper part of it stand Glammis, the ancient castle of Macbeth, and the ruins of Finhaven, the castle of that Earl of Crawford, known as "the Tiger Earl.'^ Farther down on a rock overhanging the river is the castle of Brechin, wliich Sir Thomas Maule bravely defended against Edward I. and his army, till he was killed upon the ramparts, with his last breath commanding his men not to surrender. But the greatest name associated with that valley and that river is that of the Marquis of Montrose, who was born in the town of Montrose where the South Esk joins the sea, and passed much of his boyhood and youth at his house of Old Montrose about four miles up the river. The aspect 298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. of that quiet valley more rich and wooded than is usual in Scotland, the gentle sloping green hills near, the huge chain of the blue Grampians in the distance, the clear and rapid stream rushing over its pebbled bed — all, while they reminded Montrose of those other days before ambi- tion and revenge had done their work upon a character by nature brave and chivalrous, formed a strange contrast with that stormy and adventurous life which was soon to have a violent and terrible end. Montrose's guards stopped with him for a short time at Kinnaird, the house of his father-in-law, the Earl of Southesk. Kinnaird is only about two miles distant from Montrose's own house at Old Montrose, situated like Kin- naird on the banks of the river South Esk. Between JVIontrose's mansion-house of Old Montrose and the town of Montrose is a basin or sort of estuary about four miles in length and two in breadth, dry at low water and filled by every returning tide, through which the South Esk rushes to meet the German Ocean. At Kinnaird Montrose procured liberty from his guards to see two of his children. But neither the sight of them nor of the scenes of his early and tranquil days appears to have occasioned in him the display of any outward sign of emotion. " Neither at meeting nor parting," says Wishart, " could any change of his former countenance be discovered, or the least expression heard which was not suitable to the greatness of his spirit. During the whole journey his countenance was serene and cheerful as of one who was superior to all reproach."^ But the captive conqueror, though his pride and force of character enabled him to bear with no outward sif^n of emotion that terrible reverse of fortune, and to smile at ^ Wishart, p. 380. 1650.] MONTROSE'S CHARACTER. 299 the insults of his enemies with a sedate and unshrinking eye, was a poet as well as a great soldier, and those scenes of his youth beheld under such circumstances must have awakened a host of recollections. The electric power of thought would bring back, though but for a moment, the memory of early friends — some of them dead — others friends no longer — the memory too of those dreams of early youth when the bound of his ambition was but to make one loved name " famous by his pen and glorious by his sword," and accomplish for it more than Brian de Bois Guilbert did for the name of Adelaide de Montemare. And though Montrose's early life may have been as unprosperous as that of the haughty Templar, it may have left, in a soul still haughtier and more daring than Bois Guilbert's, the traces of a lifelong sorrow.^ But it is but for a fleet- ing hour he can look on those scenes now with all their sweet and bitter memories. Though there had passed his childhood ; though there his youth had felt the spell of beauty and dreamt the dream of love ; though there the clear and rapid stream, the dark pine wood, the broomy haugh, the furze and the very ragwort had for him a charm denied to the luxuriance of a more southern clime ; his age shall not repose there : and strangers shall dwell in the ancient abode of his fathers. Some of the walls of his house and some of the trees he planted may still stand. So fleeting is man ! The feeblest work of his hands is more enduring. The houses he builds, the trees he plants, outlast him by centuries. The trees which Bacon planted in Gray's Inn Gardens, the trees under which Cromwell, * In his ** Legend of Montrose," Sir Walter Scott, who was deeply versed in Scottish family history, makes Montrose say to Lord Menteith in reference to the latter's love for Annot Lyle — ** I am sorry for you — I too have known — but what avails it to awake sorrows which have long slum- bered ! " soo HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. and Milton and Newton walked at Cambridge, still stand and are conscious of the presence of summer and winter, of spring-time and autumn, but the hands that planted them are dust, and the hearts that throbbed under their shade shall be gladdened by spring no more. Strange ! that to this intellectual being, with faculties to comprehend the Universe, with " thoughts that wander through Eternity,'* there should have been assigned an earthly existence of such brief duration, as to make it hardly a poetical licence to say that " Earth is but a tombstone/' To-day the eye is lightened with electric thought, and the brain is busy with work not unworthy of angels. Yet a little while — it may be a few years, a few months, or only a few days, and the eye is darkened, and tlie brain motionless for ever. An act of attainder had been passed by the Scottish Parliament against Montrose while he was layino* waste the country of Argyle in the winter of 1644. Under this act he was condemned before he reached Edinburgh to the death of a traitor. He was, according to the special order of Parliament, met at the gates of Edinburgh by the magis- trates attended by the common hangman. With his arms pinioned and bareheaded he was placed on a high bench fixed on a cart, and conducted through the streets, his principal officers coupled together preceding him. When he was brought before the Parliament to hear his sentence, Loudon the Chancellor, formerly Sir John Campbell of Lawers, a kinsman of Argyle, upbraided him in a long and violent declamatory harangue with his breach of the Covenant, with his cruel wars, and the murders, treasons, and conflagrations which they had occasioned. Montrose was sentenced to be hanged on a gibbet thirty feet high, and to hang for three hours ; his head to be fixed on the tolbooth or prison of Edinburgh, his body to be quartered, 1660.] MONTROSE'S SENTENCE. 301 and a limb to be placed over the gates of each of the other four principal towns of Scotland, Glasgow, Stir- ling, Perth, and Aberdeen. It was not to be expected that Montrose, whose courage and fortitude had been proved not only on so many fields of battle, but in marches in the midst of winter over track- less mountains covered with snow, where the pangs of hunger had been added to an amount of fatigue and cold, which alone would have destroyed men of softer frames and weaker nerves — should have shrunk to meet the death which Strafford and Laud, which Vane and Argyle faced courageously. So far from feeling any uneasiness about the consequences of his acts Montrose spent part of the night before his execution in the composition of some verses, which he wrote with the point of a diamond upon the window of his prison, and in which he expresses his confi- dence ^ that the God, whose attributes the Christian faith certainly does not reconcile with Montrose's butcheries of the unarmed and defenceless, " will raise him with the just." A man, who could believe that the God whose attributes are wisdom and justice would "raise him with the just" for committing deeds of rapine and murder for the avowed purpose of making us and our children and our children's children to all generations the slaves of the Stuarts, must be pronounced hardly less a fanatic than the fifth-monarchy man who believed that at the great battle of Armageddon he was destined to ride as one of the captains of Him on the White Horse, conquering and to conquer, when tlie voice of the angel shall call all fowls that fly in the midst of heaven * The two concluding lines of these verses, — which consist of only eight lines altogether and are not a fair specimen of Montrose's poetical genius for he has left some verses which are above mediocrity while these are rather below it — are : — ** I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust, And confident thou'lt raise me with the just." 302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. to feed on the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men. Fanaticism under many aspects is always the same at heart ; and that heart l^eing possessed by a Are unquenchable may be said to carry about with it its own hell. That fire burns with the same fury in Mahomet, in Mary Tudor, in Beaton, in Calvin, in the murderers of George Wishart, in the murderers of Thomas Aikenhead. When human selfishness, fierce and ravenous as tlie brute instinct of the most ferocious beast of prey, regards its own gratification as a duty and a virtue, the result is that degree of unrelenting cruelty which knows neither forgiveness, nor pity, nor remorse. Montrose's enemies were God's enemies. Cromwell's enemies were God's enemies. The Presbyterians again held that both Montrose and Cromwell were to be hewed in pieces as Samuel hewed in pieces Agag, when he rebuked Saul for sparing the king of the Amalekites, and for having saved some part of the flocks and herds of that people although he had strictly complied with the command of the prophet in " slaying both man and woman, infant and suckling.'' Here were three distinct parties who hated each other with the most deadly hatred, all and each laying claim to be special favourites of the Almighty, and to have a special commission from the Most High to do unto each other as the Jews did to the heathen, that is, to the nations whose country they seized. If it be not blasphemy to turn the name of God to such uses, what is blasphemy ? On the 21st of May, 1650, Montrose walked from his prison to the Grassmarket, the common place of execution for felons, where a gibbet of extraordinary height was erected. Here the clergy again pressed him to own his guilt, and refused him absolution, unless he manifested repentance. Montrose's pride and courage did not and were not Hkely to bend to any of their threats of damna- 1650.] MONTROSE'S EXECUTION. 303 tion, grounded as they were on the audacious assumption that, like their old and hated enemy the Bishop of Rome, they were the vicegerents on earth of the Omnipotent. A book containing the printed history of his exploits was bung around Montrose's neck by the hangman. He smiled and said he was prouder of the history than he had ever been of the Garter. Having finished his prayers and asked if any further insult remained to be put upon him, he calmly submitted to his fate. He was in the 38th year of his age. Sir Walter Scott in the Legend of Montrose, speaks of Montrose's long brown hair, grey eye, and sanguine complexion. An original miniature exhibited in the Loan Court of the South Kensington Museum in 1862 repre- sents him with yellowish hair, high cheek bones, and a rather pale complexion. It is probable when we compare the impression made on us by his portraits with the im- pression his living self made on so good a judge of men as De Eetz who knew him personally and mentions him in his memoirs as one of those heroes of whom there are no longer any remains in the world, and who are only to be met with in Plutarch, that his features when lighted up by the soul within produced an impression more favourable than that which his portraits convey. According to the sentence tlie head of the Marquis of Montrose was fixed upon the to] booth of Edinburgh, (over against that of his unfortunate uncle the young Earl of of Gowrie murdered by King James in August, 1600), with an iron cross over it lest any of his friends should take it down.^ After the battle of Dunbar, Montrose's head was * Wishart's Memoirs of the Marquis of Montrose, p. 405. Edin. 1819. The head of the Earl of Gowrie being there in 1650 when Montrose's head was set up must have remained there 50 years ; not blown away by the wind as Birrell intimates it might be. " The 19 Nov. (1600) the Earl of Gowrie and his brother haulit to the gibbit and hangit and quarterit. And thairefter 304 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. taken down by Cromwell's orders ; and it may be hoped that the Earl of Gowrie's was taken down at the same time and decently buried. Although Montrose's mihtary genius rose far above that of the other men of that time who united qualities that are not now found together, he was only one of many who in Britain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as in Spain during the sixteenth century, were eminent at once as soldiers and as men of letters. Cervantes greatly distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto, where he received three arquebuse wounds, two in the breast, and one in the left hand, which maimed him for life. Lope de Vega sailed in the Armada. Boscan served with distinc- tion as a soldier. His friend Garcilaso de la Vega fell at the head of a storming party, being the first to mount the breach of a tower, which he was ordered to carry by assault. The Earl of Surrey, to whom as a poet both Spenser and Milton are indebted, and whose works went through four editions in two months, and through seven more in the thirty years after their first appearance in 1557, besides their circulation in garlands, broadsheets, and miscellanies, served two campaigns in France. Sir Philip Sidney was a poet as well as a soldier. Sir Walter Raleigh was at once a soldier, sailor, poet, and historian. Richard Lovelace fought for the king all tlu^ough the civil war ; and afterwards raised a regiment in the French service, com- manded it, and was wounded at Dunkirk. George Withers served as a captain of horse in the expedition of Charles I. against the Scotch Covenanters in 1639, (which was also the first campaign of Lovelace) ; and three years after he thair twa headis set upoun the haid of in " Pitcairn's Criminal Trials " vol ii the prisone-hous, thair to stand quhiU pp. 45-247, from Original MS Adv' the wind blaw thame away."— i?o6^rf Lib. Edinburgh. BirrdVs Diary, Nov. 19, 1600, cited 1650.] MONTROSE'S EXECUTION. 305 sold his estate and raised a troop of horse for the Par- liament. John Bunyan served as a private soldier in the Parliamentary army. But of all these, if some have sur- passed Montrose in literary, none have come near him in military achievements ; and I am not aware that there is any other man on record who has united in an equal degree poetical and military genius. Montrose was certainly a most accomplished man ; and I regret, for the honour of human nature, that he should have tarnished his name by cruelty. There are indeed well-authenticated facts in his history that seem to show that he was not by nature cruel or ungenerous, and that he was not an exception to the rule that brave men are not cruel. Nevertheless the plea put forward for him that he necessarily gave way to acts of piUage and cruelty from inability to pay his half-barbarous soldiery wiU not avail him much ; and history, painting him as he was, wiU paint him as a great man with dark spots on his fame. The royafist writers represent the people, and many even of Montrose's bitterest enemies as weeping on the occa- sion of his execution. That age was much addicted to tears, as is manifested when we find such a man as Crom- well, and even the whole House of Commons, occasionally dissolving into floods of tears. It may therefore, though it certainly seems strange, be true that the people of Scot- land should weep even for a man who had treated them as Montrose had done, as people naturally weep at any great reverse of fortune. In regard to the mean spite imputed to the ruling party in Scotland at the time, as exhibited in the various studied insults offered to Montrose, the whole matter may be summed up in a very few words. If Mon- trose in his wars adhered to the recognized course of war- fare of civilised men as the term was then understood, all 306 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. insult offered to him as a prisoner was undoubtedly a mean revenge, and an ignominy recoiling upon those who offered it. But if, on the other hand, it be true that Montrose carried on war like a cruel and reckless savage, it would be drawing rather too largely on human forbearance in Scotland two hundred years ago to expect that he should receive the treatment which men of honour and humanity are anxious to give to a conquered enemy who has done nothing to forfeit his right to honourable treatment. Some writers have asserted, but without producing autho- rity for the assertion, that Montrose at the beginning of his career joined the Covenanters from disgust at neglect from the Court. But when we call to mind that Montrose's mother was the sister of the Earl of Gowrie and of Alexander Euthven, so basely murdered by James the First, and that his aunt Beatrix Ruthven had received througli the Queen and Sir Thomas Erskine a very different version of that dark transaction called by King James the Gowrie Conspiracy, from that which King James put forth, we do not need to have recourse to any supposition of neglect from the Court to account for the fact of a young man, so intelligent and so well-educated as the Earl of Montrose, thinking it necessary to devise means to diminish rather than to increase the power to do evil, both to the nobility and people, of the royal family of Stuart. Wishart's work is so much a mere panegyric that it is no authority on disputed points. But the testimony of Principal Baillie, the best authority and beyond all suspicion, is, before Montrose's desertion of the Covenanters, very favour- able to his general character, and throws no doubt on his sincerity. It is remarkable too that, so far from affording the least hint of cruelty in Montrose's character, Baillie objects to his too great lenity. " The discretion,'' he says, 1639.] MONTROSE'S LENITY IN 1639. 307 " of that generous and noble youth was but too great. A great sum was named as a fine to that unnatural city [Aberdeen] but all was forgiven."^ And again: " Our forces likewise disbanded, it was thought, on some mal- contentment either at Montrose's too great lenitie in sparing the enemies houses, or somewhat else."^ This was in March 1639 when Montrose then only twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age went against Aberdeen as Lord General, with the Earl Marischall, the Lord Erskine, the Lord Carnegie, the Lord Elcho, "his Excellencie Felt Marshal Leslie," and an army of 9000 men.^ Now, as one of the charges brought against Montrose by the Parliament of Scotland in their declaration of the 24th January 1650 was, that "being a man of a mean and desperate fortune, and not meeting with that esteem and reward which he in his vanity proposed to himself, at the first pacification he began to hearken to the promises of the Court," how came it that, " being a man of a mean and desperate fortune," and so young, he was appointed to this important command ? The inference is that the oligarchy which then governed Scotland must, notwithstanding their habitual blindness to such qualities, have perceived in Montrose, young as he was, the qualities fit for com- mand ; and that Argyle possessing great craft, (though no talent for war), and the power arising fi-om a much greater estate or at least a much greater "following," than Montrose, which in an oligarchy confers the highest offices without regard to fitness, had influence in the Council to have Montrose superseded and Alexander * Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. i. p. 197. Edinburgh 1841. Ban- natyne Club edition. Baillie calls Aberdeen "that unnatural city" on account of its leaning to prelacy. * Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. i. p. 205. 3 Spalding, vol. i. p. 107. Edin- burgh, 1829. 2 vols. 4to. Banna- tyne Club edition. X 2 :308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. Leslie, an old soldier of fortune and military pedant, put in his place. Montrose's vindictive feelings on this occasion were also probably much exasperated by the fact of the existence of an old feud between his family and that of Argyle. Seeing therefore no hope for the exercise of those great military talents, which with the instinct of genius he felt that he possessed, in th^ service of the Covenanters, he determined to offer his services to the Koyal cause. And however much reason he may have had to dislike the supremacy of the Stuarts, he would probably have very much preferred it to the supremacy of Argyle and Loudon, which would have been in other words the supremacy of tlie Campbells. If this was the alternative, it is idle to say that it was Montrose's duty as a man of principle to bow to the order which superseded him and placed another in his command. Moreover, where the Government is little else but a scramble for power among a few families, the modern standard of political morality cannot be applied. It is proper to add that some of Montrose's greatest enemies have allowed that, though he could not bear an equal, and was always ready to destroy an adversary, whether by heroism in the field or less honourable means, he was always generous to those who testified their sense of his superiority. There can be little doubt that, if Montrose with his military genius had held the command of the armies of the Scottish Covenanters, the struggle would have assumed an aspect different in many respects — but that the result would have been more favourable to the ultimate establishment of good govern- ment and of civil and religious liberty is very far from probable, for to look for such a result from that corrupt and tyrannical oligarchy which then and long after misgoverned Scotland, was quite out of the question. In such a case it 1650.] ARRIVAL OF CHARLES IN SCOTLAND. 309 is absolutely necessary to destroy before there can be any hope to reform. Montrose, when brought before the Scottish Parlia- ment to hear his sentence, had said in reply to the Chancellor Loudon's violent harangue against him, that "although it was impossible in the course of hostilities absolutely to prevent acts of military violence, he had always disowned and punished such irregularities. He had never," he said, " spilt the blood of a prisoner, even in retaliation of the cold-blooded murder of his officers and friends, nay he had spared the lives of thousands in the very shock of battle." He might also have told that Chancellor and the rest of his judges that all the crimes imputed to him, if proved on the clearest evi- dence, would not leave behind them a stain so indelible as the fingering of a certain sum of English gold, which was not unknown to that Chancellor and his accomplices or brother judges, and which was the price of blood. Though those men died in their beds and Montrose died by the hands of the hangman, had they all come before Dante's infernal tribunal, the prisoner would not have been con- demned to so deep a part of the abyss as some of his judges. For if to Montrose would have been assigned a place with Ezzelino in the lake of boiling blood of Bull- came, the traitors who sold the king who trusted them would have had their portion with Judas Iscariot in the eternal ice of Giudecca. Urry, who had changed sides several times during the civil war, and had been sometimes the enemy, sometimes the follower of Montrose, was executed with others of tlie marquis's followers, among whom \yas Whitford,^ one of the assassins of Dr. Dorislaus. Lord Frendraught, who when » WMtelock, p. 460. SIO HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. Montrose's horse was killed under him had generously given him his own to enable him to escape, having been taken prisoner, to avoid the ignominy of a public execu- tion, starved himself to death. The Marquis of Huntly, after having been sixteen months in prison, had been beheaded at Edinburgh more than a year before.^ Meanwhile the commissioners of the Scottish Parlia- ment continued to carry on the treaty with Charles. That prince had little inclination to agree to the terms the covenanted oligarchy offered him, and no hesitation about the morality of accomplishing his ends by any other means, even by the means proposed by Montrose, namely butchering one half of his subjects that he might reign absolutely over the other half But when Montrose's defeat and execution were reported to him, he agreed, seeing no other resource for the present, to accept the crown of Scotland on the terms offered, which were taking upon him the obligations of the Solemn League and Covenant, and absolute compliance with the will of the Scottish Par- liament in civil, and with that of the General Assembly of the Kirk in ecclesiastical affairs. The treaty having been concluded on these conditions, — conditions which to a man of Chai'les's tastes and habits made his life as a kin^ in Scotland considerably less pleasant than life in a garret in some continental town where he might at least enjoy, un- molested by the howl of Presbyterian sermons and impre- cations, some scantling of the luxuries he loved — Charles sailed from Holland about the middle of June, landed on the coast of Scotland near the mouth of the river Spey, and advanced to Stirling. About the middle of June in this year Mr. Ascham, ' Whitelock, p. 392. March 27, was beheaded at the cross in Edin- 1649. "The Marquis of Huntly burgh." 1650.] ASSASSINATION OF ASCHAM. 3J1 whom the English Parliament had sent as their agent into Spain, was assassinated at an inn in Madrid, together with his interpreter, by six Englishmen ; who inquiring for Mr. Ascham were admitted to his chamber. As Mr. Ascham, who was at dinner with his interpreter, rose from the table to salute them, the foremost laid hold on him by the hair anji stabbed him. The interpreter endeavoured to escape, but he was stabbed by another ; and they both fell down dead. The murderers fled for refuge to the Venetian ambassador's house, but he refused them entrance, and they then took sanctuary in the next church. When the Par- liament were informed of this affair by their late agent's secretary, they first ordered that a letter should be written to the King of Spain, and signed by their Speaker, to demand justice on the murderers of Mr. Ascham. Next^ Sir H. Mildmay reported from the Council of State, that^ in regard of this horrible assassination and murder and also of several late advertisements they had received of divers persons being come into England with intention of like murder and assassination ; and because some faithful persons to the State are particularly designed to be attempted upon, it was the Council's opinion the House should be moved to take into consideration what they published, in the Declaration of the 18th of May, 1649, on occasion of the murder of Dr. Dorislaus, and give order that some- thing might be done effectually in pursuance thereof, to discourage and deter such bloody and desperate men, and their accomplices, from the like wicked attempts for the future. Thereupon the House resolved that six of those persons who had been in arms against the Parliament, and who, not being admitted to composition, were then in their power and at their mercy, should be speedily proceeded against to trial for their lives, before the High Court of 312 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. V. Justice, upon their former offences, on occasion of the horrid and execrable assassination of Mr. Ascham and his interpreter.^ It was not however till the I7th of Feb- ruary 1 65-|, when they probably felt themselves ready for a war with Spain, that the Council of State ordered a paper to be delivered to the Spanish ambassador, demanding justice on the murderers of Mr. Ascham.^ ^ Pari. Hist. vol. iii., pp. 1351, 1352. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 17 Feb. 1654. MS. State Paper Office. CHAPTER VI. As soon as the English Parliament heard that the eldest son of the late king of England had arrived in Scotland, they prepared for war with that country. Cromwell, who had been summoned home from Ireland by the Parliament some months before, had taken his seat in the House on the 4th of June.^ His entry into London almost resembled a Roman triumph. Many members of the Parhament and Council of State, among whom was Fair- fax the Lord General, guarded by a troop of horse and a regiment of foot, and attended by a large concourse of citizens, went out two miles to meet him. "When Crom- well came to Tyburn, the place of public execution, where a great crowd of spectators was assembled, a cer- tain flatterer pointing with his finger to the multitude exclaimed : *' Good God, sir, what a number of people come to welcome you home 1 '' Cromwell smiling replied — " But how many more, do you think, would flock together to see me hanged, if that should happen ? '' The con temporary writer who relates this incident adds, "there was nothing more unlikely at that time, and j^et there was a presage in these words, which he often repeated and used in discourse.'' ^ ' Pari. Hist, vol. iii. pp. 1345, late Troubles in England — (Translation 1347. of the Elenclius Motuum)— Part ii. ' Bates — Eise and Progress of the p. 97. 314 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. Fairfax, though not himself a presbyterian, being as has been commonly supposed persuaded by his wife and her presbyterian chaplains, declined the command of the English army and threw up his commission. The Council of State sent a deputation consisting of St. John, Whitelock, Cromwell, Harrison and Lambert, to Fairfax to endeavour to prevail on him to take the command of the army destined to march into Scotland. The main argument of Fairfax for resigning his com- mand was that the invasion of Scotland could not be justified, as the Scots had proclaimed no war with England, and it was contrary to the Solemn League and Covenant for the one country to commence war against the other. To this the answer was that the Scots had already broken the Covenant by the Engagement ; and that, though the Engagement had been disavowed by a subsequent Par- liament or party, yet their whole conduct latterly had manifested a determination to support the cause of Charles Stuart against the people of England ; that therefore war was inevitable, and the only question was whether Scotland should be the seat of war, or the Scots should be allowed to organize their forces, to march into England, and be joined by a party there. Fairfax declared his willingness to march against the Scots if they entered England, but he was against hostilities till that event occurred. It being however resolved to carry the war into Scotland, he resigned his command.^ An act was passed on the 26 th of June repealing the act whereby Thomas Lord Fairfax had been appointed captain general and commander-in-chief of all the forces of the English Parliament ; and another act was passed the same day, nemine contradicente, constituting and 1 Whitelock, p. 460. Ludlow, vol. i. p. 314. 1650.] WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 315 appointing Oliver Cromwell, Esquire, to be captain general and commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to be raised by authority of ParHament within the Common- wealth of England. By the 29th of June Cromwell had left London and was on his march to Scotland.^ He was desired by the Council of State to assume the title of "General of the forces of the Parliament of England," and to receive no letters from Scotland without such address.^ Mrs. Hutchinson affirms that what many said that Cromwell undermined Fairfax, was false ; for in Colonel Hutchinson's presence he most earnestly importuned Fairfax to keep his commission, lest his resignation should discourage the army and the people in that juncture of time, but by no means prevail, although he laboui^ed almost all the night with most earnest endeavours.^ Ludlow says " he acted his part so to the life that I thought him sincere.'' The opinion that Cromwell was sincere was entertained at the time by all those who formed the deputation sent by the Council of State to Fairfax. Subsequent events however induced them to alter their opinion, and to think that Cromwell did not wish to succeed in persuading Fairfax to retain his commission, but already regarded his appointment to Fairfax's place as a step to the absolute power he aimed at. But in all these persons this opinion as to Cromwell's sincerity in trying to persuade Fairfax to retain his commission was an afterthought ; and I think it not improbable that their first opinion was correct, and that Cromwell was sincere. Neither would his sincerity on this point affect the question of any ulterior designs he might then have 1 Whitelock, p. 460. Pari. Hist. voL iii. pp. 1350, 1351, 1352. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, 29 June, 1650. MS. State Paper Office. 3 Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 344. Bohn's edition. London, 1854. 316 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. formed, for he had found by long experience that Fair- fax's being commander-in-chief did not prevent him, the lieutenant-general, from doing nearly what he liked in and with the army. Besides, independently of the question of his sincerity or insincerity on this occasion, there are several contemporary witnesses who affirm that by that time he had begun his operation of moulding the army to his mind by weeding out of it the godly and upright- hearted men, both officers and soldiers, and filling their places partly with cavaliers, partly with personal friends and relatives and others who would ''make no question for conscience' sake.'' These last words are Mrs. Hutchin- son's,^ who joins them with some others which, beiug rather more than " almost scolding," ^ do not mend her argu- ment. Her testimony however is supported by that of Richard Baxter, and by that of Ludlow. But then their memoirs like hers were written after the event ; and we may be permitted to doubt whether the event did not, perhaps involuntaril}'', colour their recollections of the past. In fact Ludlow, like Harrison and many others, discovered Cromwell's designs somewhat of the latest — that is, after they were executed. Moreover Cromwell was a man who rather watched and took advantage of opportunities than sought to make them. It is therefore improbable that he had any designs of a definite character at this time or indeed long after. And though Mrs. Hutchinson takes credit afterwards for penetration in seeing what Cromwell was about when she says that his mode of proceeding " was unperceived by all that were not of very penetrating eyes," ' anyone who takes a comprehensive view of the * Memoirs of Col. HutcMnson, p. terms of the women's petition to the 342. Bohn's edn. London, 1854. parliament in behalf of John Lilburne. 2 Whitelock's description of the ^ Memoirs, p. 342. 1650.] CROMWELL COMMANDEE-IN-CHIEF. 317 whole business must see tliat the deeper designs of a man of the capacity of Cromwell were not likely to be so laid as to be discovered by so common-place a man as Colonel Hutchinson, or by a woman, who however praiseworthy in her character of a wife, evinced so little penetration as to mistake her husband for a hero. Honest Ludlow was almost as little likely to penetrate and countermine such a man as Cromwell as Colonel Hutchinson. Ludlow indeed in after days, when in poverty and in exile he wrote his memoirs, sad and disenchanted though still unsubdued, having indeed if any man ever had a " soul invincible," noted that at a cer- tain time the grand moral distinction between the parlia- mentary and all other armies began to be destroyed — " and then the troops of the Parliament," he says " who were not raised out of the meanest of the people and without dis- tinction, as other armies had been, but consisted of such as had engaged themselves from a spirit of liberty in the defence of their rights and religion, were corrupted by him, kept as a standing force against the people, taught to forget their first engagements and rendered as mercenary as other troops are accustomed to be." ^ Whether or not those who mention what they caU Cromwell's designs of usurpation in their subsequently written memoirs penetrated Cromwell's designs at the time, there is sufficient evidence that he was not only sus- pected but publicly charged with such designs at an early period by John Lilburne and other discontented officers of the army. But then the very fact of such charges being made by such men, whatever degree of penetration the making of them might show, rather tended to strengthen CromwelFs power than to shake it. For even assuming that Lilburne's charges were proved, and Cromwell dis- * Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 21. 318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. missed from his command, and Lilburne or some one recommended by Lilburne's party put in his place, what result could have been expected but the bringing in the royalists upon the nation pell-mell ? For the whole of poor Lilburne's short, busy, restless life shows that, with some talent as a pamphleteer and even more talent as a speaker, he had no talent whatever as a man of effective action, none of that talent of which both Cromwell and Monk had so much. At the head of an army of sixteen thousand ^ men Cromwell now invaded Scotland. If we compare the number of this army with the numbers of the armies with which the first and second Edwards invaded Scotland, taking into account also the considerable increase of popu- lation between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, though the increase cannot be ascertained with any degree of exactness, we are struck with the smallness of the amount of this army of the seventeenth century. But sixteen thousand men, well-treated, well-fed, well-armed, animated by a religious enthusiasm that made them look on death not merely without fear but as a passage to eternal happiness and honour, accustomed to discipline and to victory, and led by Oliver Cromwell, were really more formidable than a hundred thousand men led by King Edward the Second, when moreover in the one case the army opposed to them was led by the Committee of Estates, in the other case by Robert Bruce. About the time of Charles's landing, the Scottish Par- liament having received certain intelligence of Cromwell's » "Mordington, 24 July, 1650. A the horse 5415, the foot 10,249; in list of the regiments of horse and toto 1Q,Z5V'—Sev. Proc. 'in Pari foot rendezvoused and marched with July 25 to August 1, in Cromwelliana* the Lord General Cromwell into Scot- p. 85. ' land. The whole thus, the train 690, 1650.] THE SCOTTISH LEVIES. 319 advance, were under a necessity of reinforcing their army then consisting of 2500 horse and 3000 foot.^ After much debate an act of levies passed for raising above 30,000 horse and foot throughout the kingdom. Very different from the mode pursued in England was the mode of recruiting the army for the Kirk, as it was called, though it was in fact an army raised for the purpose of establishing in Scotland under the name of Charles II., as a phantom king, a sort of heptarchy composed of a body of petty kings, whose tyranny was likely to be as galling as that of the worst of the Stuarts.^ Those who have not examined the matter are apt to imagine that the Scottish peasantry flocked to the so-called standard of the Kirk in 1650 as some thirty years later when, goaded into madness by the cruelty of Claverhouse and Lauderdale, they opposed successfully their undisciplined valour to the onset of veteran troops at Drumclog. This is very far from being the case. The same great writer, who has given a picture of the skirmish at Drum- clog that will live as long as the language in which it is written, has also on another occasion given a description of the state of mind in which a Scottish peasant followed his lord to the battle of Bothwell Bridge, which represents to the life the feelings with which, according to abundance of the best evidence, the bulk of the Scottish peasantry left their homes under the conduct of their lairds and lords to be slaughtered at Dunbar, or as prisoners either to die of famine and pestilence or be transported to the English settlements in America. Such was the fate for which thousands of poor men were dragged from their homes by their native oppressors, by those who neither knew how to » Sir Edward Walker, p. 160. 2 Ibid. p. 194. 320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. lead armies themselves nor would leave them to the leading of those who did know. Duke Hamilton pressed every fourth man in certain districts for his miserable expedition into England/ Many yeomen in Clydesdale " upon fear to be levied by force " fled from their houses to ioudoun Hill.^ The English army in their march through Berwick- shire saw not any Scotchman, but the streets of the small towns and villages were full of Scotch women, very many of whom bemoaned their husbands, who, they said, " were enforced by the lairds to gang to the muster/'^ The Highlanders, notwithstanding their vaunted attachment to their chiefs, were, latterly at least, as little disposed to go to war at the command of their tyrants as the Lowlanders. Obedience to his chief was indeed the creed in which the Highlander was brought up. But how far that obedience was hearty and willing appears from the fact that in 1745 nothing but force could draw the men from their houses.* And in 1715 the methods adopted by those feudal or patriarchal tyrants to force their vassals into a rebellion against the established government appear from a letter written by the Earl of Mar to the baillie of his lordship of Kildrummie and dated September 9, 1715, in which he says, " I have used gentle means too long, . . . Let my own tenants in Kildrummie know that if they come not forth with their best arms, I will send a party imme- diately to burn what they shall miss taking from them. And they may believe this only as a threat, but, by all that's sacred, I'll put it in execution, let my loss be what * Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 124. * Baillie' s Letters and Journals, vol. iii. p. 48. Edinburgh, 1842. ^ Relation of the Fight at Leith, p. 270, published with Slingsby's and Hodgson's Memoirs, and other original documents, namely dispatches and letters relating to this campaign. "* Jacobite Correspondence, quoted in Mr. Hill Burton's Life of Simon Lord Lovat, pp. 151, 152. 1650.] THE SCOTTISH LEVIES. 321 it will, that it may be an example to others. You are to tell the gentlemen that I expect them in their best accoutre- ments on horseback, and no excuse to be accepted of.'^ * Add to this that the men were miserably paid, if paid at all, and very scantily fed on food of the coarsest descrip- tion, and that they could never rise to the rank of officers, and you have a strong contrast to the weU-fed, weU-clothed,' and, though punished for breach of discipline with unre' lenting severity, well-treated freemen who filled the ranks of the English Parliamentary armies. The officers appointed to command the Scottish levies thus raised were, at least according to the authority of a royalist who did not regard them with a favourable eye, " for the most part ministers' sons, clerks, and such other sanctified creatures, who hardly ever saw or heard of any sword but that of the spirit." ' Good officers must have discovered by this time that it was better to seek service where it was more likely to lead to promotion and reward than under a Government whose » The letter is printed in full in Sir that had scarce as much wind left as Walter Scott's History of Scotland, con- serve the necessary purpose of my ain tamed in "Tales of a Grandfather," lungs, * Sound, you poltroon ! Bound, vol. 11. pp. 271, 272, Edinburgh, you damned cowardly villain, or I will 1846. We now see that the descrip- blow your brains out !' and, to be tion given by the old sexton of Her- sure, I blew sic points of wlr, that mitage to the Master of Ravenswood the scraugh of a clockin-hen was is hardly over-coloured:—*' There was music to them." The inducement ap- auld Ravenswood brandishing his An- plied to their soldiers by the Prussian drew Ferrara at the head, and crying tyrants was of a similar nature to this, to us to come and buckle to, as if we In action a line of sergeants, each had been gaun to a fair,— there was armed with a heavy cane, stood behind Caleb Balderston, that is living yet, each rank, one for every three soldiere, flourishing in the rear, and swearing so that they had the enemy in front| Gog and Magog he would put steel and these terrible tyrants behind, who through the guts of ony man that rendered running away a matter of turned bridle,— there was young Allan difficulty and danger. The cuirassiers Ravenswood, that was then Master, wi' and pikemen of Cromwell had no need a bended pistol in his hand,— it was a of such stimulants, mercy it gaed na aff,— crying to me, « Sir Edward Walker, p. 162. 322 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. 1650.] THE SCOTTISH LEVIES. 323 chancellor was a colonel of regiments of horse and foot, of which he took the pay, leaving others to do the duty. It is indeed true that men treated as the Scottish peasants and even the Scottish gentlemen (as appears from what has been said) were treated by their feudal superiors have fought successfully. But there was when, as in the great Scottish war of independence, whether better treated or not, they fought under great and popular leaders, Wal- lace, Bruce, and Douglas, for a popular and worthy object ; or, it might be, under one of those great and terrible tyrants, such as Frederic of Prussia, a tyrant of invincible energy, untiring industry, and extraordinary capacity, but not under an oligarchy or knot of small imbecile tyrants, which for three centuries among all its members had not mustered brains enough to govern a hen-roost or to drive a flock of geese across a common. It has sometimes been supposed that the Scottish armies during these wars were in part at least composed of the veteran Scottish troops of Gustavus Adolphus, on whom that great king relied the most not only for their invincible steadiness but for their unbounded daring ; who at the battle of Leipsic almost annihilated the terrible veterans of Tilly ; and who in the storm of the castle of Marien- berg performed a feat of arms more wonderful even than Bonaparte's famous passage of the Bridge of Lodi. But this was not the case. In 1650 application was made to the French Court for permission for Douglas's (formerly Hepburn's) and the other Scots regiments, which since the death of Gustavus Adolphus had passed into the service of France, to return to Scotland with Charles II. But Lewis XIV. declined to accede to the request, and promised H to give them their pay with greater regularity in future.* It is undoubtedly true that there were several officers in the service of the Scots Parliament (the two Leslies and others) who had served under Gustavus Adolphus. But though in common and inaccurate language they may be said to have learnt the art of war under a great master, the art of war is an art which cannot be learnt under any teacher but nature. And events proved but too well that neither Alexander nor David Leslie was ever a master of it. One fact tells volumes against both. I have already mentioned the introduction of the use of the cartridge by Gustavus Adolphus as well as the fact that it was not generally used till near a century after.^ The deadly effect of the fire of the Scots brigades in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus in consequence of the advantage of the cartridge was often proved. And the first thing that a commander of any superior intelligence would have done would have been to introduce it wherever he commanded. That it was not introduced among the Scots troops sufficiently appears jfrom one of the articles of the surrender of Edin- burgh Castle to Cromwell, by which it is stipulated that the soldiers may depart " with their arms and baggage, with drums beating and colours flying, matches lighted at both ends, and ball in their mouths as they are usually wont to march.'' This clearly shows that the cartridges were not used, and that the baU was put loose or separately into the gun. It is a strange spectacle to observe the language which these two bodies of fanatics, each of which believed them- * Records of the British Aniiy— Esq., Adjutant-General's Office, Horse Printed by Authority— Historical Re- Guards. London, 1847. P. 44. cord of the First or Royal Regiment of « Historical Record of the First Foot. Compiled by Richard Cannon, Regiment of Foot. Y 2 824 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. YI. 1650.] JklONK. 325 selves the special and exclusive favourites and confidants of Heaven, held to each other. The Presbyterians de- clared the army commanded by Cromwell to be a union of the most perverse heretical sectaries of every different persuasion, agreeing in nothing but their desire to effect the ruin of the Christian Church, and the destruction of the Covenant, to which most of their leaders had sworn fidelity. Cromwell was Antichrist, over whose head the curse of God hung for murdering the king, and breaking the Covenant.^ He was Agag, and revelations had been made to tliem that he, with his army of sectaries and heretics, was delivered into their hands to be dealt with as Samuel had dealt with Agag and the Amalekites. The Independents were by no means behind-hand in this war of words, though after their success at Dunbar they could afford to exhibit a little more profession than their adver- saries of Christian charity, which was rather a scarce com- modity everywhere in those days. They called Heaven and Earth to witness whether they had not cause to defend themselves by coming into Scotland with an army to hinder the Scots from taking their time and advantage to impose on them their grand enemy, whom the Scots had engaged to restore to the possession of England and Ire- land.* They declared that they valued the Christian Church ten thousand times more than their own lives ; and that they were not only a rod of iron to dash asunder the common enemies, but a hedge (though unworthy) about the divine vineyard. As for the Covenant, were it not for making it an object of idolatry, they would be content to » Relation of the Fight at Leith, 1806. p. 220, in Original Memoirs written ^ Declaration of the English Army, during the Civil War. Edinburgh, in Cromwelliana, p. 84. ■ H place it on the point of their pikes, and let God judge wliether they or their opponents had best observed its obligations. Those, they said, that were acquainted with the secrets of God (meaning themselves) did clearly see the quarrel was betwixt Christ and the Devil, betwixt Christ's seed and the Devil's. The whore of Babylon had received her deadly wound ; let the Devil be her cliirur- geon. Their prayers for them (the Presbyterians) should be that the Lord would pity and forgive them, in that they knew not what they did ; and that He would give them a clear sight of the great work He was then, in those latter days, carrying on. Tlieir bowels did in Christ yearn after the godly in Scotland, and the arms of their Christian love were stretched out ready to embrace them, whenever God should incline their hearts to carry on and not to gainsay and oppose His work. If however God should still suffer their eyes to be blinded, so that seeing they would not see, and their hearts to be hardened, so as to persist in gainsaying and opposing the way of the Lord, whatever misery befell their nation, either through famine or sword, would lie heavy upon them.^ Before the English army entered Scotland, an incident occurred which shows that if Gumble's statement that Monk was known among the soldiers as honest George Monk be true, the opinion of the soldiors must have changed from what it was at this time. At Newcastle Colonel Bright threw up his commission because the general would not give him a fortnight's time to go home to settle his private affairs.^ When the army was about Alnwick several colonels came to the head of Colonel ^ Relation of the Campaign in Scot- land, pp. 331, 332, in Original Me- moirs written during the Civil War; and Cromwell to the Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh, 12th Sept. 1650. 2 Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 127. 326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. Bright*s regiment, and telling the soldiers that the general was much troubled such a regiment should want a colonel, asked whom they would have for their colonel. The soldiers told them they had a good colonel, but he had left them, and they knew not whom they might have. The colonels asked if they would have Colonel Monk. " Colonel Monk 1 " said some of them, '* what ! to betray us ? We took him but not long since at Nantwich prisoner : we'll have none of him."" The next day the colonels came again, and asked if they would have Major-General Lambert to be their colonel. At which they all threw up their hats and shouted " a Lambert ! a Lambert ! '' * In the whole of this affair, the refusal of the short leave of absence causing the resignation of Colonel Bright, and the proposal of Monk as his successor undoubtedly originating with Cromwell, may be clearly seen one very remarkable example of " weeding out the old officers and filling up their room with turn-coat cavaliers." Cromwell and Monk soon understood each other. Their abilities, though very different in some points, were very like in others. They were both essentially men of action. What was to be done they could do, from fighting a battle to quelling a mutiny, from raising an army and manning a fleet to keeping their men in efficient fighting condition by attention to the most minute details of the commissariat, even to furnishing their soldiers amid the bogs of Ireland and the mountains of Scotland with a sufficient supply of biscuit and cheese, frequently assisted by a portion of meat * Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 139, 140. Hodgson was then an officer in that very regiment of foot, as he afterwards was in Lambert's regiment of horse ; for Lambert appears to have had a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot at the same time. See Hodg- son's Memoirs, p. 140. As to the incident related in the text, see also Relation of the Fight at Leith, in the same collection, p. 205. 1650.] CROMWELL AND MONK. 327 or fish, chiefly salmon ; ^ and when better medical advice was not to be had, they had their prescriptions and reme- dies for sickness and wounds. Nearly the same might be said as to the resemblance of their characters. Their faces also bore a not inconsiderable likeness to each other. The best original portraits'^ of both exhibit the same massive structure of countenance and head, the same look of calm intelligence and invincible resolution in the eyes and mouth. Calm and indomitable courage, and strong practical good sense characterized both aHke. But here the resemblance ends, for in Cromwell there was added an element of enthusiasm which gave to his courage more unbounded daring and to his ambition a loftier flight than suited Monk's phlegmatic temperament and unimaginative mind. For, after all, Monk did not rise above the common ranks of men. And yet he was a sort of Cromwell — with the courage and good sense without the genius, — without that enthusiastic element and that unerring instinct telling the exact moment when a blow is to be struck, which, when combined with courage and good sense, inspire a resistless energy into a man's actions. As regards the points of resemblance in the characters of these two men, it is also remarkable that Monk and Cromwell though both by birth gentlemen, were both cha- racterized by a certain plainness, if not coarseness, a certain want of refinement in their tastes and habits, which not only shunned all approach to foppery but tended to the other extreme. We cannot imagine Monk or Cromwell in * It appears from various minutes State, 25 Sept. 1649, and 23 Octob. in the Order Book of the Council of 1649, a Meridie. MS. State Paper State, that salmon for the use of the Office. troops in Ireland was purchased in ^ There were several original minia- Ireland at £15 per ton, a little tures of Cromwell and one of Monk more than three halfpence per pound. exhibited in the Loan Court of the —Order Book of the Council of South Kensington Museum in 1862. 328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. 1660.] CROMWELL INVADES SCOTLAND. 329 the wildest days of their youth the sort of fine gentleman that Churchill was at the Court of Charles II., or C^sar in the Roman Forum, when he devoted the part of his time he did not consume in pleasure to earning by his eloquence as an advocate the popularity which was to give him the command of armies and thereby the empire of the world. It may be supposed that Monk's rejection by the soldiers of Bright's regiment would be no bar to the advancement of the man who had gained the confidence of Cromwell, not the entire confidence, for that no one possessed. Crom- well first gave Monk a regiment and then appointed him general of the ordnance.' On Monday the 22nd of July Cromwell's army passed through Berwick and marched across the border. A for- lorn first of dragoons^ and then one of horse were sent forward. After these the whole army marched for Scotland over the bridge, the general's own regiment of horse and Colonel Pride's of foot leading the van. The train marched in the body of the foot.^ On the bounds between the two kingdoms the general made ''a. large discourse" to the ofl^cers, " showing he spoke,'' says Captain Hodgson, '' as a Christian and a soldier," and pointing out the inconveniences they should meet with in Scotland as to the scarcity of provisions. As to the people, he said, they would find the leading part of them to be soldiers, and they were very numerous, and at present might be unanimous. And he charged the oflicers to double, nay treble, their diligence, for they might be sure they had work before them. That night they encamped at Mordington about the ' Ludlowe says that Cromwell * ' made up a regiment for Monk with six com- panies out of Sir Arthur Hasebig's regiment and six out of Colonel Fen- wick's." — Ludlowe' s Memoirs, p. 140. London, 1771. 4to edition. '^ See p. 44 as to the difference be- tween ''horse" and ** dragoons." 3 Letter July 26 to Aug. 2, in Crom- welliana, p. 85. house, the general and some of his principal oflScers being quartered in Lord Mordington's ^ house, where none were found except two or three of the inferior servants, nor any household utensils. Some of Cromwell's soldiers however had brought a little raw meat with them and became excellent cooks, a back making a dripping pan and a head- piece a porridge pot.^ A slight incident occurred here which may be mentioned as exhibiting in Cromwell that taste for humour which, as Dr. Arnold says speaking of Hannibal, great men are seldom without. Cromwell and some of his oflScers were looking out of a window, and, hearing a great shout among the soldiers, they spied a soldier with a Scots kirn (or kurn, in the south of Eng- land pronounced churn) on his head. " Some of them," says Hodgson, " had been purveying abroad, and had found a vessel filled with Scots cream, and bringing the rever- sions to their tents, some got dishfuls and some hatfuls ; and the cream growing low in the vessel, one would have a modest drink, and heaving up the kirn, another lifts it up, and all the cream trickles down his apparel, and his head fast in the tub ; this was a merriment to the officers, as Oliver loved an innocent jest." ' It must not be inferred from this that Cromwell permitted plundering to be practised by his soldiers. He published a proclamation reciting that several soldiers had straggled firom their colours and enforced victuals from the Scots without paying for them, and commanding them not to straggle half a mile on pain of death ; and he was not a man to let his orders be disobeyed with impunity.* A ' Sir James Douglas, second son of William 10th Earl of Angus, was created a peer by the title of Lord Mordington, 14th Nov. 1641. — Douglas's Peerage of Scotland. 2 Letters in Crom welliana, p. 85. 3 Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 129, 130. * Whitelock, pp. 465, 466. 330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. trooper in Colonel Whalley's regiment was sentenced by a court-martial to have his horse and arms taken from him, and to work as a pioneer for three weeks, for taking away some curtains and other things out of a Scottish gentleman's house.^ A Serjeant of Colonel Coxe's regiment was exe- cuted on a gallows on Pentland hills, there being no tree to hang him on, for being present with some soldiers of that regiment when they plundered a house, and himself taking away a cloak. Three soldiers were condemned with him, but a pardon was brought them immediately after the execution of the other.^ On the morning after the English army entered Scotland, a trumpeter came from the Scots Army, but, says Hodgson, to little purpose. The beacons were all lighted that night ; the men fled, and drove away their cattle.^ Cromwell having remained at Mordington Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday, marched on TJmrsday to Cockbum's Path, or Copper's Path, as he writes it,* that is, to the village or small town so called, which is situated on the northern side of the pass that has given its nanie to the village. It is a remark of Dr. Arnold that nothing shows more clearly the great rarity of geographical talent than the praise bestowed on Polybius as a geographer, though his * Relation of the Fight at Leith, p. 209. * Relation of the Campaign in Scot- land, p. 253. See other cases of soldiers punished for violence to the country people, Whitelock, p. 468. 3 Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 130. Whitelock, p. 465. ''The Bor- der beacons," says Sir Walter Scott, **from their number and position formed a sort of telegraphic communi- cation with Edinburgh." By the Scottish Act of Parliament 1455, c. 48, the warning of the approach of the English was to be by one bale, or faggot, two bales, or four bales ; four bales blazing beside each other were to show that the enemy are in great force. Note 9 to Canto III. of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. There was never greater need for the four bales than now, for an enemy was advancing more formidable even than Edward Longshanks with his host of archers, knights, and men-at-arms. * Cromwell to the Lord President of the Council of State, July 30, 1650. 1650.] THE PASS CALLED COCKBURN'S PATH. 331 descriptions are so vague and imperfect that it is scarcely possible to understand them.* It is indeed a remarkable proof how little some of the most celebrated writers seem to have been aware of the importance of geography to history, that we find Sir Walter Scott describing the Lammermoor chain of hills as " a ridge of hills terminating on the sea near the town of Dunbar,'' ^ and M. Guizot confounding the pass called Cockburn's Path with the field of Dunbar.^ The Lammermoor chain of hills rises in Edinburghshire or Mid Lothian, aud stretching along the upper part that is, the part farthest from the sea, of East Lothian in Haddingtonshire, terminates on the sea, not near the town of Dunbar, but nine or ten miles south east of it, in Ber- wickshire, not far from the boundary between Berwickshire and Haddingtonshire, Cockburn's Path being in Berwick- shire. The chain, having a strip of fertile land between it and the sea, runs in a south-eastern direction about a mile to the south or south-west of the village of Cockburn's Path, and there turns nearly at right angles to the east, that is, towards the sea, presenting to the traveller along the coast an apparently impassable barrier or wall of rock and mountain. The Lammermoor chain does not flatten itself down, like the Grampian chain, as it approaches the sea. On the contrary the sides of the Lammermoor ridge of hills are in many places very steep, and in some places form a perpendicular wall of rock. The chain is about three miles in breadth at the point where the latest London road passes it through a defile. I say the latest London road, for altoofether there are three roads besides the rail- * Arnold's History of Rome, vol. iii. note F. 2 Sir Walter Scott's History of Scotland contained in *' Tales of a Grandfather," vol. i. p. 489. Edin- burgh, 1846. ' Guiaot's Life of Monk— see pp. 21, 22 of the English Translation, London, 1851. 332 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. TI. road, 1. the road called the old coast road, 2. the road that passes over the Pease Bridge, and 3. the road, the most modern of the three, that runs through the glen, or defile above mentioned. This has led to some confusion respecting the road by which Cromwell's army marched. A little care- ful investigation however soon clears up this confusion. On the northern side of the Lammermoor chain of hills where it approaches the sea, there are two ravines which meet at about a quarter of a mile's distance from the sea. In each of these ravines runs a small stream or burn. These burns meet where the ravines meet, and the stream formed by their confluence is called the Pease Burn. The burn that runs through the larger and most southern of the ravines is also called the Pease Burn ; and that ravine through which it runs is called the Pease Dean.^ The burn that runs through the other, the smaller and more northern ravine, is called the Heriot water or bum ; and the ravine is called Tower Dean from an old tower, the ruins of which stand on its northern bank about a mile above the point where the two ravines meet. The country people living in the immediate vicinity tell you that the old name of this small ruined peel or tower and of the family to which it belonged was Kavenswood and that this family had another castle on the sea-shore called Wolfs Crag. It is evident that the local story (it cannot be accurately called a tradition) about this ruin, which appears to have been an obscure, and, I may almost say, nameless tower, bearing no resemblance either in mag- nitude or position, except its being near the gorge of a pass of the Lammermoor hills, to the imaginary castle of Ravenswood, has arisen entirely out of Sir Walter Scott's * Dean, in that part of Scotland, is of the same kingdom, the same word as den in other parts 1650.] COCKBURN'S PATH. 333 romance the Bride of Lammermoor ; and furnishes an in- structive example of the way in which stories taken wrongly for local traditions often originate. Sir Walter Scott's romances have given rise to many similar " tra- ditions '' in various parts of Scotland, and such " traditions " may in time be transformed into history. He says him- self in the Introduction to the Bride of Lammermoor : — " The imaginary castle of Wolfs Crag has been identified by some lover of locality with that of Fast Castle. The author is not competent to judge of the resemblance betwixt the real and imaginary scene, having never seen Fast Castle except from the sea." There is a curious old bridge near this old mined tower, about twenty yards above the present bridge. This small old bridge, now covered with creeping plants, which is at the bottom of the ravine, only a few feet above the stream, and is only about 3 or 4 feet wide, was the only bridge across either of these ravines at the time of Cromwell's invasion ; and, though it might afford a passage to horses as well as men, and might have been used by the borderer who in- habited the tower for riding across the stream and ravine, was manifestly not intended for the passage of carts or carriages. But as Cromwell had with him a train of artillery with near sixty carriages,^ it is evident that he did not march by this road. The same reason applies with still greater force to the common assertion that he passed the other and deeper ravine at the point where the Pease Bridge now crosses it. The depth of this other ravine called the Pease Dean, at' the spot where the Pease Bridge now crosses it, is about a hundred and fifty feet, and the sides .of the ravine are precipitous, indeed almost perpendicular. It is also very ' Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 126. 334 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. narrow ; so that to the eye of a spectator at the rocky bottom a little below the bridge, the deep gloomy glen, rendered yet more sombre by the overhanging trees, shows but a small strip of sky overhead. The lover of the picturesque might see there almost as much to delight him as the poet of Fitz James saw in the Trossachs' wild and fairy glen ; the clear stream rippling along at the bottom (for it is but a small burn) over its pebbled bed, bordered by wild flowers, plants, and trees of various kinds and of great beauty which cover the banks and spring from the clefts and crevices of the rocks ; the various hues also beautiful which the atmosphere and the weather have painted on the rugged crags during a long series of ages ; higher up the birch, ash, oak, and pine trees, some of them shattered by lightning and tempest and others flinging their boughs so as almost to meet across the chasm ; highest of all the narrow strip of blue sky. Those deep glens form the really beautiful parts of Scotland, scattered as they are through all parts of the country and strangely contrasted with the bleak landscape around. In many parts of the country this contrast is particularly striking. For to a person standing on the top of the bank or cKff; often formed partly of earth partly of rock, the view around is bleak and desolate, presenting only an expanse of bare heathy mountainous ground. But in the narrow sheltered glen below, at the bottom of which the stream pursues its course, now running between two steep precipitous banks, now flowing on beneath hazels and alders, between banks of a more gentle slope, then tumbling over the edge of a rock and plunging into a deep abyss or linn, then once more emerging and flowing on through the more open and grassy part of the glen, there is abundance of vegetation, of grass, flowers, trees, and 1650.] COCKBURN'S PATH. 835 plants, which in their profusion and variety of form, hue, and situation, present an agreeable and striking contrast to the bleak scene above. But I do not believe that Oliver CromwelFs love of the picturesque was such as to induce him even to descend himself to the bottom of this ravine at the point where the Pease Bridge now stands, much less to attempt, — for it could be nothing but an attempt — no power short of miraculous could have led either his artillery or his cavalry across the ravine here, — to make his army with all its artillery, horses, and carriages descend on one side and ascend on the other. The fact is, the Pease Bridge is a sight for sightseers, and those who write guide-books or hand-books for the sight- seers of the Pease Bridge, with a view of accumulating as many attractions as possible for their sight or show, have superadded to its other attractions, that this is the place where Cromwell passed the ravine and the place which he described as " the strait pass where ten men to hinder are better than forty to make their way."" ^ I will now briefly state the facts of the matter. Before the erection of the bridges, which are of com- paratively modern date, the depth and precipitous banks of these ravines rendered the crossing of them a work of difiiculty in all cases — in the case of an army with artillery and cavalry, an impossibility. The oldest road appears to have been made to turn or evade the difficulty, by winding down to the sea-shore, where the two ravines meet and open out somewhat. This road, called the Path, Cock- burn's Path, and also the Path's Road or Peath's Road, corrupted into Pease Road, gave its name to the burn made up of the two burns ; to the larger of the two ravines ; and finally to a bridge built across the larger * Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, 1650. 336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. ravine in 1785-6.^ The old coast road, the old Colbrand's Path, now called Cockburn's Path, immediately after crossing the burn, named from it the Path's, Peath's or Pease Burn, in its southward course turns to the right, and with an ascent of one foot in ^ve ascends over the top of the chain of hills near the point where that chain ter- minates at the sea. This road was abandoned in 1786 for that by the Pease Bridge, which in its turn was super- seded by the newer road by Hound wood, as the latter must now in a great measure be by the railroad. It is therefore a mistake to say that Cromwell meant the chasm where the Pease Bridge now is, the road to which was not in existence then nor a hundred years after, by " the strait pass at Copper's Path where ten men to hinder are better than forty to make their way." ' Now '' strait pass " means narrow pass, a description which applies completely to the mode in which the old coast road winds and ascends between steep banks from the sea-shore to the upper platform of the chain of hills, but not at all to the chasm where the Pease Bridge now stands. It is curious and not uninstructive to observe the diffi- culty of getting at the exact truth of a matter so trifling, as this may seem to some, after a lapse of years, where new roads have quite superseded old, but old names still remain. At first sight it would seem that there is no connection between the old coast or seashore road and the village of Cockburn's Path. But after some investigation you find that a footpath leading off* towards the sea from the turnpike-gate at the northern entrance of the village is the relic of the old road which connected the village with * ** The Pease Bridge was l)uilt in ' 2 Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. i, 1785, 1786." Statistical Account of 1650, in Relation of the Campaign in Scotland, Berwickshire, Cockburn's Scotland, p. 296. Path, p. 311. 1650.] COCKBURN'S PATH. 337 the Path Koad. The path road now strikes into the new road at the railway station about a quarter of a mile north of the village. And probably its line was formerly the same, since this point, where the Cockburn's Path railway station now is, is called Path Head, as being the place where the road called Cockburn's Path begins its gradual descent towards the sea— which fact afibrds further corro- borative evidence that the old coast road is the road called Cockburn's Path. The circumstance, that the only communication now between the village and this Path Road is but a footpath, might look at first as if this old road, called the Pease Road, or Path's Road, had not entered the village at all. But this pathway, though now sought to be reduced in breadth, if not stopt up, was evidently a cart- road once, and widens into a cart-road still after passing under the railroad. And, as it goes right out of the village, it proves the direct connection between the villao-e and the Pease Road, and also proves that this road was the Cockburn's Path by which Cromwell's army marched. This old Pease Road, proceeding from Path Head in a south-eastern direction, and descending gradually to the sea-shore about a mile and a half or two miles to the south-east of the village of Cockburn's Path, traverses the haugh, or space on a level with the sea-shore into which the two ravines having joined open, and crossing the Pease Bum, turns from the sea, and begins to ascend almost immediately with a rather steep ascent, but winding con- siderably ; while during the ascent, which continues for a distance not very considerable, the hills on the right and left command it. It is here that the difficulty and danger of the pass, " where ten men to hinder are better than forty to make their way," are the greatest ; where, after passing the burn, the road or path, the Pectse Road, winds 338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. by quick turns and by a rather steep ascent among steep green hills, through very narrow openings. It is very remarkable that this pass closely resembles that in which Hannibal destroyed the army of the Consul Flaminius at the Lake Thrasymenus, or Trasimenus as it is, I beheve, more correctly written. Polybius states that the valley in which the Komans were caught was not the narrow interval between the hills and the lake, but a valley beyond that defile, and running down to the lake ; so that the Romans when engaged in it had the lake not on their right flank but in their rear. Similarly an army marching southward when engaged in the pass called Cockburn's Path would have the sea not on their left flank, on which it would be before they turned to ascend, but in their rear. The word valley is perhaps a little ambiguous. There would however be a sort of a valley — though a steep winding hollow way would be the more correct expression, at least for the pass called Cockburn's Path. The military eye of Cromwell at once saw the importance of this pass, but he had not the military genius to turn it to account as Hannibal did the pass of Lake Thrasymenus. If one might presume to criticize, where, as Frederic said, criticism is so easy and art so difficult, it would certainly seem that Cromwell, instead of depending wholly for his success and safety on a blunder of his adversary which he could hardly have looked for, might have taken his measures so as not only to have secured a retreat by this pass, but to have made it a means of destroying his opponent's army. But Cromwell, so full of craft and so fertile in stratagem in his political, does not appear to have possessed the same fer- tiHty in his military character. And this distinction is, I apprehend, when closely examined, one of deep significance ; since, while in war craft and stratagem are legitimate 1650.] SCOTTISH VILLAGES. 339 weapons, because both parties use them alike, to the best of their ability ; in civil and political affairs they are not legitimate weapons, because he who uses them, like a gamester who uses packed cards or loaded dice, takes an unfair advantage of opponents, and he will have some, if not many such, who do not use them. When Cromwell's scouts first came to the villao-e of Cockburn's Path, they fell in with three Scots, whom they disarmed and took prisoners. These Scots alleged that they were only countrymen, and that their ministers and grandees had given out that the English army would kill man, woman, and child ; and indeed had represented the English sectaries, a^ they called Cromwell's army, to the people as being " the monsters of the world." Cromwell ordered the men's swords and other things taken from them to be restored, and the men to be dismissed.^ One of the English scouts met with one of the enemy, who ran at him with a lance, and broke it against his armour.^ The Scot seeing the English scout had the better, quitted his horse, and plunged, the original dispatch says, down " a steep hill ;" probably one of those deep and precipitous glens or ravines, which characterize that district, probably the glen now called Dunglass Dean, {dean being there used to express what den does in other parts of Scotland), where, adds the English officer who writes the account, ''our trooper could not follow him, but seized the horse." ^ ^ Relation of the Fight at Leith, pp. 206, 207, Captain Hodgson's Me- moirs, p. 131. Letters in Cromwel- liana, pp. 83, 84, 85. 2 A proof of the superior quality of the defensive armour of Cromwell's troops, and that the term *' Ironsides" was not applied without cause. There was one horse regiment in particular which in those Scottish wars was called ''The Brazen Wall" from their never having been broken. 3 Relation of the Fight at Leith, p. 207. These ravines or glens, rocky or not, baffled the powers of description of the English officers, most of whom had never before seen anything of the kind. The words used by them do not z 2 340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. In the march from Mordington to Cockburn's Path the English army did not see any Scotchman in the places they passed through : but the streets were full of spectre- looking women, clothed in white flannel in a very homely manner. In Dunbar also no men were to be seen but some few decrepid ones, and boys under seven and old men above seventy years of age.-^ Cromwell published a declaration inviting all to remain in their houses without fear of molestation. At the same time he strictly enjoined his officers and soldiers not to ofier the slightest violence to the persons or goods of any not immediately connected with the Scottish army. The infringement of these orders he punished with promptitude and severity.^ The English officers were naturally struck with the contrast between the Scottish villages and the English, particularly those of the south of England. An English village is not unfrequently spread in picturesque irregularity over a space of ground extending from half a mile to a mile or a mile and a half in length ; frequently skirting the edges of a common fringed or dotted with fine old trees, where every turn of the winding road presents some new point of beauty. The village church is a picturesque old building of stone grey with age, its old tower half covered with ivy, having in front of it perhaps an immense yew tree some 300 years old. A Scottish village on the other hand is merely a collection of cottages, — convey any idea of the geographical character of the country which was the scene of this campaign. ^ Relation of the Fight at Leith, pp. 207, 208. Another of the contem- porary accounts says, " The people had generally deserted their habitations, some few women only were left behind ; yet we had this mercy, that their houses thus forsaken were indifferently well furnished with beer, wine, and corn, which was a very good supply to us." — Relation of the Campaign in Scotland^ p. 232. This account does not agree with Cromwell's strict orders against plundering. 2 Whitelock, pp. 465, 466. 1650.] SCOTTISH VILLAGES. 341 at that time hovels of clay or turf, — placed close together, end to end, in rows, resembling the rows of negro cabins on a planter's estate, where nothing is left to the individual will of the tenant, but he must squat in the one case as the slave owner, in the other as the laird bids him. Whereas everything that gives beauty to an English village arises from the individual will having had nearly as much liberty to select a spot for a dwelling as the oak on the village green to shoot forth its boughs as nature bade it. The distinction remains to this day as striking as it was then. For where the hovels have given place to cottages built of stone, the latter form a stiff monotonous structure occupying in the same end to end rows the same ground formerly occupied by the clay hovels, without gardens or greensward between them and the dusty road, and without a village green with its scattered groups of picturesque old trees ; for land it seems, is too valuable in Scotland to be wasted on cottage gardens or village greens. The English officers were at that time probably the more struck with what they considered the barbarous poverty of Scotland, inasmuch as Scotland, besides having a nobility as old as its hills, had given to England a race of kings who declared they had a title direct from heaven. The spectacle of a Scottish village was not calculated to impress them with an idea that the condition of the people of England would be improved if they were to be governed by the Scottish king and the Scottish nobility as the people of Scotland had been governed. And in this sense the difference between an English and Scotch village is by no means an insignificant fact. The command of the Scottish army was held by David Leslie, a well-trained and skilful soldier, who had done more than the English accounts acknowledge towards the 342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. winning of the battle of Marston Moor, and who had defeated Montrose at Philiphaugh. But it is not quite correct to say, as Sir Walter Scott sa3's, that David Leslie was the effective commander-in-chief in Scotland, inas- much as it can be distinctly shown on the best authority we have on Scottish affairs at that time, Principal Baillie's " Letters and Journals/' that the oligarchical Com- mittee of Estates hampered and controlled David Leslie at Dunbar, as they had before hampered and controlled Lieut.-General Baillie at Kilsyth and Preston. Napoleon Bonaparte told the Convention when they were about to give him a colleague in his Italian campaign that he would resign if they did, and that one bad general was better than two good ones. David Leslie might have told the Committee of Estates that a bad general left alone was better than a good one controlled by Argyle and Cassilis; and he would have better consulted his own reputation and perhaps the success of his side if he had resigned his command instead of suffering himself to be interfered with. Leslie's dispositions, as far as they were uncontrolled, showed that he was a prudent and skilful general, and also that he was one of the few Scottish commanders who understood how to put in force the directions of what has been called the " Good King Kobert's Testament.'' Bruce was too wise a man not to know that it would be unsafe to reckon on many Bannockburns. The sum of his testament therefore was to advise his countrymen to avoid risking great battles and to make such a use of their mountains, morasses, and deep narrow glens, that the enemy worn out with famine, fatigue, and apprehension should retreat as certainly as if routed in battle. Leslie had taken up a strong position between Edinburgh and 1650.] LESLIE'S PRUDENT GENERALSHIP. 343 Leith. The right wing of his army rested upon the high grounds at the rise of the mountain called Arthur's Seat> and the left wing was posted at Leith. His lines ex- tended from the Canongate,^ or lower part of the old town of Edinburgh, across the Calton Hill, which was strongly fortified, to Leith which was likewise fortified. A deep trench, fortified with cannon, protected the whole line on the low ground ; while the castle built on a high and isolated perpendicular rock was at that time a place of great strength. " The guns also from Leith," says Cromwell, " scoured most parts of the line, so that they lay very strong." ^ Cromwell finding that the Scottish army was " not to be attempted " in this strong position, and his own army having suffered considerably from such a day and night of rain as, he says, he had seldom seen, the enemy being under cover, retreated to Musselburgh for provisions supplied by a fleet which sailing along the coast accompanied the move- ments of his army. The provisions consisted principally of hard biscuit and cheese, and Captain Hodgson's expres- sion is not a figurative or proverbial one when he says " About eleven o'clock we wanted our bread and cheese, and drew off towards Musselburgh."^ Cromwell's rear was attacked as they retreated, but the Scots were repulsed, and driven within their trenches with some loss in killed and prisoners. The young king saw all this from the castle-hill,* and was very ill-satisfied, says Cromwell in his dispatch, to see his men do no better.^ This incident Hume with his usual zeal to corrupt the truth of history * Some of the Letters of the English officers call this '' Cannygate street in Edinburgh." See the dispatch in the same collection with Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 233. ' Cromwell to the Lord President of the Council of State, July 30, 1650. 3 Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 132. * Relation of the Fight at Leith, p. 214. * Relation of the Campaign in Scot- land, p. 228. 344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. has transforraed into the king's " exerting himself in an action." The words indeed are skilfully selected. A person might in some sense be said to have " exerted himself in an action/' when he walked to the top of the castle hill to look at it.^ Or the expression " having exerted himself in an action he gained the affections of the soldiery '' may be meant to apply to the following action. Between three and four o'clock in the morning after Cromwell's retreat to Musselburgh, a body of cavalry con- sisting of fifteen troops, "1500, the choicest of their horse," 2 called the Eegiment of the Kirk, broke into the English lines, beat in the guards, and put a regiment of horse in some disorder. It is said that Cromwell himself in his drawers was forced to take his horse and pass over the river.^ The English cavalry speedily forming charged the enemy, routed them, killed a great many, and took many prisoners, Major-General Montgomery being among the killed. One of those who were killed was heard to say when dying « Damn me, I'll go to my king ; " ^ from * There is not a word in Sir Edward Walker, the authority Hume cites, about the king's ** exerting himself in an action." Walker's words are : ** By this time the army was much increased, many Malignants and Engagers having gotten into command, his majesty high in the favour and aflfection of the army, which was then more evident by the soldiers having in the late action made an R. with chalk tinder the crown upon their arms, and generally expressing the goodness of their cause now they had the king with them." He says further, " Presently the committee " [of Estates, i. e. Argyle, his son Lord Lome, Lothian, Loudon the chancellor, &c. see Walker, p. 162.] " commanded away all Malignants and Engagers and so les- sened the army of 3000 or 4000 of the best men, and displaced all officers suspected, concluding then they had an army of Saints, and that they could not be beaten, for so their lying prophets daily told the people out of the pulpit," pp. 164, 165. Some men are said to be animated by a zeal for truth, others may be said to be animated by a zeal for false- hood. A lie has far more attrac- tions for some persons than a plain fact. 2 Relation of the Fight at Leith, p. 218. Cromwell says ''15 of their most select troops." Relation of the Campaign in Scotland, p. 229. ' Sir Edward Walker, p. 163. ^ Relation of the Fight at Leith p. 219. ' 1650.] LESLIE'S IMPREGNABLE POSITION. 345 which and other circumstances ^ it appeared that the Kirk regiment of horse had in its ranks a good many English cava- liers. Charles's - exertions " in this action appear to have been confined to giving to each man two shillings to drink, ''which made them drunk," ^ a display of "spirit and vivacity " undoubtedly better calculated to gain the affec tions of such troops than a long sermon on the merits of of the Solomn League and Covenant. To refute the charge of cruelty made against him by the Scots, Cromwell next day sent back the principal prisoners in his own coach, and the wounded in waggons.^ About the 6 th of August the English army retreated to Dunbar for want of provisions, the stormy weather not permitting the ships to land their stores at Musselburgh. After giving his troops some rest Cromwell resolved to draw near to the enemy once more to try if he could bring on a battle on advantageous ground."* Accordingly he marched to the westward of Edinburgh, near to the eastward extremity of the Pentland Hills, that by placing his army between Edinburgh and Stirling he might inter- * Relation of the Fight at Leith, pp. 220, 221. 2 Relation of the Fight at Leith, p. 220; unless a statement of Bates, no great authority on the subject of royal prowess, be what Hume grounds his assertion on. Bates says (Part ii. p. 102) that "the pursuers had almost entered the Scots camp, had not the king's majesty, who came that morning, been happily there, and causing the cannon to be turned against the fugi- tives, threatened to fire upon them, if they rallied not, and drew up again in order, under the protection of the guns of the camp, that so the troops, one after another, might be received into the camp ; and that his majesty lay in his clothes all that night upon the ground without a wink of sleep ; and that the soldiers next morning being sensible from what danger he had delivered the army, and how much he had deserved at their hands, had C. R. marked with a coal or match, some upon their hats and caps, and others on their coats, as a badge of their gratitude." But Hume does not cite Bates ; and Bates's misstatements as to Charles's conduct at the battle of Worcester are so gross that he is not to be relied on in such a matter. 3 Whitelock, p. 467. Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 136, 137. ^ Hodgson, p. 137. Relation of the campaign in Scotland, p. 251, et seq. in the same collection. Balfour, vol. iv. p. 39. 346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. cept supplies, and oblige the Scots to fight him. Leslie immediately left his position between Edinburgh and Leith, and took up one which covered Edinburgh to the westward, and was protected by the ravines and water- courses in that quarter. Here Leslie's knowledge of the country enabled him so dexterously to shift his positions, as to preclude a possibility of reaching him, though Crom- well made many attempts to do so. In one of these Cromwell in person drew out a forlorn, and went before them. When he came near the enemy, one of the latter fired a carbine ; upon which Cromwell called to him and said if he had been one of his soldiers, he would have cashiered him for firing at such a distance. The man who fired, having been with Leslie in England, said he knew the leader of the forlorn to be Cromwell himself, and that he had seen him in Yorkshire. On one occasion Cromwell appeared to be on the point of accomplishing his object ; but a^ the troops advanced, a bog was found to interpose between them and the enemy.^ Cromwell having tried in vain to bring the enemy to an engagement marched towards his ships for a supply of the wants of his army, which now began to be dispirited. The weather had been unusually rainy and stormy, the privations of the army had been great, sickness had broken out, and the season was advancing. At Musselburgh Cromwell shipped about five hundred sick and wounded soldiers. It was then resolved at a general council to march to Dunbar, and fortify that town, which, it was thought, would, if anything could, provoke the enemy to fight. It was also considered that Dunbar being gar- * Cromwell to a member of the Council of State, August 31, 1650. Relation of the Campaign in Scotland, pp. 254, 265, 266. Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 140, 141. 1650.J RETKEAT OF THE ENGLISH ARMY. 347 risoned would furnish them with accommodation for their sick men, and for receiving their recruits of horse and foot fi-om Berwick ; and would moreover be a place for a good magazine, which they exceedingly wanted, being forced to depend upon the uncertainty of weather for landing provi- sions and often unable to land them, though the existence of the whole army depended upon it.^ Accordingly on Saturday the 31st of August, the Eng- lish army marched from Musselburgh to Haddington. The Scottish army followed them within a mile and a half,' and as they drew near Haddington had got so close upon them, that by the time Cromwell had got the van-brio-ade of his horse, and his foot and artillery into their quarters, the enemy fell upon his rear and put it in some disorder, and had like to have engaged his rear brigade of horse with their whole army, had not a cloud come over the moon, and thereby, it being a misty evening, enabled him to draw ofi" those horse to the rest of the army, which he accomplished with the loss of only three or four men. Towards midnight the Scots attacked the English quarters at the west end of Haddington, but were repulsed.^ Although we possess a tolerably full account of this campaign in the dispatches of Cromwell himself, and in the letters and narratives of several of his officers ; yet that account is to a certain extent incomplete and one- sided from one possessing no similar dispatches and narra- * Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, 1650. Dunbar was hardly an ex- ception to Cromwell's remark that the whole coast from Leith to Berwick had not one good harbour, since the harbour of Dunbar, though safe and commodious, is difficult of access. * "We marched towards Dunbar, whither they pursued us close within a mile and a half : " is the expression in one of the letters. King's Pamph- lets, small 4to, No. 479, article 1. 3 Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, 1650. See also Memoirs of Captain Hodgson, p. 143 ; and Relation of the Campaign in Scotland, pp. 275, 276, in the same collection. 348 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. tives from David Leslie and his officers. The account adopted by Hume, who resembles Livy in falsehood though not in picturesque and amusing narrative, is so falsified that the truth from which it has been corrupted can now haxdly be discovered even with the authentic EngHsh dis- patches but without simUar Scottish documents. What with national prejudices on the one hand and religious and political spirit on the other, the Scottish general and the Presbyterian ministers had as little chance of receiving justice at the hands of Walker, Clarendon, Whitelock, Burnet, Carte, and Hume, as the son of Hamilcar had of receiving it at the hands of the Roman historians. We are told by Hume, and he cites as his authorities Sir Edward Walker, page 168, and Whitelock, no page, that the clergy murmured extremely not only against their prudent general, but also against the Lord, on account of his delays in giving them deliverance ; and that they plainly told Him that, if He would not save them from the English sectaries, He should no longer be their God.^ We are also told by the same author, and for this he cites no authority, that an advantage having ofiered itself on a Sunday, they hindered the general from making use of it, > Whitelock indeed has the following passage (p. 465). *« That the Scots ministers in their prayers say that, if God will not deliver them from the sectaries, He shall not be their God." But Whitelock only mentions this as a report or rumour. He does not, as he could not, say that he himself heard the Scots minister say so, or even that he had received the story from any one who had heard them. There is nothing on the subject at page 168 of Sir Edward Walker, but at page 180 Walker says " On Sunday they [the Scots] had fair opportunities to have fought him [Cromwell] but the ministers would not give way to it, because forsooth it was the Lord's day." And at page 182 he says that after the battle of Dunbar "there was great lamentation by the ministers, who now told God Almighty, it was little to them to lose their lives and estates but to him it was great loss to suffer his Elect and Chosen to be destroyed : " which if true is a pretty strong effort of fanaticism. But on such matters Walker is by no means an unexceptionable authority. 1650.] RETREAT OF THE ENGLISH ARMY. 349 lest he should involve the nation in the guilt of sabbath- breaking. Now the incident here transformed is thus related in Cromwell's dispatch. " The next morning [Sun- day] we drew into an open field, on the south side of Haddington ; we not judging it safe for us to draw to the enemy upon his own ground, he being prepossessed thereof, but rather drew back to give him way to come to us, if he had so thought fit ; and having waited about the space of four or five hours, to see if he would come to us, and not finding any inclination in the enemy so to do, we resolved to go, according to our first intendment, to Dunbar." ^ Leslie had taken up his position on the higher ground to the south of the town of Haddington ; and true to the principle on which he acted he was not to be induced to leave it because Cromwell wished him to do so ; precisely as more than 300 years before Douglas and Randolph had laughed at the message of Edward the Third and said that when they fought it should be at their own pleasure, and not because the King of England chose to ask for a battle. If on that occasion the English army was greatly superior in numbers to the Scotch, and on the present occasion it was greatly inferior in numbers, its superiority in arms, in discipline, in veteran soldiers accustomed to victory, over the hastily raised Scottish levies convinced the prudent commander of the Scots that his only safe line of opera- tions was the same as that recommended by Robert Bruce and so successfully pursued by Douglas and Randolph. And David Leslie, though his evil fortune which made him the victim of other men's folly has cast a cloud over his name, is the man who of all his countrymen came nearest in military skill and prudence to Bruce, Douglas, and > Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, 1650. 350 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. Kandolph, out of the long and dark catalogue of cruel yet foolish tyrants, whether kings or nobles, who pretended to be leaders in war, and for so many generations had oppressed and dishonoured Scotland. Leslie's plan of carrying on the war was evidently fast accomplishing its work. The English army marched from Haddington towards Dunbar in such a condition that very few more such marches would have made it an easy prey to Leslie. "We staid,'' says Captain Hodgson, "until about ten o'clock, had been at prayer in several regiments, sent away our waggons and carriages towards Dunbar, and not long afterwards marched, a poor, shattered, hungry, discouraged army ; and the Scots pursued very close that our rear-guard had much ado to secure our poor weak foot, that was not able to march up. We drew near Dunbar towards night, and the Scot ready to fall upon our rear." ^ As the English approached Dunbar, Leslie, who had hitherto hung on their rear,^ marched to the south of a marsh, now almost entirely drained and highly cultivated, and en- camped on Down Hill, a spur of the Lammermoor chain of * Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 143, Hi. 2 Sir Walter Scott says (Hist, of Scotland contained in *' Tales of a Grandfather," vol. i. p. 489. Edin- burgh, 1846) that Leslie "moving by a shorter line than Cromwell, who was obliged to keep the coast, took posses- sion with his army of the skirts of Lammermoor," &c. But Leslie moved by the same line as Cromwell. Leslie could not have marched among the Lammermoor hills, as this statement would imply ; the ravines and other difficulties of the ground would have precluded it under the circumstances of any army but one entirely com- posed of infantry and those High- landers like Montrose's. It is the more remarkable that Sir Walter Scott should have made this state- ment, as we are indebted to him for the excellent edition, published at Edinburgh in 1806, of the original memoirs, dispatches and letters, spe- cially relating to Cromwell's campaign in Scotland : — nor is this the only debt which English History owes to that illustrious man, his edition of Lord Somers's Tracts (13 vols. 4to.) being the only available one, the old edition, from the want of indexes and chronological arrangement, being nearly useless. It is probable that Sir Walter may have made the statement as to Leslie's march in consequence of writing from memory. 1650.] CROMWELL AS A GENERAL. 351 hills, situated about two miles south-west of Dunbar. Con- sequently Leslie's position was between Cromweirs army and Berwick, Down Hill being about a mile on the right of the road by which Cromwell would have to march to Berwick. Leslie also sent forward a considerable party to seize the pass at Cockburn's Path. ^ If Cromwell really intended to garrison Dunbar and fortify himself there, as he pretended in his dispatch written after his victory, there was not much need to trouble himself about the pass at Cockburn's Path being seized by Leslie, as he would depend upon receiving his supplies from England by sea. But there are some reasons ^ for concluding that the idea of garrisoning Dunbar was an after- thought put forward in his dispatch to cover the fact of his having been completely outgeneralled by David Leslie, though he had afterwards beaten Leslie's army when moved from the hill by the order of the Estates' Committee. All this seems to let in some light upon what has been considered a dark subject, Cromwell's character, moral and intellectual. * Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, 1650. Captain Hodgson's Me- moirs, p. 144. Relation of the Cam- paign in Scotland, p. 276, in the same collection. 2 See Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 144, 145 ; and see the inconsis- tencies in Cromwell's Dispatch of Sept. 4, 1650, where, after writing as if he had retreated to Dunbar merely for his own convenience in having a garrison there, he speaks "of their advantages, of our weakness, of our strait." And in his letter to Sir Arthur Haselrig, governor of New- castle, written on the second of Sept. the day before the battle, though not sent till after the battle with another letter dated September 4th, he says ' * We are upon an engagement very difficult. The enemy hath blocked up our way at the pass at Copper's Path through which we cannot get without almost a miracle. He lieth so upon the hills that we know not how to come that way without great difficulty ; and our lying here daily consumeth our men, who fall sick beyond imagi- nation." The same letter contains further proof, in addition to the many proofs in his other letters, of his great confidence in the sagacity of Sir Henry Vane, before he found it convenient to pray to be delivered from Sir Henry Vane. He says *' Let H. Vane know what I write. I would not make it public, lest danger should accrue thereby." 352 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VT. Croraweirs merit as a general was confined to raising a body of troops, who were well-fed, well-disciplined, and furnished with arms as superior to those generally used at the time as the long shield and stabbing sword of the Boman soldier excelled all other weapons of his time in the work of human slaughter, and to leading on his men, thus prepared and armed, with prompitude and daring to their work. But he never on any occasion — not even at this field of Dimbar — exhibited that higher military genius which dazzles and excites, if it does not elevate, the mind of the reader in studying the campaigns of Hannibal and Frederic ; and relieves the attention sick and weary with looking at a country turned into a huge slaughter-house, by presenting to it not the mere action of matter upon matter, but the action of mind producing combinations so new, so astonishing, and so powerful, that the effect is like that of some of the great powers of Nature, and an army is destroyed as if by a stroke of lightning. If Cromwell had secured in time and without awakening the suspicions of the enemy the pass of Cockbum's Path, which has been minutely described; if he had taken his measures so craftily and so skilfully as to draw on the Scots to follow him to it, and had then destroyed them as Hannibal destroyed the Komans at Thrasymenus ; or, such a strata- gem being perhaps unlikely to succeed with so wary an adversary as Leslie, had he escaped from the pitfall in which he seemed to be caught by the Scottish Fabius, by some such device of a fertile mind as that by which Han- nibal escaped the toils of the Eoman Fabius, he would have owed to his own genius what, as it was, he owed to a blunder committed by those opposed to him. But this merit can hardly be even here accorded to Cromwell, for although he beat the Scots at Dunbar by the same move- 1650.] DOWN HILL. 353 ment by which Frederic beat the French at Rosbach and the Austrians at Leuthen, CromweU had the advantage made for him, while Frederic made it for himself. Craft when employed against an enemy in war a^ Hannibal employed it, is an exercise of mind which may be fairly used by an honourable man, and also requires far greater fertihty of genius than the craft which overreaches friends which wa« what Cromwell excelled in, and which may be more properly caUed fraud. There are so many villains who owe their success both in public and private life to the same arts by which Oliver Cromwell overreached his friends and his party and made himself absolute ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland, that it is a duty which a historian owes to truth, honesty, and morality to note care- fully this part of the character of Cromwell as a general, and the light it throws on his character as a man. Down Hill, on which Leslie had encamped, is distant, as I have said, about two miles from Dunbar. But though this spur or offshoot of the Lammermoor Hills approaches at this point so near to Dunbar, and consequently so near to the sea, the Lammermoor chain of hills does not approach the sea till it has stretched about ten miles to the south, east of Dunbar. Between the hills and the sea extends a fertile tract or strip of land, which is celebrated now for the best farming in the world, and which even then seems to have struck the English by its superior cultivation. The letters from the army state that in those parts where the army marched was the greatest plenty of corn that they ever saw and not one fallow field ; and " now," they add, marking one of the curses of war, "extremely trodden down and wasted, and the soldiers enforced to give the wheat to their horses." ^ * Whitelock, p. 470. A A 354 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. Down Hill is so steep on the north and west as to be almost inaccessible. On the east it is less steep. On the south and south-east it slopes with such a gentle declivity that cavalry might charge up ifc. By the north-east side of the hill runs a small stream in a deep grassy glen, called Broxburn. Brocksburn, the old spelling, marks the origin of the name. Broxburn after pursuing its course for about a mile in this small glen passes through the grounds of Broxmouth-house and then joins the sea. It is impossible to understand the battle of Dunbar without understanding the nature of the ground where that battle was fought, and particularly the relative situation of Broxburn and Down Hill. The words used in the contemporary narratives of the English officers, " a great clough," ^ " a great dyke," ^ do not by any means convey an adequate idea of the nature of the ground. For the space of about a mile, the dis- tance between Down Hill and the point where it passes the London road and enters the park of Broxmouth-house, Broxburn runs in one of those grassy glens, or troughs, in which streams of greater or less magnitude are frequently seen in Scotland, winding about in them from one bank to the other, and leaving a large space of level ground, green sward or sand and gravel — here it is green sward — now on one side the small valley, now on the other. This small valley or glen is now pretty thickly planted with trees ; but in 1650 it appears to have been only grassy,* not wooded. It is not only of considerable depth, some forty or fifty feet, and considerably more in width,* but 1 Capt. Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 144. 2 Relation of Cadwell, a messenger of Cromwell's army — in Carte's Or- monde Letters, vol. i. pp. 381, 382. ^ Carte's Letters, vol. i. pp. 381, 382. * Cadwell says (Ibid.) "about 40 or 50 feet wide, and as deep as broad " — but the width or siderably greater. breadth is con- 1650.] DOWN HILL AND BROXBURN. 355 the banks are steep, except in one spot, about half a mile above the point where the burn enters the grounds of Broxmouth-house. At this spot the banks shelve or slope in such a manner as to form a sort of passage for carts. In this pass there stood a shepherd^s hut which was occu- pied by twenty.four foot and six horse of Cromwell's array ; but it was taken by Leslie the evening before the battle.' It may give an idea of the size of the stream that runs somewhat rapidly down this glen, for there is a consider- able fall between the foot of the hill and the sea, to mention that it is of the smallest size of those Scottish streams which contain fine trout of moderate size. At the point where the brook passes the road to Berwick and enters the grounds of Broxmouth-house, the valley or glen disappears, the high banks, that formed it, sloping or shelving down, so that the road crosses the brook without any descent on one side or ascent on the other. It was at this point and somewhat to tlie south of it that the principal struggle of the battle of Dunbar took place. There is one thing more that requires to be men- tioned. Down Hill and the range of hills of which it forms a part do not incline towards the sea here, and con- sequently do not follow closely, or only for a short distance, the course of Broxburn and its little valley, but slope' somewhat away from it, making with it an acute angle. Nevertheless it would appear from the reasons given by Lambert in the council of war, which will be stated pre- sently, for the attack of Leslie's right wing, that Leslie's army was so posted as to be confined between the hill and the glen, and had not room to move freely. And even if it had room to move freely, if the movement was not made before the attack commenced, it was then too late to pre- A A 2 356 HisTOEY OF England; [Chap. VI. vent Cromwell's attack of one flank from paralysing and destroying the whole body. The English army had reached Dunbar on the night of Sunday the 1st of September. The next morning was \ery rainy and tempestuous. " Our poor army," says Captain Hodgson, " drew up about swamps and bogs, not far from Dunbar, and could not pitch a tent all that day.'' ^ If other evidence were wanted, Cromwell's letter to Sir Arthur Haselrig, written on that Monday the 2nd of Sep- tember, the dreary day briefly described in the foregoing words of Captain Hodgson, shows that he considered him- self reduced to extremities.^ At this moment the madness, not of the Scottish ecclesiastics of the Kirk Commission, as has been so often asserted, but of the oligarchical Com- mittee of Estates, saved him and destroyed his opponents. Baillie's words are these : — " After all tryalls, finding no maladministration on him [David Leslie] to count of, but the removal of the army from the hill the night before the rout, which yet was a consequence of the Committee's order, contrare to his mind, to stop the enemies' retreat, and for that end to storm Brocksmouth House as soon as pos- sible." ^ It is always extremely difficult to obtain a perfectly accurate statement of the numbers on each side. Crom- * Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 144. * Cromwell to Sir Arthur Haselrig. Septr. 2, 1650. 3 Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. iii. p. 111. Edinburgh, 1842. Baillie adds : "On these considerations, the State unanimously did with all earnest- ness intreat him to keep still his charge. Against this order Warristone and, as I suppose, Sir John Cheisly did enter their dissent ; I am sure Mr. James Guthrie did his, at which, as a great impertinence, many [were] of- fended." This Mr. James Guthrie was one of the Presbyterian preachers who showed his total want of good sense, good feeling, good manners, and common decency by " public invectives against David Leslie from the pulpit," for the loss of the battle of Dunbar. Baillie. — Ibid. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 357 well's statements in his dispatch of September 4th may be considered as not very wide of the truth. He says that the enemy's numbers were " about six thousand horse, and sixteen thousand foot at least j ^ ours drawn down, as to sound men, to about seven thousand five hundred foot, and three thousand five hundred horse." But the Scots Committee of Estates had taken measures to destroy eflfec- tively any advantage they might have derived from their superiority of numbers. For they had now placed their army with its left wing resting on Down Hill and its rio-ht advanced to the place where the banks of the Broxburn valley flatten or slope down to level ground, where the road to Berwick then as now crossed the burn, where con- sequently their right wing lay in such a position that it might be attacked by Cromwell with an overwhelmino- superiority of force. That the importance of this movement in favour of the English was seen immediately by Lambert we have the authority of Captain Hodgson and of Crom- well himself ; that it was seen by Cromwell we have only Cromwell's own word, which, as is too well known, is not always to be implicitly relied on. But, though there are two witnesses, Cromwell himself and Captain Hodgson, that this plan of attack was Lambert's, while that it was also Crom- well's there is no witness at all except Cromwell's own asser- tion, Cromwell at all events had the merit of seeing the value of it when it was suggested to him, and of putting it in execution with his usual promptitude and resolution. Nor is it to be inferred, assuming the plan to have occurred to the mind of Lambert and not to that of Cromwell, that Lambert was therefore the greater man of the two, even though it may prove him to have been a better general than Cromwell. For subsequent events abundantly proved * Sir Edward Walker says they were " about 10,000 foot and 7000 hoi^." P. 181. 356 HISTORY OF England: [Chap. VI. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 357 vent Cromwell's attack of one flank from paralysing and destroying the whole body. The English army had reached Dunbar on the night of Sunday the 1st of September. The next morning was very rainy and tempestuous. " Our poor army/' says Captain Hodgson, " drew up about swamps and bogs, not far fiom Dunbar, and could not pitch a tent all that day.'' ^ If other evidence were wanted, Cromwell's letter to Sir Arthur Haselrig, written on that Monday the 2nd of Sep- tember, the dreary day briefly described in the foregoing words of Captain Hodgson, shows that he considered him- self reduced to extremities.^ At this moment the madness, not of the Scottish ecclesiastics of the Kirk Commission, as has been so often asserted, but of the oligarchical Com- mittee of Estates, saved him and destroyed his opponents. Baillie's words are these : — " After all tryalls, finding no maladministration on him [David Leslie] to count of, but the removal of the army from the hill the night before the rout, which yet was a consequence of the Committee's order, contrare to his mind, to stop the enemies' retreat, and for that end to storm Brocksmouth House as soon as pos- sible." 3 It is always extremely difficult to obtain a perfectly accurate statement of the numbers on each side. Crom- * Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 144. ■ Cromwell to Sir Arthur Haselrig, Septr. 2, 1650. 3 Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. iii. p. 111. Edinburgh, 1842. Baillie adds : "On these considerations, the State unanimously did with all earnest- ness intreat him to keep still his charge. Against this order Warristone and, as I suppose, Sir John Cheisly did enter their dissent ; I am sure Mr. James Guthrie did his, at which, as a great impertinence, many [were] of- fended." This Mr. James Guthrie was one of the Presbyterian preachers who showed his total want of good sense, good feeling, good manners, and common decency by " public invectives against David Leslie from the pulpit," for the loss of the battle of Dunbar. Baillie. — Ibid. well's statements in his dispatch of September 4th may be considered as not very wide of the truth. He says that the enemy's numbers were '' about six thousand horse, and sixteen thousand foot at least ; ^ ours drawn down, as to sound men, to about seven thousand five hundred foot, and three thousand five hundred horse." But the Scots Committee of Estates had taken measures to destroy effec- tively any advantage they might have derived from their superiority of numbers. For they had now placed their army with its left wing resting on Down Hill and its right advanced to the place where the banks of the Broxburn valley flatten or slope down to level ground, where the road to Berwick then as now crossed the burn, where con- sequently their right wing lay in such a position that it might be attacked by Cromwell with an overwhelmino* superiority of force. That the importance of this movement in favour of the English was seen immediately by Lambert we have the authority of Captain Hodgson and of Crom- well himself ; that it was seen by Cromwell we have only Cromwell's own word, which, as is too well known, is not always to be implicitly relied on. But, though there are two witnesses, Cromwell himself and Captain Hodgson, that this plan of attack was Lambert's, while that it was also Crom- well's there is no witness at all except Cromwell's own asser- tion, Cromwell at all events had the merit of seeing the value of it when it was suggested to him, and of putting it in execution with his usual promptitude and resolution. Nor is it to be inferred, assuming the plan to have occurred to the mind of Lambert and not to that of Cromwell, that Lambert was therefore the greater man of the two, even though it may prove him to have been a better general than Cromwell. For subsequent events abundantly proved ^ Sir Edwaid Walker says they were " about 1G,000 foot and 7000 hoi-se." P. 181. i 358 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. that if Lambert possessed military, he possessed no political talent : and to be a great man, a man must possess both, must be able both to lead in political affairs, and to com- mand armies.^ While Lambert appeared to be totally without the political element, Cromwell had enough of both elements to be pronounced a great man, though his greatness, like that of many others, was stained by crime. On Monday the 2nd of September Cromwell wrote a note to Sir Arthur Haselrig, which shows that he considered himself reduced to extremities. The enemy had blocked up the pass at Cockburn's Path, and lay upon the hills in such a position that he could not lead his army through " without almost a miracle."' Besides this, his men lying where they were '' fell sick beyond imagination ; '' and the numbers of the effective troops were daily diminished, a destructive flux or dysentery, a species of cholera, having attacked his army, apparently of somewhat tlie same kind as that which afterwards wrought such fearful destruction among the poor Scots prisoners. Under all these depress- ing circumstances however the English general showed not the slightest dejection of mind, and was prepared to meet any fate, whatever it might be, with an undaunted heart, and a tranquil and cheerful countenance, which kept alive in others the hope he may himself have ceased to feel. " Whatever becomes of us," he said in that note to Sir Arthur Haselrig the governor of Newcastle, "it will be well for you to get what forces you can together ; and the south to help what they can/' Thus that dreary day, Monday the 2nd of September, wore on. The 2nd of September old style is the 13 th of September new style, and the sun would set at about a ^ O'lrr ts afiiporipa av ^vva/vrai, xa.) ad Philipp. 9»Xmvi9?at Koi ffrfary^yuv. Isocrates 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. S59 quarter past six. Towards evening the Scots were observed to draw down to their right wing about two-thirds of their left wing of horse, " shogging also their foot and train much to the right,'' that is, farther down the hill, and along the edge of the glen of Broxburn, " causing their right wing of horse to edge down towards the sea.''^ One man at least in the English army had seen this movement of the Scots with an observant eye. The sun went down behind the Lammermoor Hills amid dark and drifting clouds, and the night set in, like the day, raining and tempestuous. The rain was not however incessant ; for some of the letters mention its being moonlight, at least towards morning. Cromwell in his dispatch to the Speaker written on the 4 th September says that Lambert and himself going to the Earl of Roxburgh's house [Broxmouth-house before men- tioned], and observing the position which the Scots had now taken, he told Lambert that he thought it gave them an opportunity and advantage to attempt upon the enemy. To which Lambert immediately replied, that he had thought to have said the same thing. "So that it pleased the Lord," adds Cromwell, " to set this apprehension upon both our hearts at the same time. We called for Colonel Monk, and showed him the thing ; and coming to our quarters at night, and demonstrating our apprehensions to some of the colonels, they also cheerfully concurred." Sir Walter Scott's statement, that Cromwell slept at the Duke of Roxburgh's house called Broxmouth and that his army was stationed in the park there, is incorrect. Broxmouth House and park are on the east side of the road to Ber- wick. Cromwell's army was stationed on the west side * Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, 1650. 360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. of that road and ou the north side of Broxburn.^ His train of artillery was first placed in the churchyard at Dunbar, then brought down to a little farm-house — a little poor Scotch farm-house, say the old pamphlets^ — in the middle of the field where his army was quartered. This farm-house was probably CromwelFs quarters where the Council of War was held. In addition to the above state- ment of Cromwell himself we have also other evidence respecting the first suggestion of the plan of attack, which renders the exact accuracy of Cromwell's statement at least a little doubtful. About nine o'clock that night a council of war was held, and many of the colonels were for shipping the foot and forcing a passage with the horse. But Lambert was against them all on that point, and gave his reasons,^ the principal of which were these : " First, we had great expe- rience of the goodness of God to us, while we kept close together ; and if we parted we lost all : Secondly, there was no time to ship the foot, for the day would be upon us, and we should lose all our carriages ; Thirdly, we had great advantage of them in their drawing up ; if we heat their right wing, we hazarded their whole army, for they would he all in confudon, in regard they had not great ground to traverse their regiments hetwixt the mountain 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 361 ^ Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 144. 2 King's Pamphlets, small 4to, No. 478, article 10. ^ Captain Hodgson's words imply that he was present at this Council of war— *' but honest Lambert was against them all in that matter, he being active the day before in observing the disadvantage the Scots might meet with in the position they were drawn up in, and gave us reasons, and great encouragement to fight." — Memoirs^ pp. 144, 145. The whole of Hodgson's statement goes to show that the whole idea of the plan of attack belonged solely to Lambert ; and his words " Lambert was against them all in that matter" also seem to imply that Cromwell himself was in favour of the proposition for shipping the foot and forcing a passage with the horse. and the clough : Fourthly, they had left intervals in their bodies, upon the brink of the hill, that our horse might march a troop at once, and so the foot ; and the enemy could not wheel about, nor oppose them, but must put themselves into disorder : Lastly, our guns might have fair play at their left wing, while we were fighting their right.'' ^ These reasons altered the opinion of the Council ; and one stepped up and desired that Colonel Lambert might have the conduct of the army that morning, which was granted by the general freely ; ^ and it was I'esolved that the attack should be begun at daybreak by six regi- ments of horse and three regiments and a half of foot.^ At that time in the army of the Parliament of England a regiment of horse usually consisted of ten troops of eighty each, that is, of 800, and a regiment of foot of ten com- panies of 100 men each, that is, of 1 000 men, but not unfre- quently of twelve companies of 100 men each, that is, of 1200 men.* That night the English army advanced as * Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 145. 2 Ihid. ^ Cromwell to the Speaker, Septr. 4, 1650. * This statement is made on the au- thority of numerous — I might say innu- merable — minutes of the MS. Order Book of the Council of State in the State Paper Office. A regiment of horse did, however, sometimes consist of six troops of horse, and a certain proportion of dragoons. I have stated in a former chapter the difference be- tween horse and dragoons. Thus under date 17 November, 1649, we find this minute : "That Major Henry Cromwell shall have a commission for a regiment of horse to go over into Ireland which is to consist of six troops." Order Book of the Council of State, MS. State Paper Office. And under date 26 Nov. 1649, two troops of dragoons are ap- pointed to go into Ireland to complete Col. Cromwell's regiment. Ihid. 26 Nov. 1649. But the strength of the regi- ments was liable to variations according to circumstances. Thus : *' That a letter be written to the Lord General to let him know that the Council of State hath thought fit that a reducement be made of the horse of the army, and that every troop be reduced from the number of 80 to 60, except only the troops of such regiments out of which the troops are to be sent into Ireland." Order Book of the Council of Slate, 14 Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office. While the Resolution of the House of Commons of 11 January, 1644, sets forth that the army shall consist of 6000 horse to be divided into 10 re- giments ; and of a thousand dragoons to be divided into 10 conipanits ; the 862 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. close as they could to the Broxburn ravine, and placed their field pieces in position in every regiment.-^ About half a mile above the point where the Berwick road passes Broxburn, there was, as I have said, upon the brink of the ravine a small house or shepherd's hut, and by it a shelving path where the ravine might be passed with greater facility than anywhere else, except where, as before mentioned, the Berwick road passes it. On the morning of that day Fleetwood and Pride had stationed twenty-four foot and six horse in the hut to secure this pass. In the evening Leslie's horse drove them out, killing some and taking three prisoners, but they did not keep the pass. Leslie asked one of the prisoners if the enemy did intend to fight. He replied, *' What do you think we come here for ? We come for nothing else.'' " Soldier," said Leslie, " how will you fight when you have shipped half your men, and all your great guns ? " The soldier replied, " Sir, if you please to draw down your men, you will find both men and great guns too." ^ All this mio-ht have led Leslie and his masters the Committee of Estates to be cautious in relying too much on the notion that Order Book of the Council of State sometimes mentions dragoons as divided into troops. It also would seem that the same officer who is described in one place as colonel of a regiment of horse had a charge of raising and command- ing dragoons. Thus on the 20th of Oct. 1649, Col. Okey is ordered to forbear to raise any more dragoons of the last 500, more than are already raised. On the 17th of Nov. 1649, it is ordered that the regiment of horse to be raised for Major Henry Cromwell shall consist of 6 troops, whereof three out of Col. Hacker's regiment, two out of Col. Okey's, and one out of Col. Harrison's. And on the 26th of Nov. the two troops of dragoons above men- tioned as appointed to go into Ireland to complete Col. Henry Cromwell's regiment are described as "of CoL Okey's regiment. "—Ort/er Booh of the Council of State. MS. State Paper Office. 1 King's Pamphlets, small 4to. No. 478, article 10. 2 Carte's Letters, vol. i. p. 382. King's Pamphlets, small 4to, No. 478, ai-t. 10. Mr. Brodie (Hist. vol. iv. p. 290 n.) cites as in corroboration of this a manuscript in the Advocate's Library. Balfour's Shorte Memories, MS. Adv. Lib. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 363 Cromwell's situation was so desperate that he had already embarked his ordnance and part of his foot, and that he and the residue of his army would then be an easy prey. A letter from John Rushworth to the Speaker of the Eng- lish Parliament, dated Dunbar, Sept. 3, 1650, explains in what way the mistake of the Scottish commander had arisen. " They were informed, as some of their prisoners confess, we had shipped our train of artillery, which was a mistake of them, for it was the 600 soldiers sick of the flux that I had shipped that morning." ^ In fact the Scottish commanders seem to have come to the conclusion that their work was done, that, instead of the Lord's having delivered them into the hands of Crom- well, as Cromwell according to the story, as true as the story about the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo,^ is said to have exclaimed, the Lord had delivered Cromwell and his army into their hands ; and that they had nothing more to do but sleep and take their rest that niglit and rise up in the morning to divide the spoil. Accordingly, somewhat past midnight the Committee of Estates proposed that they might take some rest ; and Major-General Hol- borne, it is said, gave order to put out all matches but two in a company. And thus, according to the same authority, in great security, the rain continuing, they made themselves shelter of the corn new reaped, and went to sleep. The horse went to forage, and many unsaddled their horses.^ Some regiments however both of horse and foot, on the 1 Old Pari. Hist. vol. xix. p. 341. 2 The story about Cromwell's excla- mation ' * the Lord hath delivered them into our hands " appears to be a coun- terpart to the melodramatic absurdity, so improbable and so uncharacteristic of the man, about the Duke of Wel- lington's saying at Waterloo " Up guards and at 'em." I have heard it stated on the authority of an officer who was near the Duke of Wellington at the moment, that he closed with a quick motion of his hand the telescope through which he had been watching the enemy's movements and said '*Let the line move on." 3 Sir Edward Walker, p. 180. 364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. extremity of the right wing of the Scots, were not unpre- pared when the attack began about five in the mornino- In the English army that night men were far less inclined to sleep than to watch and pray. At four o'clock on Tuesday morning the regiments of liorse and foot that were to begin the attack were drawn down towards the point where the Berwick road crosses the burn near Broxmouth-house.^ As Lambert's regiment of foot, to which Captain Hodgson belonged, was marching at the head of the horse, " a cornet was at prayer in the night,'' ^ and Hodgson, appointing one of his officers to take his place, rode to hear him. *' And " says the Ironside cap- tain, " he was exceedingly carried on in the duty. I met with so much of God in it, as I was satisfied deliverance was at hand : and coming to my command did encourage the poor weak soldiers, which did much affect them, which when it came to it, indeed a little one was as David, and the house of David as the angel of the Lord."^ It was five o'clock. The rain had ceased. The moon was shining, and the dawn was beginning to appear over the sea. Cromwell was growing impatient, for Lambert had not come, being still busy ordering the guns along the edge of the ravine, and the Scots by their sounding a trumpet seemed preparing to begin the attack. At last Lambert came not many minutes after five, and immediately ordered Monk with his brigade of three and a half regi- ments of foot, whereof Cromwell's regiment of foot was one, and his own regiment of foot, in which was Hodgson, was another, to march about, that is, to make a detour about Broxmouth-house towards the sea, and so to fall ^ King's Pamphlets, small 4to, No. 2 c^pt. Hodgson's Memoirs, p. 146. 478, art. 10. Capt. 'Hodgson's Me- ZecLariab, chap. xii. v. 8. moirs, p. 146. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 365 upon the enemy's flank. In the meantime, while the brigade of foot was marching round between the house and the sea to attack the same right wing of the enemy further to the left, Lambert, Fleetwood, Whalley, and Twisleton with the six regiments of horse began the attack by charging the enemy at the pass where the Ber- wick road runs between Broxmouth-house and the hill.^ The word of the Scots was " The Covenant ; " that of the English, "The Lord of Hosts." ^ We have no information in any of the narratives where David Leslie was during the battle. But as even Clarendon, while he says that David Leslie was in no degree capable of commanding in chief, admits that he was an excellent officer of horse, we may suppose that he was active in directing and probably in leading that desperate charge of the Scottish cavalry, " with lanciers in the front rank," which was made with such fury, that it drove the Ironsides back above a pistol-shot, across the hollow where the stream ran. Lanciers here must not be confounded with our modern lancers. They were the most completely armed of the cavalry of that time, wearing an iron head-piece or pot, back and breast-plates pistol and culiver proof, a buff coat between their clothes and their armour, and having a strong cut-and- thrust sword, a lance eighteen feet long, 1 Cromwell says (Dispatch to the Bathurst, dated Waterloo, 19th June, Speaker, Sept. 4,) that the attack 1815, says, *'the enemy at about 10 though intended to be by break of day o'clock commenced a furious attack did not begin till six o'clock. But the upon our post at Hougoumont." Gur- other accounts (Carte's Letters, vol. i. wood's Selections from the Duke of p. 383, and King's Pamphlets, small Wellington's Dispatches, p. 858, No. 4to, No. 478, articles 7, 9, 10) and 951— and in a letter to , Esq., the fact that the sun (which would rise dated Paris, 17 August, 1815, says, that morning about half -past 5) rose "the battle began, I believe, at 11." during the battle, show that it must Ibid. p. 892, No. 990. have begun about 5 or a little after. ^ Cromwell to the Speaker, Sept. 4, It is remarkable that the Duke of 1650. Wellington in his dispatch to Earl 366 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. and one or two pistols. Sir Walter Scott once said to Mr. Lockhart when near the field of Philiphaugh that he thought it probable David Leslie had with him some of the old soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus. And it seems not improbable, though, as has been shown, there were in the Scots army no complete regiments which had served abroad, that there were among these Scots " lanciers " some of Gustavus's veterans. But it was one feature of Cromwell's troops that they could always be rallied by officers who thoroughly understood their duty, and were animated at once by superior intelligence and invincible resolution At that moment too Monk with his brigade of foot having accomplished his detour made a furious attack upon the extreme right^ of the Scottish right wing ; and the English cavalry, taking advantage of the confusion which this created, rallied and drove the Scots lanciers back again across the burn. So obstinate was the resistance made by this right wing of the Scots though exposed to the attack of superior numbers composed of Cromwell's best regiments, that Monk's brigade of foot was at first overpowered and driven back. Then came that terrible charge of Cromwell's pikemen, which made the Scots foot give ground for three- quarters of a mile together ; the English horse at the same time renewing their charge and driving back the enemy. One of the Scots regiments of foot would not yield, though at push of pike and butt-end of the musket, until a troop of the English horse charged from one end to another of them. This body of Scots foot was Lawers' regiment of Highlanders, and their commanding officer, a lieutenant-colonel, having been slain by a serjeant of Crom- ^ It will be observed that in the next page where Cromwell commands his men to incline to the left, the left of the English would be the right of the Scots, ^650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 367 weirs own regiment of foot (" the colonel was absent of the name of the Campbells " ^), they stood to the push of the pike, and were all cut to pieces. Cromwell himself came to the rear of the regiment to which Captain Hodgson belonged, and commanded them to incline to the left ; " that was, to take more ground, to be clear of all bodies. And we did so,'' adds Hod^rson, "and horse and foot were engaged all over the field ; and the Scots all in confusion : and the sun appearing upon the sea, I heard Nol say, ' Now^ let God arise, and his enemies * Dr. Gumble's ** Life of General Monk," p. 38. It may, however, be inferred from a statement in Crom- weUiana, p. 91, (Sev. Pas. in Pari., Sept. 5 to 12, ''The Lord Chan- cellor's purse and seals taken with a book in them of their new acts signed by their declared king,") that the Colonel of Lawers' Highlanders was on some part of the field ; though his *' legal apprehension " kept him out of harm's way. At Dunbar the grandees fled. At Flodden, when they really were a military aristocracy, they fought and fell, for there the Scots left dead on the field their king and most of their nobility ; namely, two bishops, two mitred abbots, twelve earls, thirteen lords, five eldest sons of peers, and gentlemen beyond calculation — 200 of the name of Douglas alone. And these were all slain, be it observed, not in flight (see the remarks on this subject at the end of this chapter), but in fight, many of them in the devoted but unbroken circle that fought around their king. This division of the Scots at Flodden consisted chiefly of the nobles and gentry, whose armour was so good, that the arrows made but little impression upon them. They were all on foot, and forming themselves into a circle with their spears extended on every side, they could neither be broken nor forced to retire, though the carnage among them was very great. A list of men of note killed at Dunbar is given in Balfour (vol. iv., pp. 27, 28). It contains the names of a lord of the Session, who was also one of the Committee of Estates, of six colonels, four lieutenant-colonels, a major and two ritt-masters. Not far from the door of Broxmouth House is a rough tombstone with the name of Sir William Douglas of Kirkness, one of the colonels who fell, rudely inscribed upon it. He was the only individual out of all who fell in that battle who has been honoured with such a me- morial : a circumstance which may, perhaps, have given rise to the opinion announced to me by an old woman of the neighbourhood that this battle of Down Hill (as it is there called, pro- bably to distinguish it from another battle of Dunbar fought in the year 1296) was fought between this Sir William Douglas and Oliver Crommie ; which is taking as great a liberty with the great leader of the Ironsides' name as a modern French romance writer in one of his romances, has taken with his person and character. 868 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. shall be scattered ; ' ^ and he following as we slowly marched, I heard him say ' I protest they run ! ' and then was the Scots army all in disorder and running, both right wing, and left, and main battle/' ^ The fight, says Cromwell in one letter, lasted above an hour.^ In another letter he says, " after a hot dispute for about an hour we routed their whole army/' * In answer to the ungenerous aspersions of Clarendon and others, it is sufficient to say that all the English engaged in the battle who have given any account of it state distinctly that that part of the Scots army who fought at all fought well. Tlie words are " a hot and stiff dispute ; the enemy made a gallant resist- ance and there was a very hot dispute at sword's point between our horse and theirs ; " and, as regarded the foot, "at push of pike and butt-end of musket/'^ In * Psalm Ixviii. v. 1. 2 Capt. Hodgson's Memoh-s, pp. 147, 148. 3 Cromwell to Richard Mayor, Esq. Sept. 4, 1650. * Cromwell to Ireton. Sept. 4, 1650. The other accounts say an hour or above an hour. " After above an hour's dispute." King's Pamphlets, small 4to, No. 478, art. 9 ;— "the dis- pute lasted above an hour. Ibid. art. 7. *' After one hour's contest." King's Pamphlets, small 4to, No. 479, article 1 ; — " The dispute lasted an hour and was very hot." Cad well, the army messenger in Carte's Letters, vol. i. p. 383. * See Cromwell's Dispatchess and Letters, Hodgson's Memoirs, and all the other accounts written to tell what really happened, and not what writers like Clarendon and Algernon Sidney might think fit to assert. John Rush- worth, who was there as Cromwell's secretary, says, though he is no very great authority in such a matter, ' ' I never beheld a more terrible charge of foot than was given by our army." Letter to the Speaker, in Old Pari. Hist. vol. xix. p. 341. *' The battle was very fierce for the time, one part of their battalia stood very stiffly to it, but the rest was presently routed." Ibid. To those who do not know what an advocate who passes the legitimate bounds of his duty is capable of, it may s6em incredible that a man in Lord Clarendon's position, for some regard for truth might be looked for from a man filling the office of Lord High Chancellor of England, the highest judicial post in the kingdom, should have made the following state- ment in a historical writing : — *' Crom- well knew them too well to fear them on any ground, where there were no trenches or fortifications to keep him from them. Their horse did not sus- tain one charge ; but fled and were pur- sued with great execution." — Clar. Hist. vol. vi. p. 456, Oxford, 1826. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 369 consequence of none of the commanders on either side hav- ing had the sagacity to adopt Gustavus Adolphus's inven- tion of the cartridge, more work was done by the butt- end than by the muzzle of the musket through these civil wars. And it is to be borne in mind that at that time the foot regiments being composed partly of musketeers partly of pikemen, the work had for the reason mentioned to be done chiefly by the pike and the butt-end of the musket. And the pikemen forming rather more than a third part of each regiment of foot-they were, in some cases at least, in the proportion of 400 pikemen to 600 musketeers i— Ind being generally the strongest and tallest men, were more effective than the musketeers. Captain Hodgson expresses with accurate brevity the effect of Lambert^s flank movement, which is indeed the effect of every flank movement successfully executed. "They had routed one another, after we had done their work on their right wing.- The English then mov- mg up to the top of the hill kept the straggling parties of the enemy, that had been engaged, from rally'Ing. So the foot threw down their arms and fled, most of them towards Dunbar, where they were surrounded and taken. 1 Order Book of the Council of State— 13 March, 164|. MS. State Paper Oflice. According to the state- ment of Montecuculi, the proportion on the Continent, about 1665, of pikemen to musketeers was one-third— "Au- jourd'hui les regimens d'infanterie sont composes, les deux tiers de Mous- quetaires et un tiers de Piquiers." Memoires de Montecuculi, I. 2. 16. And the statement in the Gentleman's Dictionary, part ii., quoted in Grose's Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 133, is that **the pikemen used to be the third part of the company." The tallest and strongest men were generally selected for the pike ; and in France their pay was somewhat greater than that of the musketeers. Grose, vol. i. pp. 132, 133. The use of the pike was abolished in France by a royal ordinance in 1703. A book on the exercise of the Foot published by royal command in 1690, contains the exercise of the pike, and the Gentleman's Dic- tionary published in 1705 describes the pike as a weapon formerly in use but then changed for the musket ; so that the disuse of the pike must have taken place in England some time between 1690 and 1705. Grose, vol. i. p. 133. R B 370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. Others were pursued with great slaughter as far and even farther than Haddington. About nine thousand, including many officers, were taken prisoners ; upwards of three thousand were slain.^ Consequently either Cromweirs estimate of the numbers of the Scots army (6000 horse and 16,000 foot at least) must be greatly exaggerated, or nearly ten thousand of the Scots must have escaped from the field of battle. As Cromwell reckons the arms left behind at fifteen thousand, it is not improbable that the Scots army was not so numerous as Cromwell represented it to be, nor his own so small. He marched into Scotland with 16,354, he probably received some reinforcements while there, and he states himself his sick and wounded shipped at 500 ; while Eush worth, his secretary, writes on the 3rd Sept., 1650, "Fourteen hundred sick men have I in all sent to Berwick and Newcastle, and many hundreds are wonderful sick in the army/' ^ If we add the 500 before mentioned to these 1400, instead of assuming them to be included in the 1400, we shall have the 16,350 diminished by 1900, and if we add 500 or 600 more for the sick still remaining in the army, we shall still have very nearly 14,000 men. However the "many hundreds wonderful sick in the army " mentioned by Eushworth mififht have amounted to far more than 500 or 600, and Cromwell in his letter to Ireton repeats his statement of 11,000, namely 3500 horse and 7500 foot, and says a * Cromwell in his dispatch to the Speaker written on the day after the battle, namely, Sept. 4, 1650, says, ' ' We believe that upon the place and near about it were about 3000 slain ; prisoners taken of their officers you have the inclosed list ; of private sol- diers near 10,000." But Sir Arthur Haselrig, then governor of Newcastle, in his letter to the Committee of the Council of State, dated Oct. 31, 1650, says, * 'After the battle at Dunbar the Lord-General writ to me that there was about 9000 prisoners." ^ John Rush worth to the Speaker, Dunbar, Sept. 3, 1650, in Old Pari. Hist. vol. xix. p. 341. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 371 heavy flux had brought the army very low— from fourteen to eleven thousand.' Hodgson relates what was a characteristic conclusion of the morning's work, that Cromwell made a halt and sang the hundred and seventeenth psalm.' He was after that busily employed in securing prisoners and baggage. The whole of the baggage and train of the Scots army^contain- ing a good store of match, powder, and ball ; and all their artillery, great and small, being about thirty guns, some of them of leather, were taken, together with near two hundred colours, which Cromwell sent to the Parliament to l)e hung up in Westminster Hall, where they loner re- mained.' ° It is certainly not easy to understand why Leslie could not bring up his left wing, and part of his centre to the support of his overmatched right wing, instead of leaving his centre and left wing to rout one another. No doubt the play of Cromwell's guns on the left wing was intended to divert their attention, but an old soldier like David Leslie must have known well the small amount of damage at that time done by artillery, which probably would not kill altogether twenty of his men, and must have been quite powerless to prevent his moving his left wing. Nor does the remark ascribed by Hodgson to Lambert that the Scots had not great ground to traverse their regiments between the mountain and the clough or ravine explain the difficulty so well as it appears to do before examining the ground. For, as I have said, Down Hill slopes somewhat away from the ravine ; and the greater part of Leslie's sLtlZ"^^ *" '''*""' ^'"'''''' *"■ ''" "* "-^ ^""^ '^''*^' <'" «■« ^-ne col. Tp , r, ;, , '^"''""' P- 275 et seq.), says-" We l/s h's ^ '""""• ""• *°"' "'' *•■*'' '■"'"■ '«"'« 32 pieces ol i'^ * „ ordnance, small, great, and leatli^,. 16 t: ' V' '""'"' '^p*- '' ^'^-^ ^"^ ^" *^^- '-t oioX s 1650. Another letter not from Crom- horse." B B 2 372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. YI. army was posted not between a ravine and a mountain but on ground which, though bounded on the west by Down Hill, on the north by the ravine, and on the east by the high road and beyond that by the park wall of Br ox- mouth House, was on the south-east, the south, and south- west perfectly open and level except a gentle slope on the south-west — a slope so gentle, as before remarked, that a horse might gallop up it. Consequently there seemed to be nothing at least in the nature of the ground and the position to hinder David Leslie from bringing the whole of his left wing to the support of his right wing, instead of leaving it and his centre as he did to be routed by having the right wing driven in upon them. The inference there- fore must be, that at Dunbar David Leslie lost his head or self-possession ; an inference with which Clarendon's account of David Leslie quite agrees. Clarendon says, *' The king did not believe him false ; and did always think him an excellent officer of horse, to distribute and execute orders, but in no degree capable of commanding in chief And without doubt he was so amazed in that fatal day [Wor- cester], that he performed not the office of a general, or of any competent officer.'' ^ This battle of Dunbar was the only battle in these wars (except those battles fought by Montrose), in which any considerable degTee of generalship was shown. Most of the battles of this great civil war were steady pounding matches where the hostile armies drew up in parallel lines and fought till one was beaten. In order to understand the precise nature of the operation which distinguished the battle of Dunbar from the other battles of these wars it is only necessary to keep in mind the principle of what is called a flank movement — that the general who brings a I Clar. Hist. vol. vi. pp. 515, 516. Oxford, 1826. 1650.] BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 373 superior force to bear upon a particular part of the army opposed to him, and defeats that part, will probably throw into confusion and defeat the whole. At Dunbar Lambert attacked the head of the Scottish column and drove it in on its rear, pretty much as Frederic did with the French column at Kosbach, and with the flank of the Austrian line at Leuthen. It will also serve to elucidate the matter to state that the manoeuvre which Frederic executed at Rosbach and still more signally at Leuthen consisted, al- though his own army did not amount to half that of the enemy in numbers, and herein appeared the great force of his genius, in bringing a superiority of numbers to bear upon a particular part, and by defeating that part and driving it in upon the rest, throwing into confusion and defeating the whole. This was the principle on which Frederic always acted. Thus Mitchell the English am- bassador, who speaks from his own personal observation and the king's own words, says of the battle of Kolin, which Frederic lost by the failure of his intended plan, '' his intention was to have flanked their right," ^ and of the battle of Zorndorfl; " the king's intention was to attack with his left the right of the enemy in flank, and to refuse his right." ^ It will be seen that the consequence * Memoirs and Papers of Sir Andrew Mitchell, K.B. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Court of Great Britain to the Court of Berlin from 1756 to 1771. London, 1850, vol. i. pp. 355, 356. "The king was then pleased to describe to me very particularly the last unhappy battle (Kolin). . . . His intention, he says, was to have flanked their right, which would have obliged them to make an alteration in their posi- tion, of which he might have pro- fited. . . . He said his intention was to have engaged only his left pour tourner I'ennemi, but the ardour of his troops in attacking the village had been the cause of his misfortune." 2 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 428, 429. "As the King of Prussia thought he had gained their flank, he ordered the attack to be made by his left wing, whilst he refused his right ; " and ibid. vol. ii. p. 43, "The attack began at 9 o'clock before the village of Zorndorff, which the Russians had set on fire ; to the right of which there was a wood, which I believe had not been thoroughly 374 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VI. of this movement is to bring a superiority of force to bear upon the enemy at a particular point — a principle, which though anyone can see in the abstract, the application of which in an actual campaign or battle demands a large examined. The king's intention was to attack with the left the right of the enemy in flank, and to refuse the right ; but I have since heard that we missed of the flank, as the attack began the moment the troops were ranged : no care had been taken to reconnoitre the position of the enemy." But the best explanation of the matter is in Frede- ric's own account of the battle of Leu- then, where he explains the principle of refusing one wing and attacking with the other in flank, which he adopted in all his battles, and of the pains he took at Leuthen to prevent the failure of this principle which had happened at the battles of Prague and Kolin. " Le pro jet que le Roi se pre- parait d'executer, etait de porter toute son arm^e sur le flanc gauche des impe- riaux, de faire les plus grands efforts avec sa droite, et de refuser sa gauche avec tant de prevoyance qu'il n'eut point k craindre des fautes semblables ^ celles qu'on avait faites £t la bataille de Prague et qui avaient cause la perte de celle de Kolin. ... La premiere ligne re^ut ordre d'avancer en echelons, les bataillons a 50 pas de distance en arriere les uns des autres, de sorte que la ligne etait en mouvement I'extre- mite de la droite se trouvait de mille pas plus avancee que Textremite de la gauche, et cette disposition la mit dans I'impossibilite des'engager sans ordre." Hist, de la Guei^'e de Sept Ans, tom.i. p. 232 et seq. It has been sometimes supposed that this principle was first acted upon by Frederic and Napoleon. 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TO THE EXPULSION OF THE LONG PARLLAMENT BY CROMWELL: BEING LONDON PRINTBD BY SPOTTISWOODB A.ND CO. KEW-STBBET SQUABB OMirTED CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAXh. BY ANDEEW BISSET. In Two Volumes — Vol. H, LONDON : JOHN MURKAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1867. C I'ht ripht of trandation in reserr.ed.l LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS i PREFACE. h This volume completes the narrative of a period of English History which I think I may truly say has never before been written — the period extending from the death of Charles I. to the expulsion of the Long Parliament by Cromwell, lind usually called the period ofihe Common- wealth. As I have shown in the preceding volume, the Enoflish Government at this time was not that which the Greeks called a democracy and the Eomans a republic. It may perhaps be best described, in the language of those who carried it on, as a government differing essentially from that sort of government which the experience of that age had proved to be a bad government — " the government of a single person."^ So strong was the conviction of those men on this point, that Cromwell himself, even after he had concentrated all the powers of government in his own person, is reported to have said, " I approve the govern- ment of a single person as little as any man." ^ Although * James Harrington, the author of " I could never be persuaded but it was " The Commonwealth of Oceana," more happy for a people to be disposed though of no authority as a practical of by a number of persons jointly inter- politician, records accurately enough ested and concerned with them, than to the opinions of the most sagacious prac- be numbered as the herd and inherit- tical politicians of that age, when he ance of one, to whose lust and madness I says, in his tract on " The Grounds they were absolutely subject." and Keasons of Monarchy," published ^ This remark of Cromwell is re- in his works (folio, London, 1700): ported to have been made with reference I t ^ VI PEEIJACE. PREFACE. Vll the term " Commonwealth " may be objected to as some- what ambiguous, for the reasons abeady stated, ^ neverthe- less it will be convenient to entitle this work, " A History of England under the Government called the Common- ) wealth," — a Government which began on the death of King Charles I., and ended on the expulsion of the Parlia- ment by Cromwell. The new materials which I have used in the composition of this and the preceding volume are the Minutes of the Council of State, contained in forty MS. volumes of the original draft Order Books of that Council. It may, I trust, not be deemed impertinent to state here that my attention was first directed ^ome years ago to these MS. minutes of the proceedings of the Council of State by the kindness of the English historian of Greece, Mr. Grote, who then said that when, some years before, he went through the State Paper Office, the gentlemen who showed him these volumes of original MS. minutes told him that they to Harrington's " Commonwealth of one foreign writer on English History Oceana," which work Harrington asserts that no party could govern dedicated "To His Highness the like Cromwell. This remark is only Lord Protector of the Commonwealth true as applied to the state of things of England, Scotland, and Ireland." A after Cromwell's death, when it was •S commonwealth in the sense of a re- public with such " a Protector " is a contradiction in terms. The Csesars might as well be called " Protectors of the Roman Republic," or the boa-con found, by those who attempted to cause the public affairs to revert to their former channel, that, as the writer of the preface to Ludlow's Memoirs observes, " Oliver had so stricter the protector of the rabbit he choked the springs that the torrent has swallowed. The truth of the took another course;" and after a assertion by which Cromwell qualifies short period of struggle among parties, his disapproval of " the government^ Monk performed his part, and sold the of a single person," that he " wasl nation to Charles II. But the remark forced to take upon him the office! above cited is totally inapplicable with of a high constable, to preserve thel regard to the Parliament and Council peace among the several parties of the | of State which Cromwell expelled on nation," is involved in the other asser- I April 20, 1653, and which governed tion that Cromwell governed better ! infinitely better than Cromweltr than the Long Parliament. Indeed, 1 ' See Vol. I. p. 33. I had never yet been examined (as far as he knew) by any English historian. There are one or two features of the present volume to which I wish to advert. In the first place, it appears a duty to truth to make the limits of the duration of the Government called the Commonwealth thoroughly under- stood, inasmuch as, that Government having been con- founded with the usurped military despotism of Cromwell, nearly all the English historians have thus given to Crom- well all the credit due to the good government of the statesmen of the Commonwealth, and to the statesmen of the Commonwealth all the discredit due to the bad government of Cromwell. These two volumes being de- voted to the history of the Government called the Common- wealth, strictly define the limits of its duration — namely, from February 1, 164|^, to April 20, 1653, a j^eriod of four years and somewhat less than three months. During that period, if they had done nothing else, they created a navy which defeated the most powerful navy, commanded by the greatest admirals, the world at that time had ever seen. And during the last ten months of their existence •their great Admiral, Blake, besides minor achievements, such as the destruction of th^T^nch ffeet*^ under the Duke de Vendome, fought' four great pitched battles, three^ of which he won; and^tTie defeat in the fourth, when he maintained for many hours, with thirty-seven ships, a fight against ninety-five, commanded by Tromp, tended rather to raise than to lower his own and his country's naval renown. So that, even by writers not favourable to the Commonwealth, this has been called "the annus mirabilis of the English navy." To the creSit of all this, as well as to the credit of the battles won against the Dutch in June and July 1 653, after his r. Vlll PREFACE. i expulsion of the Parliament, Cromwell has not the shadow 01 a claim. '^ ' ■ "" *ln fhesecond place, a comparison of the preparations made by the Government of Queen Elizabeth against the Spanish Armada, with the preparations made by the Council of State of the Commonwealth against the aggres- sion of the Dutch naval power (really far greater than the Spanish), and also against a projected invasion of England, about the time of the invasion of the Scots which led to the Battle of Worcester, by the forces of some of the Conti- nental despots, under the command of the Duke of Lorraine (evidence of which I have found in the MS. minutes of the Council of State), leads to a clear demonstration of the vast superiority of the statesmanship of the Council of State of the Commonwealth over that of Queen Elizabeth, and her much-lauded Lord Treasurer and other councillors. CONTENTS. x" Y / CHAPTER VII. PAGE Projected invasion of England and Ireland by an army under the command of the Duke of Lorraine ...... 2-4 Causes of the change in the conduct of the Netherlanders between 1585 and 1651 5, 6 The divine right of kings 7-14 Divine-right tyranny 15, 16 Divine-right nobility 17, 18 Foreign enemies of the Commonwealth of England . . . . 19, 20 Progress of despotism in Europe 21, 22 Vigilance of the English Commonwealth 23, 24 -'"ilngland alone against the world 25, 26 Work ^fhieh the English Commonwealth had before it . . . 27, 28 Committee of the Navy, of which Sir Henry Vane was the most active and able member 29 Admiral Blake, and incident in his last action, showing the height to which he raised the naval power of England . . . . 30, 31 CHAPTER VIII. Admiral Blake's birth and early life 32-36 Cromwell's taste for practical jokes 37,38 Admiral Blake's character 39 Blake's defence of Lyme and Taunton 40,41 Cromwell and Blake 43, 44 Cromwell and the Stuarts 45, 46 Importance of the navy at that time 46, 47 lake opposed to the King's execution 49, 50 Revolt of a part of the fleet from the Parliament . . . . 51, 52 CONTENTS. CONTENTS. XI ^ x' The Commonwealth men and the " grandees of the House and Army " . . . • » • The Council of State of the Commonwealth and Queen Eh'zabeth's Council Reconstruction of the navy . ...... The Commonwealth flag Prince Rupert Story told by Admiral Sir William Perm of Prince Rupert's cruelty Rupert escapes from Kinsale Harbour ..... Letter from Blake to Cromwell Blake sent in pursuit of Rupert ...... Increase of the navy Instructions to Blake Instructions to Ascham . . Orders for regulating the proceedings of the Council of State . Committee of the Navy, consisting of Sir Henry Vane, &c. Additional instructions to Blake Instructions to Popham Rupert enters the Tagus, and is protected by the King of Portugal Rupert's device for destroying Blake Blake attacks the Brazil fleet, and Rupert escapes with his ships A treaty of peace concluded with the King of Portugal, on the conditions insisted on by the Commonwealth of England Blake destroys Rupert's fleet .... Rupert's luck in escaping .... Difference between courage and strength of muscle Penn's unsuccessful pursuit of Rupert Blake captures four French ships . . . Royalist pirates in the Scilly Isles The Scilly Isles surrendered to Blake An example of the tact of the Council of State CHAPTER IX. Strickland recalled from Holland .... / St. John and Strickland sent ambassadors to Holland / Character of Oliver St. John ..... _^^The English ambassadors insulted in Holland Character of the Dutch Government at that time The Council of State's instructions to their ambassadors in Holland 117, 118 PAGE 53, 54 65, 56 57, 58 59 Go- -62 es, 64 65 67, 68 69, 70 71 73, 74 75 77, 78 79 81, 82 83 84, 85 86 88 88, 89 90 -92 92 ,93 93 ,94 95 ,96 97 98- 102 103, 104 105, 106 107 108 . 108- -111 112, 113 114- -116 y / PACK The Council's vigilance against the invasion of England by the King of Scots from Scotland, and by the Duke of Lorraine from Dunkirk and Ostend 119-122 The English ambassadors recalled and thanked by Parliament . 123-125 St. John's speech to the Dutch commissioners at taking leave . . 124 CHAPTER X. Some of the English nobility, who possessed the most accurate knowledge of the qualities of kingship, were members of the Grovernment called the Commonwealth 126, 129 harge of bribery against Lord Howard of Escrick .... 127 Viscount Lisle and Algernon Sydney 129 Character of Algernon Sydney 130-138 Cromwell's illness in Scotland 139, 140 A natural and an artificial aristocracy . . . . . . 141, 142 Strong position of the Scottish army ...... 143,144 The Scottish army moves southward by rapid marches . . . 145 Misstatements of Mrs. Hutchinson 145,146,148 Election of the new Council of State 146,147 Energy, courage, and prudence of the Council of State . . . 149-151 Zeal of the people against the enemy ...... 151 Invasion of England by the Scots 155 " The Broad Place at Whitehall," August 10, 1651 .... 157, 158 Great exertions of the Council of State ...... 153-167 Imputed timidity of Sir Henry Vane 168-170 Charles Stuart proclaimed traitor ....... 171,177 Zeal of the Parliamentary army, and of the country generally, against the King 172 Great contrast between 1651 and 1660 173 Cry for " a free Parliament " . . . . . . ... 174,175 Skirmish at Warrington ......... 178 Army of Lambert and Harrison ....... 179 .The Scots with their King reach Worcester 180 Defeat of the Earl of Derby by Colonel Robert Lilburne . . . 181 The Council of State relax not their exertions 182,183 "The business of the Duke of Lorraine" 183,184 .... 185, 186 The English Governments of 1588 and 1651 Xll CONTENTS. CONTENTS. XUl , and CHAPTER XI. Important battles fought on the Severn and Avon Cromwell's arrival before Worcester Operations of Lambert's troops Battle of Worcester Total defeat of the King's army The King's conduct in the battle False panegyric on the King Scotch students among the prisoners Escape of the King to France . Disposal of the prisoners Execution of the Earl of Derby, Sir Timothy Featherstonhaugh Captain Benbow Stirling Castle surrendered to Monk Monk takes Dundee by storm CHAPTER XII. The Council of State disband the militia ...... Ludlow's erroneous statement that Cromwell dismissed the militia . Inconsistencies of Cromwell's character, and consequent difficulty of analysing it ......... . Cromwell's alleged designs Lands of the yearly value of £4,000 (in addition to £2,500 per annum formerly granted to him) settled on Cromwell and his heirs ........... Reception of Cromwell by the Parliament The Navigation Act passed by the Parliament The union of England and Scotland, and the abolition of monarchy in Scotland, enacted by the Parliament of England . The Judges sent from England to administer justice in Scotland found "so much malice and so little proof" against sixty persons ac- cused of witchcraft at the last circuit that none were condemned A committee to consider of fit persons to write " the history of these times" .... Naval abuses .... Pleas for the Long Parliament Question of a new Parliament The new Council of State Death of Ireton PAGE 187-189 190 191, 192 193, 194 195 196 197-200 201 202,203 204-214 213 214 214, 215 217 218 219,220 221 222 223 224 225 226 226, 227 228, 229 230, 231 232, 233 234, 235 236 up by of the The old English nobility The new English nobility Of the men most distinguished in the great English civil war 17th century, Oxford produced as many as Cambridge The Inns of Court lifeguard and Ironside officers . Ireton's military career . . . j^ The army's representation to Parliament in 1647, drawn Ireton with the assistance of Cromwell and Lambert The military genius of Cromwell and Marlborough . /y^\vj Ireton was a check on Cromwell's ambition . Lambert appointed Ireton's successor in Ireland Cromwell's children Lambert's quarrel with the Parliament . Character of Lambert Meeting at the Speaker's house .... A settled question reopened Committee of the Admiralty and Navy for 1652 An assistant to Milton appointed .... John Lilburne ....... Clarendon's character of Sir George Ayscue CHAPTER XIII. The Dutch ambassadors extraordinary received by the English Par- liament with punctilious courtesy ...... Audience given by the Parliament to the Dutch ambassadors . 278, Contrast between 1585 and 1652 Orders of the Council of State for the management of treaties . ii^he business of Amboyna " y'''^ Work of the Council of State at this time Rapid rise of the Dutch naval power Advantages of the Dutch Advantages arising from the composition of the English Council of State Orders made by the Council of State for regulating their proceedings, which have not been given before Contrast between 165f and 1853 Blake's commission to hold and execute the place of Admiral and General of the fleet or fleets of the Commonwealth of England for 1652 PAGE 237, 238 239, 240 241, 242 243, 244 245, 246 247-250 251 252-255 255 257-259 259-261 261, 262 263 263-267 268 269, 270 270, 271 272 274-277 279, 283 280-282 283, 284 285, 286 287, 288 289, 290 291, 292 293 294 295, 296 296, 297 XIV CONTENTS. PAGE 297, 298 Great energy and vigilance of the Council of State at this time Appointment of John Thurloe as secretary to the Council of State on the death of Walter Frost the elder 299 "The prologue to the tragedy" 300-302 CONTENTS. The Council of State's care to seek for fit men, and never to prefer any for favour nor by importunity Arrival of ambassadors from the King of Denmark XV PA.GE 358 3.59 mean CHAPTEK XIV. Contrast between the government of the Commonwealth and the government of Charles II 1652, the great naval epoch of England .... Breaking the enemy's line Keal cause of the war on the part of the Dutch England's claim to the honour of the flag The Dutch, while they profess to desire peace, prepare for and war ....••••• Martin Harpertz Tromp Resemblance of the character of Blake to that of Nelson . First meeting of Blake and Tromp in Dover Road . First fight between the Dutch and English, and the beginning of the Dutch war * • Blake thanked by the Parliament and the Council of State Great exertions of the Council of State to strengthen Blake's fleet . Commissions to the vice-admirals of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Sussex, and Hants to press seamen .... Great loss of ships and goods by the Dutch The Parliament charge the Dutch with attempting to destroy their fleet hy surprise during a treaty, and continue to make vigorous preparations for war .....••• Departure of the Dutch ambassadors, wlio act the part of spies Blake's northern expedition Blake and Tromp, when preparing for action among the Shetland Isles, separated by a sudden tempest Blake returns from the North Do Witt substituted for Tromp in the command of the Dutch fleet . ;Blake defeats a French fleet under the Duke of Yendome Policy of the Parliament much sounder than that of Cromwell Blake defeats the Dutch admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, off the North Foreland ....••••• Thirty frigates ordered to be built Petition of Sir Oliver Fleming 303, 304 305, 306 307, 308 308 309 310 311, 312 313 315 317-320 321, 322 322-324 325 327,328 329-334 335, 336 337-339 340-343 344 345, 346 347, 348 348, 349 349-356 356 357 360-362 363, 304 365, 360 / 368 369, 370 371, 372 373 / y CHAPTER XV. A fleet of English merchantmen, laden with naval stores, seized by the King of Denmark in the harbour of Copenhagen Good treatment of the Dutch prisoners in England .... Disposal of Dutch prize-goods by the Council of State . Case of Captain Warren— prompt and energetic proceedings of the Council of State 3gg 3^7 The Council of State commit a blunder in sending twenty ships at / this time to the Mediterranean, and thereby crippling Blake's Channel fleet ..... New Council of State for 165§ Effect of crippling the Channel fleet Meeting of the Engl'sh and Dutch fleets . .Battle of Dungeness 374-370 Deane and Monk appointed joint generals of the fleet with Blake . 381 Great exertions of the Council of State to reinforce Blake's fleet and to strengthen the coast garrisons 377-382 The captains of ships hired for the public service to be chosen by the ^^^^ 383andwo^j Rigour of the press warrants The Council's mode of dealing with foreign powers . English captives at Algiers Labours of the Council of State .... Their relations with foreign powers Why Queen Christina of Sweden said to Whitelock, "these landers are lying fellows " Orders relating to the fleet Soldiers sent to serve on board the fleet . Proof that Cromwell, till within a few weeks of his turnin_ / npon them, was keeping up the appearance of being the sincere friend of Vane, Scot, and Sydney Battle of Portland First day's battle Second dtiy's battle .... Third day's battle VOL. II. a Jg Hoi round 383 381 385 383 . 387 -389 . 388, note 390 391 . 393, 394 . 396, 397 . 398, 399 400 401, 402 XVI CONTENTS CONTENTS. XVll y Eesiilts of the Battle of Portland . Effect of the battle .... Blake's exploits in the last ten months CHAPTER XVI. / The worshippers of success Pay of the parliamentary army Ixtra pay of two regiments out of the Lord-General's contingencies amounted to giving Cromwell a sortjof Praetorian guard . Effect on the Romans of the despotism of Julius Csesar . A good despotism is a false ideal nsequences of a great crime committed by a great man Effects of the apotheosis of Cromwell The retrenchment of forces and garrisons displeased and alarmed Cromwell . . . Sir Roger Twysden's testimony against the Long Parliament . Integrity of Vane, Ireton, Blake, Scot, Ludlow, Sydney, and others Cromwell's conversation with Whitelock, in which he says, " What if a man should take upon him to be king ? " . Contrast between Cromwell in 1652 and Cromwell in 1647 Answer to the worshippers of Cromwell .... Answer to the defenders of Cromwell — Cromwell's course not a poli tical necessity Good and bad great men The Parliament endeavour to countermine Cromwell by drafting soldiers into the fleet Effect of Blake's victories on Cromwell Cromwell secures the concurrence of Lambert and Harrison . Ludlow's conversation with Harrison . . Cromwell calumniates the Parliament Proof of the falsehood of his chaises against the Parliament . Cromwell endeavours to obtain the concurrence of Calamy and others of the clergy ......... The Parliament determine on an immediate dissolution . Alteration in Cromwell's plans Meeting of members of the Parliament and officers of the army at Cromwell's lodgings on April 19, 1653 Inconsistency of Cromwell's statement — " the Parliament being ready to put the main question for their dissolution, we have been necessitated to put an end to this Parliament " . PAGE 403-405 406, 407 408 410 411 412- -414 415 416 417 418 419 419 421, 422 423, 424 425, ,426 427- -429 430 431 432- -434 435 436 437 437, 438 438-440 440, 441 441, 442 443, 444 445, 446 447, 448 449- -451 Illegal and treasonable character of the meetings at Cromwell's lodgings ...... The eve of an evil deed . Csesar and Frederic II. of Prussia were not deceived by the shallow sophistries by which inferior minds have sought to defend evil deeds Vane, Scot, Sydney, and Harrison meet together in Parliament for the last time . The twentieth of April, 1653 Cromwell first gets into a rage with the Parliament for not putting / an end to their sitting, and then gets into a new rage when he finds them putting the question for passing the bill for their dissolution / PAGE 452, 455 453 453, note 456 457 ./ Whitelock's inaccurate statement . ^-'Cromwell insults and expels the Parliament . , Who was the ''juggler "—Vane or Cromwell ? Cromwell's madness was maldness with method in it Departure of the great Parliament .... And of the Council of State Cromwell's unproved assertions .... ^Cromwell could have proved them if they had been true by printing and publishing the bill. Why then did he not print and publish the bill? End of the Commonwealth Cromwell's Council of State . Character of the Commonwealth men Character of their successors . Consequences of Cromwell's conduct The glorious career of Blake . Remorse 459 460 and note . 461-464 464 465 466 . 467, 468 469-471 472,473 474, 475 476, 477 478,479 481,482 483, 48-1 485 486, 487 \/ 451 HISTORY OF ENGLAND UNDER THE GOVERNMENT CALLED THE COMMONWEALTH. CHAPTER VII. From that day in July, 1644, when the armies of the King and Parliament of England encountered each other on Marston Moor, the armies of the Parliament had marched to uninterrupted victory. Hitherto, however, they had only had to contend against enemies not very much exceed- ing themselves in number. But a new aspect of affairs now presented itself. A great change had come over the scene between 1585, when the Netherlanders had shown an eager desire to be- come the subjects of Queen Elizabeth, and 1648 9, when the English Parliament brought their King to a public trial and a public execution ; declared their Government to be a Commonwealth, or Republic, like the Government of the Netherlands, and invited the Netherlanders, or Hollanders (as they then began to be caUed), to enter into a close alliance— to come, as they termed it, to "oneness" ^ with them. But the times had changed, and with the change of times a strange change had come over the minds of the 'Speech of Thomas Scot, in Eichard CromweU's first Parliament, reported in Burton's Diary. VOL. II. B / '''*'''-*-*^-^*^- **"*""*-' COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VII. Netherlanders. Tlie Nebherlanders of the latter years of the 16th century had shown themselves most anxious and eager to obtain the aid of their fellow-Protestants of Eng- land, against the sacerdotal and royal tyranny of the Pope of Eome and the King of Spain. The Netherlanders of the middle of the 17th century, so far from receiving in a frank and friendly spirit the proffered alliance of the Protestant English Parliament, were actually willing to employ against England not only their own naval power, then the greatest in the world, but to transport into Eng- land and Ireland troops, under the command of the Duke of Lorraine,^ one of the commanders of the army of the Catholic League in the Thirty Years' War, just ended — troops who had formed a portion of the disciplined brigands of Wallenstein and Tilly, and who had shared in the storm and sack of Magdeburg, when that unfortunate city was given up to pillage for three days, and thirty thousand of the inhabitants were put to the sword. And these foreign brigands were to be joined by large bodies of the native Irish, according to a treaty between the Duke of Lorraine and Viscount Taff,^ and were thus to be enabled to accom- plish that work of murder, rapine, burning, torture, and endless abominations, which Charles I. and his Medici- Bourbon Queen had before planned, by way of punishment, for their rebellious English subjects, and in particular for London, " the rebellious city," as they called it.^ By the treaty mentioned, the forces of the Duke of Lorraine were to be brought by the Dutch fleet into ^ The evidence of this from MS., as p. 212 et seq. Wishart's Memoirs of well as printed documents, will be given Montrose, p. 32 et seq. ; and Appendix, in subsequent pages. p. 422 et seq. Baillie's Letters and * See Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. Journals, vol. ii. pp. 73, 74 (Edinburgh 389, 390. Second edition, London, 1841). Append, to Carte's Ormonde, 172L pp. 3, 4 et seq. Carte's Letters, vol. i. • Burnet's Mem. of the Hamiltons, pp. 19, 20. Burnet's Hist. vol. i. p. 74. ■''i 1651.] PROJECTED INVASION OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 3 Ireland, " in order to extirpate all heretics out of that nation, to re-establish the Eomish religion in all parts of it, and to restore the Irish to their possessions ; all which being performed, he should deliver up the authority to the King of Great Britain, and assist him against his rebel- lious subjects in England: that aU Ireland should be engaged for his reimbursement : that Galway, Limerick, Athenree, Athlone, Waterford, and the fort of Duncannon should be put into his hands as cautionary places." ^ It appears, however, from some MS. minutes of the Order Books of the Council of State, which I will quote subsetjuently, that a landing was to be made in England, on the coast of Suffolk, whence the foreign brigands of this Duke of Lorraine could, as they fancied, easily march upon London, which they had been given to understand was a city far more wealthy and far more defenceless than Magdeburg. If they had been told that the English were an unwarlike race — a race to be plundered and butchered more easily than the burghers of Magdeburg— and should ever chance to come to a death-grapple with the soldiers of Dunbar and Naseby, they might peradventure find themselves somewhat out in their reckonings. The name of the Duke of Lorraine — of whose family the House of Guise was a15ranch^occurring here, reminds us of one significant feature of this great English Civil War ; reminds us that this war bore a certain affinity to the great conspiracy of the Pope and the King of Spain and the Duke of Guise, against the liberties, civil and religious, of all mankind. For (besides the fact of this Duke of Lorraine's having been one of the commanders of the Catho- lic League in the Thirty Years' War) in the preceding age, ' LudloVe Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 389, 390. p2 I ■"-•-• '^-'■"■"■toi^ Jal[4mataiWMSi..l 4 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLANI;. [Chap. VII. 1651.] when there was no hope of issue of Henry III. of France, it had been the determination of Henrj^s mother, Cathe- rine de' Medici, that the children of her daughter, the Duchess of Lorraine, should succeed to the throne of France. A branch of the sovereign House of LoiTaine, which settled in France in the beginning of the 16th century, bore the title of Dukes of Guise — a name of evil omen, fipr it is indelibly connected in history with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; all the preliminary details of that transaction having been arranged by Henry Duke of Guise, a man of an infamous pre-eminence, even in an age fruitful in deeds of treachery and murder. James V. of Scotland had married a daughter of the House of Guise, who after the death of James, being for a time Regent of Scotland, attempted to establish despotism and Roman- ism, and to extirpate heresy after the fashion of the House of Guise. His daughter was Mary Stuart, the grand- mother of Charles 1. And if Charles I. and his Queen (who, as well as himself, was related to the House of Guise and Lorraine), had not precisely the same relation of cause and effect with the Irish massacre of English Pro- testants, which Henry of Guise had with the St. Bartholo- mew massacre of French Protestants, the Irish massacre would certainly not have taken place if the Irish had not believed that the Queen encouraged it.* THE NETHERLANDS IN 16ol. » The Earl of Essex told Bishop Burnet, " That he had taken all the pains he could to inquire into the original of the Irish massacre, but could not see reason to believe the King was accessory to it ; but he did believe that the Queen did hearken to the propositions made by the Irish, who undertook to take the Government of Ireland into their own hands, which they thought they could perform, and then they promised to assist the King against the hot spirits of Westminster. With this the insurrection began, and all the Irish believed the Queen en- couraged it." {Hist, of His Own Times, vol. i. p. 41.) The editor of the Ox- ford edition (1833) of Burnet's History, N Such were some of the allies with whom the Nether- landers of 1651 thought fit to leage themselves against the Protestant Parliament of England. What was the cause of this great change in the con- duct of the Netherlanders ? There were several causes. In the first place, by the Peace of Westphalia, con- cluded in October 1648— which put an end not only to the Thirty Years' War in Germany, but to the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands— the United l^tates of the Netherlands were recognised as independent States. In the second place, whHe the naval power of Spain had in a note on this passage, merely cites the opinion of Mr. Brodie {Histori/ oj the British Empire, vol. iii. p. 199, note, Edin. 1822), that he "cannot dis- tinguish between the King and Queen, considering tlieir dark correspondence and joint plots." Mr. Morrice, the chaplain of the first Eai-l of Orrery (before Lord Broghill), in his Memoirs of that nobleman, prefixed to the Earl of Orrery's State Letters (2 vols. Dub- lin, 1743), tells the following story respecting the commission under the Great Seal under which the Irish pro- fessed to act : " Lord Orrery took an opportunity one day, when alone with Mu.skerry, who happened then to be in a pleasant open humour, to ask him how the rebels obtained that com- mission, which they showed, under tlie King's great seal? Lord Muskerry answered, ' I will be free and unre- served with you. It was a forged commission, drawn up by Walsh and others, who having a writing to which the Great Seal was fixed, one of the company very dexterously took off the sealed wax from the label of that writ- ing, and fixed it to the label of the forged commission. Wliilst this was doing, an odd accident happened, which startled all present, and had al- most entirely disconcerted the scheme. The forged commission l^eing finished, wliile the parchment was handling and turning, in order to put on the seal, a tame wolf, which lay asleep by tlie fire, awakened at the crackling of the parchment, and running to it, seized it, and tore it to pieces, not- withstanding all haste and struggle to prevent him : so that, after their pains, they were obliged to begin anew, and write it all over again.' Lord Orrery, struck with the wickedness of this transaction, could not refrain express- ing himself to that purpose to Lord Muskerry, who laugliingly replied, « It would have been impossible to have held the people together without this device.' "—Memoirs of Roger, Earl of Orrery (pp. 73, 74), prefixed to the State Letters of Roger Boyle, the first Earl of Orrerj', Lord President of Munster in Ireland (2 vols. Dub- lin, 1743). He was the fifth son of Richard, Earl of Cork, and in 1628, when only seven years old, was created Lord Broghill, ■'"■■■" ^»" 6 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VII. been rapidly declining, the naval power of the ISTetlierlands had been as rapidly increasing, so that at this particular time, the middle of the 17th century, it was the greatest naval power then in the world; and its masters looked upon England with very different sentiments from those of their predecessors, who had earnestly and humbly sought for the aid of England against the tyranny of Spain. There was a third cause, the consideration of which will throw light upon a very prominent feature in the history of Modem Europe. About a century, and a half or, at most, two centuries before this time, the doctrine of the sanctity and divinity of kingship had arisen in Europe. It would delay us too long to trace here all the causes of that rise. It will be suflacient to say that the rise was sudden and rapid, and that the idea soon acquired great strength. Of both the rapid rise of this idea, and the strength which it speedily acquired, a proof is afforded in the general horror excited, about the beginning of the 16th century, by the rebellion or treason (as it was called) of the famous Constable de Bourbon against Francis I. of France ; while, not many years before, the frequent conspiracies of Louis XII., when Duke of Orleans, were viewed as common occurrences of no extraordinary criminality. This idea * spread itself over Europe, and of course passed into England, where it coloured the writings o£ the most popular writers, who were then the dramatists. Shakspeare's dramas are full of the "divinity that doth hedge a king," and Shakspeare's dramas had far more influence oh the popular mind than Milton's pamphlets. A cotemporary of Shakspeare, Sir Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, the friend and biographer of Sir Philip Sidney, has a line, of which one 1651.] THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS. of the lines oftenest quoted from Pope's " Essay on Man " is but an alteration — a line embodying an apophthegm pointedly expressive of the spirit of kingship of the 16th century: "Men would be tyrants, tyrants would be gods." * Under such circumstances, it is evident that the daring men who publicly cut off a king's head, though solemnly professing that they did that execution as an act of public justice, were, considered merely as politicians, playing a very dangerous game : for all their great deeds, in which they manifested so much genius and so much valour, were insufficient in so short a time to extirpate from the popu- lar mind the notion that " there is a divinity doth hedge a king," 2 — even a king like Charles IX. of France, and a queen like his mother Catherine de' Medici. Such force had this notion acquired, that a Protestant archbishop actually published at the end of his character of that com- pound of blood and mud, that embodiment of all the vices of Tiberius without his talents, James I., these lines, " penned," says the archbishop, " by a learned divine " : Princes are gods ; oh do not then Eake in their graves to prove them men ! • It is hardly too much to say, that this idea of the divinity * Pope's line is, " Men would be angels, angels would be gods." (Essay on Man, Epist. i. v. 126.) What Can- ning, in " New Morality," has said of a very inferior vVl 'g fffBlV may be said here of Pope, that he " mars the verso he steals." ►^.-,*=.*-«wt. 2 According to Lord Leicester, when the Act for taking away kingly go- vernment was proclaimed by the Lord Mayor and fifteen Aldermen in full ex- change time, "the people murmured and began to rise, but were soon sup- pressed by some troops of horse that were ready in arms." — Lord Leicester's Journal, May 30, 1649, p. 73, in Syd- ney Papers, edited by E. W. Blencowe (London, 1825). ^ Archbishop Spottiswood's History of the Church of Scotland, xvol. iii. p. 270, Bannatyne Club edition. — The lines quoted by Spottiswood furnish a curious verification of the line just quoted from Lord Brooke. S COMMONWKILTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VII. of kingship threw back civiHsation more than two hundred years. It cast its aegis over the most revolting cruelties and the most hideous crimes when performed bj crowned criminals. No stronger proof of its force could be afforded than the fact that, in 1584, the Netherlanders, who had been fighting so long and bravely for liberty of conscience before they applied to Queen Elizabeth, sent an embassy to Henry in. of France, that worthy son of Catherine de' Medici, offering to him the sovereignty of their country to that Medici Yalois, of whom the English ambassador, Sir Edward Stafford, speaks in almost precisely the same terms in which the French ambassador. Count Tillieres speaks of James the I. :_« Unhappy people ! to have such a king, who seeketh nothing but to impoverish them to enrich his favourites, and who careth not what cometh after his death;" and whose court was a place of which '' impiety the most cynical, debauchery the most unveiled public and unpunished homicide, private murders by what was called magic, by poison, by hired assassins, crimes natural, unnatural, and preternatural, were the common characteristics." ^ It is in accordance with common experience that a person of weak intellect, like James I., should give himself com- pletely up to the dominion of this idea of the divinity of kingship. But it is not a little surprising to find a person of strong intellect, like Queen Elizabeth, fascinated^ by it •Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. i. p. 40. ^ " Princes," said Queen Elizabeth, in her reply to the Netherland envoys (Feb. 7, N.S. 1587), " transact business in a certain way, and with a princely intelligence such as private persons can- not imitater (Hague Archives, MS., cited in Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. ii. p. 199.) If Her Majesty had been fated to come into contact with the intelligence of some of the statesmen and statesmen-soldiers of the English Commonwealth, she might have seen reason to change her opinion of the respective qualities of princely intelligence and the intelli- gence of private persons. All King 1651.] THE DIVINE EIGHT OF KINGS. 9 to such an extent as to contemplate a marriage with one of the sons of Catherine de' Medici — of that abandoned James's writings, and particularly his " True Law of Free Monarchies " (in which he expounds his notions of his kingly power, and builds, on those passages in the Book of Samuel in which God, after condemning the desire of the Jews to have a king, commands Samuel to show them what oppressions their kings would execute upon them, conclusions in direct logical opposition to the premisses), discover a singular feebleness and obliquity of understanding. It is re- markable that a person of so very different an order of intellect from King James as Hobbes, should have attempted to make the same passage of Scripture subservient to the same purpose. Hobbes, in his " Leviathan," quotes the passage in even a more mutilated shape than his royal pre- decessor in his " True Law of Free Monarchies." Hobbes says : " Con- cerning the right of kings, God him- self, by the mouth of Samuel, saith." He then quotes the verses (1 Samuel viii.) from the 11th to the 17th, and thus proceeds : " This is absolute power, and summed up in the last words. Ye shall be his servants'' Again, taking care to leave out the 19th verse, which is, " Nevertheless tlie people refused to obey the voice of Samuel ; and they said. Nay, but we will have a king to reign over us " (in which suppression of the truth he even exceeds James in dishonesty), Hobbes goes on thus : " When the people heard what power their king was to have, yet they consented thereto, and said thus — We will be as other nations, and our king shall judge our causes, and go before us to conduct our wars. Here is confirmed the right that sovereigns have, both to the militia, and to all judicature, in which is contained as absolute power as one man can pos- sibly transmit to another." {Levia- than, part ii. chap. xx. p. 105, folio. London, 1651). A strange confirma- tion ! In the first place, the voice of the Jewish multitude is quoted as if it were the voice of God, althougli the context expressly declares the contrary : and in the second place, might not the Jewish people choose to be go- verned by a king without that being any argument whatever, either for the divinity of the institution, or for its being adopted by other nations ? Some writers have of late years objected to Hobbes being called " the apologist of tyranny." I also at one time thought that Hobbes had been hardly dealt with, and the effect produced in the way of clear thinking, on the subject both of mental and political philosophy, by his powerful and original under- standing, not sufficiently appreciated. But the example of flagrantly dis- honest dealing with evidence whicli I have here pointed out, appears to place a man in almost as bad a category as being the apologist of tyranny, or the apologist of anything else that is bad. The mode in which King James and Hobbes have dealt with this passage of Scripture is the more remarkable, when contrasted with the use made of it by Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice and afterwards Lord Chancel- lor under King Henry VI., in his work on the " Difference between an Abso- lute and Limited Monarchy" (pp. 4-6, edn. London, 171 -i). Fortescue, writ- ing before kingship had set up its 1^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIL woman, half poisoner, half procuress, who had by cold calculation plunged her sons into the deepest debauchery, that their enervated faculties might render them the slaves of her will in political affairs, and whose daughter, the Medici-Yalois Messalina, the Bartholomew-massacre wife of Henry of Navarre, made the miniature Court of Pan almost equal, in vice if not in splendour, the voluptuous- ness and infamy of the Louvre. It is impossible that Queen Elizabeth could have been entirely ignorant of the character of the Court of the Louvre at that time, and of the Medici-Valois famHy at the head of it ; and the only explanation of her conduct would seem to be that the boundary-lines between vice and virtue, between good and evil, were for the time effaced. Indeed, the cotemporary evidence seems to lead to this conclusion. For instance, Brantome, who was considered one of the most accom- plished noblemen and courtiers of Charles IX., while he recounts actions that stamp the authors of them as tho- roughly deserving Samuel Johnson's coarse but expressive character of Lord Chesterfield, always begins or ends by informing us that those personages were tres-helles et tres- honnetes dames or demoiselles. The most abandoned of the female worthies whose lives he details, are characterised by him as both illustrious ladies and good Christians. But this was quite in keeping with the moral and religious code of an age which designated Philip 11. of Spain " the most Catholic " and Heniy III. of Prance " the most Christian king." claim to divinity, deals honestly with the passage, and says that God was greatly offended with the desire of the Jews to have a king, and charged Samuel to declare unto them the vari- ous oppressions and evils they would be subjected to under a king. The idea of turning this passage of Scrip- ture into an argument in favour of the divinity of kingship is one of the most audacious perversions of truth in the whole history of imposture. 1651.] PUKITANISM IN THE 16th AND 17th CENTURIES. 11 There is an incident connected with that contemplated marriage of the English Queen with the effeminate and in- cestuous Medici-Valois, which stamps in strong characters the cruel and tyrannical disposition of the daughter of that Tudor tyrant — that amiable man, according to a modern historical discovery, who had the misfortune to have so many bad wives ! David Hume thus tells the story : " A Puritan^ of Lincoln's Inn had written a passionate book, which he entitled ^ The Gulph in which England will be swallowed by the French Marriage.' He was apprehended and prosecuted by order of the Queen, and was condemned to lose his right hand as a libeller." " A Puritan of Lin- coln's Inn ! " Hume probably thought, when he branded this unfortunate gentleman with the term Puritan, that he was a religionist of the intolerant and tyrannical Presby- terian type, which in the 18th century, as well as in the * "Puritanism — a form of religion which Elizabeth detested, and in which, with keen instinct, she detected a mu- tinous element against the divine right of kings." (Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. i. p. 351.) It is but justice to Leicester to add what Mr. Motley says of him in the same place : " Leicester, to do him justice, was thoroughly alive to the importance of the crisis. On political principle, at any rate, he was a firm supporter of Protestantism, and even of Puritan- ism." {Ibid.) While there can be little doubt that there was a large substra- tum of materials against the character of Leicester, there can be as little doubt that upon that was built a large super- structure of falsehood by the Jesuit emissaries of the Pope and the Spa- niard — probably the largest, the most adroit, and the most unscrupulous dealers in falsehood in the whole his- tory of the world. And the Jesuits themselves were outdone in their own trade by "the most Catholic king," Philip II. of Spain, whose falsehood was upon a level with his bigotry and cruelty : " To lie daily, through thick and thin, and with every variety of circumstance and detail which a genius fertile in fiction could suggest, such was the simple rule prescribed to Far- nese by his sovereign. And the rule was implicitly obeyed, and the English sovereign thoroughly deceived." {Ibid. vol. ii. p. 311.) If Queen Elizabeth really possessed the practical ability for which she has long had credit, it seems incredible that she should have placed any faith in the words either of Philip II., or of Farnese, or of the Medici, or the Valois. Would Cromwell or Vane have been duped by them ? Certainly not. 12 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VII. 19th in Scotland, gave the same meaning to the term "free church" that James I. gave to "free monarchy "- that IS, free to do what they liked, and to hinder all other people from doing what they liked. And he probably did not know that the royal and courtly and sacerdotal tyrants of the 16th and 17th centuries sought to brand with the title of Puritan all men who objected to vices not only natural but unnatural, and to wearing the attire of women, and not of women only, but of harlots. For it was not only in the polluted halls and chambers of the Louvre that the degraded Henry III., the last of that Medici- Valois brood, exhibited himself attired like a woman and a harlot, and surrounded by a gang of " minions " such as the world had not seen since the age of Nero and Sporus ; but a few years later, Somerset and Buckingham,^ with their master James, revived in the palace of White'- hal] the infamies of the Louvre, the horrible crimes as well as the revolting vices. Mrs. Turner, who was executed for being accessory to the murder of Sir Thomas Over- bury, though the real criminals, the Earl and Countess of Somerset, were allowed to escape by "James the Just," shortly before her execution exclaimed against the court, " wonders the earth does not open to swallow up so wicked a place! "2 Surely Admiral Blake had some ground for the saying attributed to him, that " monarchy was a kind of government the world was weary of! "3 ' " Osborne says that Somerset and Buckingham laboured to resemble women in the eifeminaey of their dress, and exceeded even the worst in the grossness of their gestures."— Note by Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Somers' Tracts, vol. ii. p. 488. 2 Conference between Dr. John Whit- ing and Mrs. Turner, Nov. 11, 1615. (MS. State Paper Office.) ^Sir Edward Hyde to Secretary Nicholas, Madrid, Feb. 9, 1651. (Cla- rendon State Papers, vol. iii. p. 27.) Aubrey, after mentioning that Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, was wont to say that "man vas but a great mis- chievous baboon," continues (Letters 1651.] THE DIVINE EIGHT OF KINGS. 13 Such was the tyrannous force in that age of the idea of the supposed necessity of kingship, that the hardy and industrious Netherlanders, who had thrown off the yoke of one crowned tyrant, and had been fighting for sixteen years rather than return to that yoke, were willing to accept the sovereignty of a king like the last Yabis, because that thing " the semblance of a kingly crown had on." Failing in their attempt to induce the Medici- Valois to accept the sovereignty of their country, the Nether- landers then applied to Elizabeth Tudor, who, albeit but the great-granddaughter of a Welsh squire and a London citizen, stood as punctiliously upon the divinity of her queenship, as if she had actually been, what Walter Scott has called her, " the daughter of a hundred kings." What between her own iU-temper and penuriousness, and the want of decision and clearheadedness of her principal min- ister, Burghley, " puzzled himself and still more puzzling to others," 1 small was the benefit which the Netherlanders reaped from Queen Elizabeth. If she had sent as her Lieutenant-general a man of ability, instead of the shal- low-brained intriguer and court favourite, Leicester, the Netherlanders might perhaps have reaped more benefit, even from the smaU assistance she sent them. But no great soldier or sailor, no CromweU or Blake, could ever and Lives, vol. ii. p. 381) : " He would say that we Europeans knew not how to order or govern our women, and that tlie Turks were the only people who used them wisely. ... He had been physician to the Lord-Chancellor Bacon, whom he esteemed much for his wit and style, but would not allow him to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, ' He writes philosophy like a lord-chancellor,' speaking in de- rision." Morally and socially, the x^ourt-party of that age, including some men of the highest intellectual endowments (Han-ey himself. Bacon, and Hobbes), were indeed " but great mischievous baboons." If the Puri- tan insurrection against those moral baboons had not succeeded, Harvey might have had his wish, and England might have fallen to the moral, social, and political condition of Turkey. • Motleys History of the United Netherlands, vol. i. p. 88. 1^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIL flourish under the poisonous shade of a court minion, such as Leicester or Buckingham. Besides the charge of incapacity, charges of frightful crimes were made against Leicester ; and if these charges were never satisfactorily proved, it must be remembered that proof was extremely difficult in that age, in the case of a royal favourite. In the case of Somerset and the murder of Overbury, there had been less profound ai-tifice than Leicester was master of; and, besides, the King was then tired of Somerset, and wished for an excuse to be rid of him. If Leicester was innocent of perhaps the foulest crime imputed to him, the murder of his first wife— and aU that a coroner's inquest, said to be rather hostile than otherwise, could make of it was that the unfortunate lady was killed by a fall downstairs^~he must be considered as a deeply calumniated man; for the tale has now taken such root, that his very name calls up the phantom of a man who murdered poor Amy Eobsart, that he might have the chance of marrying a red-haired, hook-nosed shrew, with ' In that age murder, as well as for- gery of handwriting, was an art as carefully studied as the professions of law and physic. And if the unhappy Amy Eobsart was killed in the manner described by Scott, in «' Kenilworth," her dead body would present the same appearances which a fall downstairs would produce. What then could the coroner's jury make of it? As Mr. Motley truly says, ♦' The secret deeds of a man placed so high can be seen but darkly through the glass of con- temporary record. There was no tri- bunal to sit upon his guilt. A grandee could be judged only when no longer a favourite, and the infatuation of Eliza- beth for Leicester terminated only with his life." {United Netherlands, Tol. i. p. 367.) The trial of Somerset for the murder of Overbury was allowed to take its course. Why? Because the infatuation of- King James had been transferred from Somerset to Buckingham. The same James, for reasons best known to him- self, had murdered the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, Alexander Euthven, and put forth a tissue of the most as- tounding falsehoods about a pretended conspiracy; so that the Divine Eight and Jacobite writers of after-times, who profess to believe a man who was the greatest liar in Christendom after the death of Philip II. of Spain, tell us nursery-tales about an aifair they call the ' Gowrie Conspiracy.' 1651.] DIVINE-RIGHT TYRANNY. 15 thin lips and black teeth. Be that as it may, it is certain that Leicester was an arrogant, intemperate, and incapable man — incapable, at least, in everything that constitutes a man either a great statesman or a great soldier. For he was capable enough in all the base arts by which court favourites become rich and powerful — in filling his purse by the sale of honours and dignities, in violent ejectments from and in the manufacture of fraudulent titles to land, in rapacious enclosures of commons, in taking bribes for matters of justice, and of supplication to the royal authority. Besides the charges of poisoning (if but half of which could be believed, neither Csesar Borgia, nor his father nor sister, were more accomplished in that infamous art), Leicester was also accused, falsely or not, of forging various letters to the Queen to ruin his political adversaries, and of plots to entrap them into conspiracies — playing first the accom- plice, and then the informer. The career of this Eobert Dudley, created by Queen Elizabeth Earl of Leicester, was worthy of his origin: for he was the grandson of that "horseleech"^ lawyer, who, with Empson, had been the instrument employed by Henry YII. in oppressing and pillaging the people of England, and who, as a reward for his subservience to the tyrant father, Henry YIL, lost his head in the first year of the reign of the tyrant son, Henry YIIL One principal * Lord Bacon, in his "History of King Henry VII.," says : " And as kings do more easily find instruments for their will and humour than for their service and honour, he had gotten for his purpose, or beyond his purpose, two instruments, Empson and Dudley, whom the people esteemed as his horse- leeches and shearers — bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master's grist. Dudley was of a good family, eloquent, and one that could put hateful business into good language. But Empson, that was the son of a sieve-maker, triumphed always upon the deed done, putting off all other respects whatsoever." — Hist, of the Reign of King Henry VII., p. 380 (in vol. iii. of Montagu's edition of Lord Bacon's Works). 1^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIL mode of oppression and plunder employed by him and Empson, had been an abuse of that incident of the feudal tenures, termed Escheat, by which, under certain circum- stances, lands escheated or fell back to the lord who gave them, which in the case of the tenants in capite would be to the king. The officers to whom it belonged to enquire into the escheats that feU to the crown were called es- cheators. The abuses to which this office was liable are thus set forth in the preamble of the Statute 1 Henry VIII. cap. 8, intituled " The Act of Escheators and Commis- sioners:"-" Forasmuch as divers of the king's subjects lately have been sore hurt, troubled, and disherited by Escheators and Commissioners, causing untrue offices to be found, and sometimes returning into the courts of re- cord offices and inquisitions that were never found, and sometimes changing the matter of the offices that were truly found, to the great hurt, trouble, and disherison of the king's true subjects," &c. Thus from the abuse of this office, the word "escheator " came to have the meaning of a fraudulent person, and gave rise to the common words "cheat" and "cheater." Shakspeare, in the following passage, uses the word at once in its old and new sense : " I wHl be cheater to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me." From this escheator, cheater, or cheat descended the magnificent court favourite. Queen Elizabeth's "sweet Eobin,"the husband of the ill-starred Amy Eobsart, and the husband or lover of at least two other nearly as unfortunate women. For the " gipsy" (as he was called, from his dark complexion) was, to say the least, a dangerous man ; and the power which he owed neither to genius nor to virtue, but to the caprice of the imperious woman who then filled the English throne, had been used for the ruin of many women as weU as many men. The infatuation of Queen Elizabeth 165LJ DIVINE-IIIGHT NOBILITY. 17 in favour of Robert Dudley will ever remain one of the greatest stains on her memory. Indeed, the whole history of these Dudleys is a most instructive illustration of the government of the Tudors, under which the old nobility — who, whatever their faults, were warriors and statesmen — gave place to a nobility of pettifoggers, of horseleech lawyers, and court minions, the basest of all things wearing a human shape. The peerages of, perhaps, the three greatest historical families in the English an- nals (the De Montforts, the Percys, and the Nevills) were absorbed by the Dudleys, whose cognizance was heredi- tary baseness ; and the great historic titles of Leicester, of Northumberland, and of Warwick, as if to show into what a depth of degradation tyranny can plunge a nation, were conferred upon the brood of the horseleech of Henry VII. If we must have a hereditary nobility, it should be distinguished by something else than the faculty of giving to the old word " escheator" the new meaning of common cheat or cheater — by something else than hereditary servi- lity, hereditary falsehood, cruelty, insolence, and baseness. That age of transition from the old barbarism to the new civilisation presents a picture of startling contrasts : of the genius of Shakspeare, of Spenser, of Ealeigli, of Bacon, side by side with the rack, the faggot, and the branding- iron ; of Leicester, the gorgeous minion of court-favour, rustling in satin and feathers, with jewels in his ears — such was the taste of the Tudor Queen, who spoke the language and could relish the genius of Shakspeare — side by side with William the Silent, in coarse unbuttoned doublet, and bargeinaii'^s' woollen waistcoat. No wonder that, when the gorgeous courtier of Queen Elizabeth went to Holland, "everybody wondered at the great magnifi- cence and splendour of his clothes." The Hollanders had VOL. II. o 18 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VII. not been used to consider satin and feathers, and jewels in the ears, as essential portions of the materials that went to make either a statesman or a soldier. And in the short period of England's annals-namely, from rebruary 164-B- to Aprd 1653, a period of less than five years-when Eng! land was governed by men who were statesmen in the best sense of the word, neither satin, nor feathers, nor jewels iia , the ears, formed a portion of the machinery of government. . I^is man, this Robert Dudley, owed his favour with Queen Ehzabeth-whose infatuation for him lasted till his death, when, true to her character, she had, while drop- ping a tear upon the grave of " sweet Eobin," sold his goods by auction to defray his debts to herself-to the beauty of his person, and the talent which he possessed of adroit adulation towards women. He is described bv eo temporaries as "tall and singularly well-featured, of a sweet aspect,^but high-foreheaded, which was of no discommen- dation. But wnen we look at his face, as the painter's art has transmitted it to us, we see little to convey to us the fovourable impression which that face gave to Queen Elizabeth. Tor though his forehead may be hil it wants breadth ; the small aquiline nose and small mo^th want the character of intellectual power; the eyebrows are weak, and the eyes somewliat sinister ; and altogether the face and head have nothing of the grandeur, either of resolution or of inteUect, which stamps the outward aspect of a great man, a great statesman-soldier, such as the lime and the occasion imperatively demanded, but such as IS never found lackeying either an imperious woman like the las Tudor or an unsexed man like the last Medici-Valois, or tlie nrst Stuart. ' And the Netherlanders-although they had known what It was to be governed by a great man, having but just lost 1651.] FOEEIGN ENEMIES OF THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH. 19 William the Silent, assassinated by the hellish contrivance of the Pope and the Spaniard — were willing", from the sup- posed necessity of kingship, to submit to the government of such a poor imitation of a statesman-soldier as this Eobert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Now the Rump of the Long Parliament of England, whether the fact be viewed with approbation or disapj^ro- bation, were the first in Modern Europe to change a monarchy into another kind of government, and to discard the idea of the necessity of kingship. It will be seen that the English Government of that time had, by their auda- cious act of declaring that kingship was not only not a necessity, but that " the office of a king in this nation was unnecessary, burthensome, and dangerous," added another solid reason to the monarchical despots of Europe for their destruction. For those accursed heretics, who by discarding the Papal supremacy had incurred the deadly enmity of the Pope, and of such t^Tunts and bigots as the Kings of Spain and France, had now to heresy added the frightful crime of regicide ; and were therefore now more than ever to be exterminated, as being at once the enemies of God and of God's representatives on earth. The conse- quence was that the English Government of the middle of the 17th century had far more formidable enemies to encounter than the Government of Queen Elizabeth in 1588, when the Armada, which Spanish bombast styled '' the Invincible," was ready to sail for the conquest of England. For it seemed as if all the kings and all the nations of the earth were suddenly banded together, for the destruction of those daring men who had brought their king to a pub- lic trial and a public execution, and now called themselves c2 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. I I 20 [Chap. VII. the Commonwealth of England. French ships' made prize of all English vessek naf =+^^ , thpn, A fl . . 1 "^"""^ ^"°"»^ t« resist them A fleet under Prince Eupeit, after having com- mitted great plunder of English merchant-ships, and many atrocious acts of piracy, was protected in /o^ugal from the fleet of the Parliament. In Eussia the Englfsh merchants were insulted and iUtreated by the Government.^ Ascham the agent of the Parliament in Spain, was assas- sinated ^,,,,,^ ^,,, ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ by the Government of Spain. Dorislaus, soon after his arrival as the agent of the English Parliament, wa assassinated in Holland, and the assassins were pen litled to escape, though the Dutch Government was a rep^bl ' make hostile demonstrations. «tt ^'^"r.t*'''/'*' "' ^"™I'^ ^* *^^t ti-e will show at once that the Parliament of England stood alone ; for the Senate of Hamburg, if it had been disposed t; be ' I will give one or two cases from the MS. Minutes of the Council of State. On one day, the 9th of Janu- ary, 16|§, there is a statement of losses of the English merchants by French ships, to the amount of 60.260/ in the ship ' Talent ; ' of 9,838/. in the ' Mercury ; ' of 32.763/. in the ' Grey- lioun(l;'_forall whichletters ofmarque or reprisal were granted, under the great seal of the High Court of Admi- valty.— OrdeT- Book of the Council of State, Jan. 9, 16|,^, MS. State Paper Office. That a letter be prepared to be sent to the Emperor of Eussia, con- cerning the denying our merchants to trade in Russia as formerly; and that the merchants do give in the titles and the matter of the letter to the Council." — Order Book of the Council of State die Lunae, Dec. 24, 1649. " That the' draught of the letter to the Emperor of Russia be reported to the House by Sir James Harrington."-//,,-^. Jan. 4, \Q~, MS. State Paper Office. ' " That a letter be written to the Senate of Hamburg, to take notice unto them of the restraint which they have laid upon the heads of our mer- chants there, for taking the engage- ment, to expostulate the matter with theni, ' &c.~OrdcrBookofthe Council oj btate, die Mart is, Jan. 1, i6ii? MS. State Paper Office. - That the Latin letter prepared by Mr. Milton and now read at the Council, to be sent to the. Senate of Hamburg, be fair-written, signed, and sent."_/i^•^ Jan. 4, 16|§. 1651.J PROGRESS OF DESPOTISM IN EUROPE. 21 friendly, was not strong enough to be an ally of any im- portance, and the Dutch Government, for reasons which Avill be mentioned presently, was far more likely to be an enemy than a friend. In all the other Eurojiean Govern- ments the principle of military despotism had by this time already acquired such force, as to regard the X3rinciple of constitutional liberty, for which the English Parliament fought, as dangerous and hateful ; and all the European tyrants, from Moscow to Copenhagen, from Stockholm to Madrid, would have rejoiced to- see England effaced from the list of nations, if her people could not be reduced to the servile condition of their own subjectsr" Since theTniddlet)ftheT5tli century the progress of events had all been in the direction of absolute monarchy. Any popular liberty which had existed in the Italian Eex^ublics had been long dead. In Spain, in France, in Germany, even in Denmark and Sweden, all constitutional bulwarks against the excesses of kingly power had perished, or were perishing. The nobles were impoverished and powerless. The sword had fallen from their hands, and from those of their once warlike vassals, into those of standing armies ; and the power which belonged to them, when they were a military aristocracy, had passed to the kings who were mas- ters of the standing armies. The Free or Hanse Towns had lost their independence, and were at the mercy of the nearest robber-tyrant, who pursued his own and his family's aggran- disement with some diplomatic jargon in his mouth, and with an utter disregard of all the laws of God and man. As in the time of the Idumean Emir, " the tabernacles of robbers prospered." Except in the Parliament of England, not a vestige remained of those assemblies of freemen, in which, among the ancient Germans and Franks, the affairs of the nation were debated and settled. All authorities, I I i COMMONAVEALTII OP ENGLAND. 22 [Chap. VII. corporate or individual, which had protected the people from the encroachments of their kings, lost, one after another their power, and then totally disappeared; as, according to the Greek superstition, at the incantation of the Thessalian witches, the stars, one by one, faded from the face of iieaven : — As one by one, at clroad Medea's strain, ihe sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain • As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd ' Uos d one by one in everlasting rest. ^Jrafr \T "-^''''^ ^^^ ^' ^-^P^ *^e fonns as ^mgiy lust had uncontrollable dominion^ > Eankes "Nine Books of Prussian IlistorjV of which an English transla- tion (by Sir Alexander and Lady Duff Gordon) has been published, under the title of "Memoirs of the House of Bran- denburg, and Histoiy of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cen- tunes," but which might be more aptly intituled a " Panegj-ric on the House of Brandenburg, and History of the Pro- gress of Despotism in Europe," show liow that family robl)ed their own subjects of their constitutional or tra- chtional rights, as they afterwards robbed their neighbours of their pro- perty. A maxim of the Elector Fre- derick William was. that "no privilege should stand in the way of a needful reform." And his historian says, " We liave seen how little regard he paid to traditional rights." " He was without mercy in dealing %vith individual op- ponents, as the example of Paul Ger- Jiard sufficiently proves. His rule was by no means easy or popular. AVe find complaints that words were rec- koned as criminal as deeds." All this, which will remind the reader of Eng- lisli history of Charles I. and Sir John Eliot, is defended by the plea of " the necessities of his position."— i?^,?;^^ vol. i. p. 72. Charles I. considered the pnver to raise money without consent of Parliament, and to keep a standing army with it, to oppress and insult his subjects, a "needful reform '» called for by the " necessities of his position ; " but he found the English- man a rather more dangerous subject to make experiments upon than his cotemporary kings or electors found Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Germans The sophistry by which the German writers defend tyranny may be seen by the following sentence, in which the writer, after mentioning that at this time the rights and liberties of constitutional States were "greatly abridged throughout Europe," adds • "Frederick William was compelled by his position, and incited hy the public opinion of his country, to engage in a similar contest, and to strive to de- Telope the idea of sovereignty as he 1651.] VIGILANCE OF THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT. 23 None of these Powers had, indeed, yet made anything like a formal declaration of war. But though the English Parliament expressed their disposition to friendly relations with all their neighbours, they had good reason to know that the intentions and feelings of the Powers of Europe were the reverse of friendly to them, and that any oppor- tunity for effecting their desti'uction would be eagerly laid hold of. They were not, however, men to be taken off their guard. They had emissaries everywhere. They paid con- siderable sums for secret service; and they obtained intelligence of the plots of their enemies in all parts of Europe, from Stockholm to Madrid, and from Moscow to the Hague. ^ had conceived it." — Ibid. p. 48. He was as much " incited by the public opinion of his country" as Charles I. was incited to levy ship-money by the public opinion of his country. * There are manv minutes in the Order Book relating to the " matter of intelligence." Thus (Feb, 27, IS^-f^), "That Mr. Scot be continued in tliat trust for the matter of intelligence which was executed bv him the last year, with the same power and salary for the year to come." — Order Buck of the CouncU of State, MS. State Paper Office. "That the letter from Paris, concerning the setting out of ships at Toulon, he communicated by the Com- mittee of the Admiralty to the Generals- at-sea, and that they give order for all expedition to be used in setting out^ that fleet, which is to go southward to join with those ships which are under the command of Colonel Blake." —Ibid. March 6, 16ff. "That Mr. Frost do send unto Mons. Augier so much of Langton's examination as relates to the business of Cezi, and to desire him to write over [from France] what lie knows of the said Langton's actions when he was at Btauvoir." " That Mons. Augier shall have liberty to draw Bills of Exchange upon the State to the amount of 300^., to be paid at ten days' sight." " That the commands of this Council be renewed to Mons. Augier to return hither speedily."— /6i A W 1651.] COMMITTEE OF THE NAVY. ,/ 29 give. The physical circumstances in favour of England were that, prbvlcTecIslie prevented invasion from Scotland, the sea, if she was master of it, would protect her from all the world. ''I have already called attention to the great energy and ability with which the affairs of the Navy wef^'conducted by the Gommittee of the Council of State for administering the affairs of the l^avy.^ Of this committee the most active and influential member was Sir Henry Vane, one of the ablest and most indefatigable, as welTas most incorrupt, administrators recorded in history. But Yane'^ though a great statesman, was not, and made no pretensions to be, a fighting man. I believe I have carefully guarded myself from being understood to say, that in such times a Council of State or a Parliament could do the work that had then to be done, further than the selection of fit instruments, and the wise and economical management of the State's re- venues and other resources, could be called doing the work. The work that had to be done absolutely required a great General ajid a great Admiral. Such men were a necessity of the time. But I cannot see how !t follows tliaTit was also a necessity of the time that the great General or great Admiral, who did the work of defeating the enemies of the Parliament of England, should turn out the Parliament from whom he had received his commission, and concen- trate all their powers of sovereignty in his single person. He might do so, but it was not a necessity of the situation, further than being an incident or accident of the situation that has so often happened that it may be apt to be mis- taken for a necessity. Now, in addition to the great energy and ability with f^ 6i _^ I r ' See Vol. I. (p. 49, 77ote 1) for an Committee of the Navy and the Corn- account of the distinction between the missioners of the Na^-v. ^^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VII. ^vhich the Council of State conducted their naval affairs, Providence sent to their assistance a man whose career in the conduct of their naval or foreign wars, was as singular and wonderful as that of Cromwell had^een in the con- I duct of their domestic wars. This man was Eobert Blake, J the greatest Admiral, save one, in th e leijords T5fthe world ; and hi!rcaT«€Mfa5-tl^^^^ though it is usually considered essential to enter the iiaval pro- fession in boyhood, and though Blake"set hKtoot^on deck for the first time as a commander at the age of fifty, he raised in two or three years the naval glory of the English nation to a far greater height than it had ever before at- tained. The height to which he raised it may'be judged from' an incident in his last action, the destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbour of Santa Cruz, in one of the Canary Islands. The EedT^rioss of England was descried at daybreak from the Spanish galleons, and the well-known red^ flag, bearing the arms of the Commonwealth of England embroidered in gold, visible at the maintopgallant mast- head of one of the ships, showed that the redoubted Ad- miral commanded in person. A Dutch captain, who had seen something of the late war, happened to be lying at that moment in the Santa Cruz roadstead with his vessel. When he saw the English admiral's broad pendant, he went straight to the Spanish admiral, and asked his per- mission to leave the roadstead with his vessel. The Spaniard made light of his fears, saying that with the castles, batteries, and earthworks, in addition to his naval force, the position was impregnable. " For all this," said the Dutch captain, " I am very sure that if Blake is there ' The Admiral, or General at Sea (as ' witliin a conipartinent : (or).'— Order lie was then called) bore the arms of Book of the Council of State, March 5, llie Commonwealth on a red flag, 164f, MS. State Paper Office. I ■\ff^ if'^ (J 1651.] ADMIRAL ELAKE. 31 he will soon be ia^the niidst ^of . yoii." " Well," replied the Spaniard, "go if you will, and let Blake come if he dare+" — ^leDiitchman returned to his sliip, hoisted sail, and left the place as fast as he could, and thereby escaped the destruction that overtook all that floated within the Bay of Santa Cruz on that fatal morning. As Blake's character was as disinterested, unselfish, and stainless, as his heart was fearless, and his genius great and fertiley some of the details of the early life of a man so remarkable may not only interest the reader, but may throw light on the characters of other remarkable men of that remarkable time. I \ 1 CHAPTEE VIII. As you enter the Old Chureh at Delft, the first ohject that meets your eye is the magnificent mass of white marble, which forms the monument of Martin Harpertz Tromp,' and represents the Admiral lying at full length, with his head resting upon a ship's gun; and below and around him, carved in basrelief, symbols of the achievements of his stormy and valiant life. The bones of the EngHshman who conquered him lie undistinguighedl^y tomb or epitaph. Robert Blake was born at Bridg^water, in August 1599, the same'yerrp'in the month of April of which Oliver Crom- well was bom ; so that there were but three months between the ages of these two-TTien," one of whom was destined to defeat all the domestic enemies, the other all the foreio-n enemies, of the Parliament of England. Eobert Blake was the eldest son of Humphrey Blake,^ an eminent Bridgewater merchant at a time when the Severn was the great road of England to all parts of the world, and when Bristol and ' The prefix Van to the name of the great Dutch adlSiral, Tromp, though used by Admiral Blake in his letter of 2()th May, 1652, and also in the minutes of the Council of State of the same date, and subsequently by English writers, does not belong to his name; but it does belong to the name of his second son, Admiral Cornel is Van Tromp, created Count Van Tromp by the King of Denmark, to whose as- sistance, in his war with Sweden, Cor- nelis Tromp had been sent with a fleet in 1676. 2 All the particulars that are known respecting Admiral Blake's family will bo found collected with great care and industry-, from femily papers and other MS., as well as printed sources, in 3Ir. Ilepworth Dixon's very in- teresting ffftd valuable life of Admiral Blake, entitled, IMcrt Make, Admiral ^ 1651.] ADIVUR'AL BLAKE. 33 Bridgewater were what Liverpool is now. There is nothing very remarkable known of Blake's boyhood, as showing that early predilection for an active, particularly a seafar- ing life, which might help to account for his future emi- nence as a naval commander. On the contrary, his early bias seems to have been rather for study and meditation, than for making cruises in any of his father's merchant- ships; or, like Cromwell, robbing orchards and pigeon- houses; or, like (fiive, climbing to the top of lofty steeples, or farming the idle lads of the town into a predatory army, for the purpose of exacting from the shopkeepers a tribute of apples and halfpence. Aubrey does indeed mention, on the authority of a cotemporary of Blake at Oxford, that Blake " would steal swans." But even this mani- festation of an "excess of volition," or of predatory daring, if it is to be accepted as sufficiently authenticated, might have been but a resource of Blake on those occa- sions when his favourite mode of relieving his studies, angling, " the contemplative man's recreation," proved, as it often does, unsuccessful. The mclination of Robert Blake's mind being strongly turned to learning and scholarship, after having made considerable progress in Latin and Greek at the grammar-school of Bridgewater, while he lived in his father's house, at the age of sixteen he was sent to Oxford, where he matriculated as a member of St. Alban's Hall in Lent Term, 1615. He soon, how- ever, removed from St. Alban's Hall to Wadliam College — at the request, it is said, of his father's friend, Mcholas Wadliam, a Somersetshire man, who had then recently and General at Sea (London, Chapman donald has done me the very great and 'HsttTTSS^ A new and cheap honourof revising The "naval parts of edition of this work, in the preface to this -narrative,** was published by which Mr. Dixon says, " Lord Dun- Messre. Chapman and Hall in 1868. VOL. II. D m 34 COMMONWEALTH OE ENGLAND. [ClIAP. VIII. i founded tlie college which bears his name, and in the dining-hall of which a portrait of the great Admiral is still shown, as that of the greatest man who had lived and studied within its walls. It is a remarkable circumstance, even in a very remark- able life — particularly when we consider how unusual anything like learning, in the sense of what is called scholarship, is in the naval profession — that Blake was probably the best scholar, the most learned man, of all the eminent public men of his time, unless Milton be con- sidered as one of those men. It seems at that time to have been a cominon^mctice to leave the university with- out taking a degree. Cromwell, Hampden, Wentworth, Pym, Yane, appear to have done so. But Blake resided at Oxford (first at St. Alban's Hall, and afterwards at Wadham College) altogether about eight years, and till he took both his degrees (B.A. and M.A.), as Milton did at Cambridge. Aubrey says that Blake " was there a young man of strong body afid good parts ; that he was an early riser and studied well, but also took his robust pleasures of fishing, fowling, &c. He would," adds Aubrey, " steal swans." ^ During Blake's residence at Oxford, his father had been unprosperous as a merchant, and Blake naturally felt a desire to turn his classical acquirements to some account. A fellowship having fallen vacant at Merton College, of whTCiT Sir Henry Savile, one of James I.'s knights, was at that time warden, Blake offered himself as a competitor for it. But Sir Henry Savile chose his fellows as his master, King James, chose his * Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. note, his authority for this short ac- p. 241(2 vols. 8vo., London, 1813), count of Blako at Oxford — "From printed from the MSS. in the Bodleian H. Norbono, B.D., his contemporary Library, &e. Aubrey subjoins, in a there." 165L] ADMIEAL BLAKE. 35 Lord High Admiral ; and Blake, being only five-feet-six, fell below the Stuart and Savile standard of manhood ; and lost his election, not for want of learning, but for want of stature. Napoleon Bonaparte, Nelson, and Frederic II. would have failed in the competition for a Merton fellowship for the same reason. And neither Blake nor Nelson would have been found to possess the qualities that, in the eyes of King James, fitted a man to be Lord High Admiral of England. Had Blake succeeded in his attempt to obtain a fellowship, how different a fate might have awaited him ! As he trod that quiet path to a quiet grave, the words of that exquisite old English song ^ ascribed to Sir Edward Dyer, a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, might have most^^uly" described his character and his fate : — I feign not lovo where most I hate — I wait not at the mighty's gate ; I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend — I loathe not life, nor dread mine end. He could not indeed have filled a more obscure, at least a more unknown, grave than he does. But the genius and valour that made him the conqueror of the greatest admirals of his own or any past time, and the victor in a hundred storms and battles, would probably have for ever slept within him, unknown even to himself. In regard, however, to Blake's scholarship or learning, it must be admitted to be a point about which we know very little. What we do know is that Blake passed a number of years at Oxford, which he would not have 1 The celebrated song from which MS. copy of it, in the Bodleian Library these linos are taken, is printed in at Oxford, the poem is ascribed to Sir several collections of poems, published Edward Dyer, a friend of Sir Philip in the 16th centuiy. There are many Sidney, variations in the various copies. In a D 2 / x 36 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. passed there had he not liked the place. What did he like it for ? He liked it for its quiet, and for his being there able to lead the life he loved — a silent thoughtful life, with long walks, in which he often seemed absorbed in thought ; as in after-years, when passing some months, before his last expedition, at Knoll, a country-house he had near Bridgewater, in his long morning walks and musings on Knoll Hill, he appeared to his country neighbours to be as if working out in his own mind the details of some of his great battles.^ And further as to scholarship — though, when we consider that English literature then contained no historical or biographical works to be compared to those of the Greek and Roman writers, Blake would pro- bably read with interest the narratives of Thucydides, of Xenophon, of Plutarch, as well as of Csesar, Livy, and Tacitus — it is very improbable that a mind like his would either delight or excel in the composition of Latin verses, to say nothing of Greek. A younger brother of the Admiral, William, v/as also at Oxford, and furnished a Latin epigraph to the book published by the University on the death of Camden the antiquary, which, as Mr. Dixon observes, Anthony Wood falsely attributes to Robert Blake. But it is of far other stuff than that which enables a man to shine in the composition of Greek and Latin verses, or even in the solution of mathematical problems, that the men are made who fight the battles and determine, for good or evil, the fate of nations — a Blake or a Cromwell : A patriot hero, or despotic chief, To form a nation's glory or its grief. We know further of Blake — whether or not it be ' Dixon's Eobert Blake, pp. 266, 267. 165L] CROMWELL'S TASTE FOR PRACTICAL JOKES. 37 considered as in any part due to his Oxford education, to his having learnt " ingenuas fideliter artes " — that he was emphatically what is comprehended in that untranslatable English word gentleman, both in the higher and lower significance of the term ; that he' was' what sucTi men as Cromwell and WeileTic II. of Prussia never were, either as men of sincerity and honour, or as men of thoroughly humane demeanour. Of Frederic, Lord Macaulay has truly said : " He had one taste which may be pardoned to a boy, but which, when habitually and deliberately indulged by a man of mature age and strong understanding, is al- most invariably the sign of a bad heart— a taste for severe practical jokes." Now Cromwell had also this taste for practical jokes, and for dirty practical jokes. Such jokes, which are attended with humiliation and pain to those on whom they are practised, evince even in small things the mind of a tyrant. As with the Prussian tyrant, if a cour- tier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. So the English tyrant, at the marriage of his daughter rraireey-trriarf.'TSich, the grandson and heir of the Earl of Warwick, amused himself by throv^ing about the sack- posset and wet sweetmeats among the ladies to spoil their clothes, and daubed all the stools on which they were to sit with wet sweetmeats. The PruLsian tyrant had some talent for sarcasm ; but in the war of wit against a king, his adversary has no more chance than the wretched gladiator, armed only with a foil of lead, against whom Commodus descended into the arena sword in hand, and, after shedding the blood of the helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate his disgraceful victory. The English tyrant, sa ys Cowley,^ ^^was wanton and merry, » Cowley's Discourse, by way of Vision, concerning the Government of Oliver Promwell. 38 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. vm. 1G51.] ADMIRAL BLAKE'S CHARACTER. 39 1 ' y un wittily and im gracefully merry, with our sufferings ; he loved to say and do senseless and fantastical things, only to show his power of doing or saying anything. It would ill-befit mine, or any civil mouth, to repeat those words which he spoke concerning the most sacred of our English laws — the Petition of Eight and Magna Charta. To-day you should see him ranting so wildly, that nobody durst come near him ; the morrow flinging of cushions and playing at snowballs with his servants," or making his soldiers throw burning coals into one another's boots. "These things, it may be said" (observes LordMacaulay), " are trifles. They are so ; but they are indications, not to be mistaken, of a nature to which the sight of human suffering and human degradation is an agreeable excite- ment." If it is asked how this observation can apply to Cromwell, who has been described as " naturally compas- sionate towards objects in distress to an effeminate degree," I can only answer, that either his extraordinary success had corrupted him, or that his nature was made up of many and opposite elements, some good and some bad ; and that at one time of his life the good, at another the bad, obtained the mastery. After eight years' • residence at Oxford, Eobert Blake returned to Brid^^ater, having, in consequence of his failing to obtain a fellowship, abandoned his favourite idea of a college life. In the following year his father died, leaving his property encumbered with debts. When the debts were all paid, the family property did not exceed £200 a year,^ equivalent to about £700 per annum at the present time. Blake managed this property with prudence, as weU as liberality ; for, besides devoting himself to the / * Dixon's Robert Blako, p. 20. care of his mother, who survived her husband thirteen years, he educated and enabled to make their way into the world the whole of his father's numerous family. But he showed no desire for riches ; for though he left his paternal estate unimpaired, it is said that, notwith- standing the great sums that passed through his hands, he did not leave £500 behind him of his own acquiring. During those dark years of England's history-, when ' Charles I. endeavoured to govern without Parliaments, and tyranny, both civil and religious, reigned triumphant, the years of his early manhood, from about twenty-five to forty, Blake lived quietly on his paternal estate, with the character of a blunt bold man, of a ready humour, and a singularly fearless temper— straightforward, upright, and honest in an unusual degree. Hfs manners were marked by a fearless bluntness and openness, accompanied with a certain grave humour, which sometimes took the form of bitter sarcasm against the vices of those in power. This temper is described by Clarendon as " a melancholic and sullen nature, a moroseness, and a freedom in inveigh- ing against the license of the time and the power of the Court." " They who knew him inwardly," adds Clarendon, " discovered that he had an anti-monarchical spirit, when few men thought the Government in any danger." But Blake was a man of "deeds, not of words ; and it was pro- bable enough that he would take the first favourable oppor- tunity of doing aU he could to destroy a form of monarchical government that was fertile only in vices, and in the pro- duction of such loathsome popinjays as the Somersets and Buckinghams of the Fii'st Stuart, and such savage yet im- becile tyrants as the Lauds and Straffords of the Second. Accordingly, when the civil war broke out, Blake— who had been returned as member for Bridgewater in the short >iB|j».f^.:r--*;,r' "•'* 40 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [CUAP. VIII. I I Parliament of April 1640, but was not re-elected in the Long* ParliaineifTiliat met on tlie 'Srd of Jsloveuiber of the same year — wrrs^one of "the lif sTiii'^e'KeHr ATEKongh Pei^ys and t^rther WTiterslbolishly tatlfe aBout his " passive courage^ in his famous defence of Lyme and Taunton/ iJlgLfee showed the same military qualities at the very outset of his career that he did in his last battle, his wonderful victory of Santa Cruz. He united, indeed, the indomitable courage of the bulldog to the highest strategical genius. While, as James Mill has said of Clive, "resolute and daring, fear never turned him aside from his purposes, or deprived him of the most collected exertion of his mind in the greatest emergencies ; '" he at the same time acted from first to last on the principle which, says a great authority on such a j)oint. Lord Dundonald, in one of his notes on Blake's most celebrated actions, " I have never found to fail — that the more impracticable a task appears, the more easily it may be achieved, under judicious manage- ment," a principle judged by which " the attack on Santa Cruz was founded on a correct estimate of the probable result."^ Mr. Dixon has, with most praiseworthy industry, given a minute and most interesting narrative of Blake's famous defence of Lyme, from a MS. account of the Siege of Lyme, belorigihy;^to George Eoberts, Esq., of that town ; and from various authentic sources, he has furnished the details of the still more wonderful defence of Taunton. Li the course of this last'defence, Blake sent an answer to a sum- mons to surrender which is very characteristic both of his in- vincible resolution and of his peculiar humour. After being ' Mill's History of British India, ^ Prcfiico to the new edition of Mr. vol. iii. p. 370, 3rd edition, London, Hepworth Dixon's Life of Eobert 1826. Blake, pp. xi., xii. London, 1858. t \ 1651.] BLAKE'S DEFENCE OF LYME AND TAUNTON. 4l repeatedly defeated in their assaults, the besiegers sent to invite the garrison to smTender to the King, rather than die the lingering death of hunger. Blake's answer to this request was, that he had not yet eaten his boots, and that he should not dream of giving up the contest while he had so excellent a dinner to fall back upon. ^ In the siege of Bristol, the foi-t of Prior's Hill had been entrusted by Fiennes to Blake, then only a captain. Of this place Blake had made so resolute and obstinate a defence, that Eupert, hearing that the commander at Prior's Hill refused to admit the articles of surrender— for which the governor (Fiennes) was tried by a court-martial for cowar- dice, and sentenced to death, though his life was spared by Essex— threatened to hang him. In describing the subse- quent siege of Lyme, Mr. Dixon says : "How often would the thought occur to him (Maurice), If Kupei-t had only hung that Captain Blake at Bristol ! In London the press was filled with the wonders of this remarkable defence, and Eoundhead liters used it as a set-off against their omi prolonged failui-es at Lathom House. Yet the Cavaliers fought before the breastworks at Lyme with the most resolute gaUantry, and some of the best blood in the West of England flowed into those shallow trenches. After the siege was raised, and the Royalists had time to count up and compare their losses, they found, to their surprise and horror, that more men of gentle blood had died under Blake's fire at Lyme, than had fallen in all the sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening of the war."^ There is a story respecting the death of Blake's brother Samuel— who of all his brothers resembled him most in the fearlessness of his nature, and to whose son Robert, > Dixon's Eobert Blake, p. 57, cites " Lyme MS." I / i 1 1 42 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. I60LJ CROMWELL AND BLAKE. 43 afterwards one of his most gallant sea-captains, the Ad- miral bequeathed the gold-chain bestowed on him by the Parliament ^ — which is very characteristic both of Blake and his time. Samuel, hearing at a small village alehouse at Pawlett, some four miles down the river from Bridge- water, that a captain of array and one of his followers were crossing the river to beat up recruits for the King's service, instead of carrying the intelligence to his brother, who was his commanding- officer, mounted his horse and rode after the two officers. When he came up with them a quarrel en- sued, and he was killed. " When the news came to Bridge- water," says a writer who lived in Blake's family, " the officers of the regiment were seen to cabal together in little companies, fiye or six at a place, and talk of it very seriously — none of them being forward to tell Colonel Blake what they were talking about. At last he asked one of them very earnestly, and the gentleman replied, with some emotion, 'Your brother Sam is hilled!' explaining how it came to pass. The Colonel, having heard him out, said, ' Sam had no business there ; ' and, as if he took no further notice of it, turned from the Comliill or marketplace into the Swan Inn, of chief note in that town, and, shutting himself in a room, gave way to the calls of nature and brotherly love, saying, ' Died Abner as a fool dieth! ' "^ The difference between the ultimate positions of Cromwell and Blake — the one Lieutenant- General of the Army, Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord-General and Commander-in- Chief of the Army, and at last Lord Protector ; the other only Colonel, then Admiral and " General at Sea," — must ' Office-copy of Blake's Will, March and Admiral of the Fleets and Naral 13, I600, cited in Dixon's Kobert Forces of England," written by a Blake, p. 52. gentleman who was bred in his family, ^ "The History and Life of Robert cited in Dixon's Robert Blake, p. 51, Blake, Esq., of Bridgewater, General London, 1852. not be accepted as anything like a true measure of the difference between the abilities of the two men. Cromwell, though not an orator or even a passably good speaker, was from-^rst to last eminently a Parliamentary man — in other words, a man of great Parliamentary influence. Blake had been returned for the borough of Bridgewater in the short Parliament of April 1640, but he was not re- elected in the Long Parliament. In 1645, however, he was elected as one of the burgesses for Taunton, in the place of Sir William Portman, disabled for deserting fhe service of the House: ""^ On tills occasion Blake took the oaths and his seat at the same time with Ludlow. " When I came to the House of Commons," says Ludlow, " I met with Colonel Eobert Blake, attending to be admitted, being chosen for Taunton ; where having taken the usual oaths, we went into the House together, which I chose to do, as- suring myself, he having been faithful and active in the public service abroad, that we should be as unanimous in the carrying it on within those doors." ^ Blake continued to reside at Taunton, which he had so bravely defended, and of which he had been appointed Governor, and made no attempt to obtain Parliamentary influence for personal advancement. The small Parliamen- tary influence of Blake may be inferred from the fact that when, in November 1651, after having performed great services, he wns-first elected a member of the Council of State, he had only 42 votes; while, on the same oc- casion, Cromwell had 118, Whitelock 113, St. John 108, Yane 104, and one " John Gurdon, Esq." (whose name is otherwise unknown to history), had 103. Blake had the » Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 170 as opposed to "within those doors," (2nd edition, London, 1721). The word Blake at that time not having served "abroad" only means outof the Hoiiso, out of England. 44 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. I60LI CROMWELL AND THE STUARTS. 45 I \ lowest number of votes that year of any, except Henry Martin, wlio had 41.^ In the following year, while Blake was not re-elected, Major-General Harrison is the last name on the list, with only 39 votes. ^ Harrison would not appear to have been, any more than Blake, popular with the honourable E-ump. They were both bold blunt men, likely enough to rough the sleek hides of the men of the Eump, which Cromwell knew how to smooth down till his time came. It is but one more version of the old story — a story which is as true now as it was from the beginning of time, and as it will be to the end. The career of Cromwell is one which has been trodden times out of number, when the highest prizes of human ambition are in troubled times placed within the reach of genius and valour. The career of Blake is a less common career ; but it is also a career less dazzling to the multitude, who are naturally dazzled by the spectacle of a man raising himself to su- preme power. Blake was u Puritan as well as Cromwell ; but I do not think that Blake could have quieted his con- science, had he been rapacious, by quoting such texts as : " He shall be called Mahershalal-hash-baz, because he maketh haste to the spoil." And Cromwell might truly be called Mahershalal-hash-baz, if making haste to the spoil entitled a man to that appellation. But though, in the eyes of those who worship the powers of good and evil alike, the genius and valour of Cromwell have cast aU other men into the shade, there are still some — and in the course of time there will be more — able to appreciate the genius and valour, joined to the contempt for wealth and all the objects of vulgar ambition, of the great Admiral, » Commons' Journals, Monday, Nov. 24, 165L 2 3id. Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1652. who has left to after-ages a truly heroic memory and a stainless name. So far from admitting Cromwell's plea for crushing English liberty — I mean constitutionally regulated liberty — that he was forced to take upon himself the office of a high-constable to preserve the peace among the several parties in the nation, though he professed to approve the government of a single person as little as any,* it is, to aU who steadily examine the facts, a mere sophistry, or rather a palpable untruth. The Council of State acted the part of htgp^lTstable better tharrhe-clid. The Council of State, indeecrf^ould not coriiniahd armies as Cromwell could, much less could it command navies as Blake com- manded them ; but Blake did not make that a reason for setting up as a king on his own account, and throwing England back two centuries in her progress towards good government. When we look calmly at what the Stuarts and Cromwell did, or attempted to do, we are forced to the conclusion that there is less excuse to be made for Crom- well than for the Stuarts. Any man who sets his own or his family's aggrandisement above truth, justice, and honour, must be pronounced to be a man with a bad heart. But if such a man's brains are still worse than his heart, there is more excuse for him than if, while his heart is bad, his brains are good. Consequently, the plea cannot be set up for Cromwell which may be set up for the Stuarts — that they may be " pardoned their bad hearts for their worse brains." The really greatest and most formidable enemies of mankind have been those whose fierce and rapacious selfishness has been accompanied by ability and courage of a high order — of an order much above the average, not ' Biog. Brit., Art. " Harrington ; " to his edition of Hamngton's Works, Toland's Life of Hariington, prefixed p. xix. 46 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL by the folly and pusillanimity which so emphatically marked the Stuarts for ten generations. Harvey — the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, of whom his friend Hobbes says, in his book "De Corpore," that he is the only man, perhaps, that ever lived to see his own doctrine I established in his lifetime — was wont to say that man was 1 but a great mischievous baboon,' an opinion not unlikely f to be formed by a thinking man whose knowledge of man- i kind comprehended a somewhat minute acquaintance with the Court of the Stuarts. In the preceding volimie of this History ^ I have shown that the Council of State, on their appointment, directed their first attention to the affairs of the Navy. Such atten- tion was particularly called for, both by the importance of the navy to the ultimate success of the cause of the Parlia- ment, and by its condition at that time. Had the Eoyalists become masters of the navy, it would not only have been employed in maintaining a constant communi- cation with foreign States ; but the strength thence accru- ing to the royal cause would have affected the conduct of foreign Powers, and strengthened and excited into activity their natural inclination to support the cause of despotism against that of constitutional liberty. In point of fact, if the Royalists had been masters of the navy, the distinction between England and Hungary, or between England and any other unhappy country which has no physical barrier against the surrounding despots, would have been destroyed ; and the Parliamentary armies, after defeating the forces of their native tyrants, would have had to fight the armies of the tyrants of France, Spain, and Germany. When Lord Macaulay says that, if a * Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii. p. 38L Page i9 et seq. 1661.1 IMPORTANCE OF THE NAVY. 47 French or Spanish army had invaded England, he has no doubt that it would have been cut to pieces on the first day on which it came face to face with the soldiers of Preston and Dunbar, with Colonel Fight-the-good-fight and Captain Smite-them-hip-and-thigh, he seems to forget that though neither France, Spain, nor Germany could pro- duce soldiers equal to those of Dunbar and Naseby, the genius of Conde or of Turenne might have given at least a chance to armies composed of inferior military materials. But, be that as it may, what has been said shows the vast importance of the navy in preventing all foreign inter- ference in the quarrel between the English and their Kings —an interference which might have led to most disastrous consequences, as regarded the independence, the freedom, and honour of England as a nation. I think there cannot be a doubt that it was his conviction on this point that led Blake— when the messenger reached his fleet, then lying off Aberdeen, mth the news that Cromwell had turned out the Parliament by force, and when some of his captains pressed him to declare against the usurper^^to say, " It is not the business of a seaman to mind State affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us." That Blake's private opinion was'"oire"^oroiily of disapprobation but of disap- pointment is certain from all that is recorded of his opinions and his actions. Little more than a year before, too, he is reported to have said openly, that monarchy was a kind of government the world was weary of ; that it was past in England, going in France, and in ten years would be gone in Spain. ^ This prophecy of Blake is but one » " That you may see how brave and monarchy is a kind of government the open-dealing men your friends of the world is weary of ; that it is past in new Commonwealth are, Blake, at his England, going in France, and that late being at Cadiz, said openly, that it must gi't out of Spain with moro 48 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. more proof, added to thousands, of the little that can be safely predicted respecting political affairs, and of the truth of the remark of David Hume, that the world is yet too young to have a political philosophy. But Blake — though, like the rest of the human race, he might miss .the mark very widely when he attempted to carry his foresight forward for years — saw, like Cromwell and all the men of his kind, with the unerring instinct of genius, what was best to be done at the moment, for the hour, and for the day that was passing over him. He thus saw that if he declared against Cromwell, the issue of the conflict be- tween him and Cromwell would be doubtful, while the gain to the enemies of both would be certain. And he saw also that if the question was of necessity between a single tyrant like Cromwell, and a siagle tyrant like Stuart, the former was infinitely to be preferred to the latter. It is not surprising that Blake should make the mistake he did when he said that monarchy was a kind of govern- ment the world was weary of — that it was gone in Eng- land, going in France, and in ten years would be gone in Spain. For Blake had seen events which might well make him think that a great change had taken place in the ideas that had prevailed in Europe for the last two centu- ries or, at least, for the last century and a half. He could remember the time in England when the very door- keeper of the House of Lords dared to shut the door of that House in the face of a Member of the House of Com- mons, with the insolent words, " Goodman burgess, you come not here." He had also seen " Goodman burcress " in a very different charact^. " Goodman burgess " had gravity, but in ten years it would be Madrid, Fob. 9, 16pi1. {Clarendon Slate (lotormincd tliero likewise." — Sir Ed- Papers, vol. iii. p. 27.) ward Hyde to Secretary Nicholas, 1651.] BLAKE OPPOSED TO THE KING'S EXECUTION. 49 formed and brought up the cuirassiers who turned the battle on Marston Moor. " Goodman burgess " had led the charge at ISTaseby. " Goodman burgess " had stormed and reduced to a heap of ruins many a feudal fortress that had baffled all besiegers, and had successfully de- fended places which were not fortresses, and where nothing seemed defensible but his own unconquerable will. Further, " Goodman burgess " had defeated the fleets of many kings and of one powerful republic, and had gone forth over the ocean, from the Pentland Frith to the Straits of Gibraltar, conquering and to conquer. " Good- man burgess " had sat in that old Hall in judgment on the captive heir of a hundred kings; and "Goodman burgess " liad done the great execution that was to be a warning to all time. But though that execution was to be a salutary warning to affcer-ages — for without the inefface- able memory of that terrible deed, so fearlessly' done in the face of heaven and earth, assuredly James H. and some other royal delinquents would not have been so easily got rid of as they were — its immediate effect was not favour- able to the cause of those who did it. But Blake, though he was not aware 'of all the conse- quences of the King's trial and execution, was not in any degree a party to those proceedings. He wished to see the Kino" deposed and banished. And when he found the army fanatics, of whom Cromwell — whether he really, at the bottom of his heart, desired the execution of the King or not, and that we can never know — was the chief leader, determined on the King's trial and execution, he loudly expressed his disapprobation of their proceedings.^ Not that he entertained the most remote idea of the expediency, » Dixon's Robert Blake, p. Ill, and the authorities there cited. VOL. II. ^ I 50 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. I under any circumstances, of the restoration to power of a man who had proved himself so faithless, and so utterly unfit to govern ; but like Vane, Alg-emon Sydney, and others of the more farseeing statesmen of that time, he j considered the King's trial and execution as a grievous political blunder. The sentimentalities of the question of the Eng's execution may be despatched in the words of Casca, in Shakspeare's Julius Ccesar: "Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried, Alas, good soul ! and forgave him with all their hearts: if Csesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less." At the commencement of the war between the King and the Parliament, the bulk of the army, as well as of the navj^ had been Presbyterian. In the army the Presbyte- rian element had diminished, and the Independent element had very much increased— indeed, to such an extent, that at the time of the King's death the army might be con- sidered as almost entirely composed of Independents, both as regarded the soldiers and officers ; though Fairfax, the \ Lord-General, was a Presbyterian, to be succeeded, how- ever, at ihe beginning of the campaign in Scotland, in 1650, by Cromwell, an Independent. In the navy the Presbyterian element remained much longer "Wan in the army, so that, soon after the seizure of the King's person byllie army, a disposition to mutiny showed itself in the navy in the Downs— a disposition fomented by the Eoyalist intriguers of Kent ; and rose to such a height, that a por- tion of the fleet, consisting of eleven ships, cari-ying altogether 291 guns and 1,260 men, revolted from the Par- liament, and, under the command of Vice- Admiral Batten, sailed for the coast of Holland. On the 12th of June, 1647, the Earl of Warwick, the Lord High Admiral, had written a letter to Batten, which shows that at that time 1651.] KEVOLT OF A PART OF THE FLEET. 51 considerable doubts were entertained respecting the fleet's fidelity to the Parliament. Batten, however, instead of (as the. Lord High Admiral's letter directed him to do) " im- proving all means to continue the mariners in a condition of obedience and service to the Parliament who have intrusted them," ^ betrayed the trust committed to him by the Parliament; and fomenting, instead of allaying, the mutinous spirit in the fleet, finally, in Jinie 1648, informed his partisans of his resolution to declare for King Charles, and then, with eleven ships, stood over for the coast of Holland, to coMtdt with the Prince of Wales. ■■;■» »<<^«»*'W'»f «-■■■■ *^-*» J 'V**mt^iff^ The Pfihce received him with open arms, and conferred upon hini the ignominy of knighthood, which, in all cases at the best no honour under the Stuarts, was in this case a double disgrace, as serving to affix on the man's name to all time the brand of his treachery. Batten, indeed, pub- lished in his defence a declaration, " for satisfaction of all honest seamen and others whom it may concern," in which he complains of illtreatment by the Parliament. But there is a somewhat short and simple test of the value of this complaint of Captain Batten, furnished by his own '' Declaration : " for among those whom he places in the same category with himself, as having been ill-requited by the Parliament for their great services, he specifies Colonel Blake.^ Kow Batten, when he professed to be a public servant, aggrieved and ill-requited to such an extent as to be en- titled to revolt from those who gave him his commission, * The Earl of Warwick to Captain the " Declaration of Sir "William Batten, from the Committee, June Batten, late Vice-Admiral for the Par- 12, 1647, in Granville Penn's Me- liament," from a copy in the British morials of Admiral Sir William Penn, Museum, " printed at London in the vol. i. pp. 247, 248. year 1648."— See Memorials of Ad- 2 Granville Penn, vol. i. p. 268. miral Sir William Fain, vol. i. pp. Mr. Granville Penn has printed in full 266-270. K2 ^2 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. and to go over to their enemies, was in the command of a fleet, and therefore could not have been so much ill-requited for his former services as Blake at that time might seem to be ; for Blake had then no such command as Batten, and Blake's defences of Lyme and Taunton Avere, at least, equivalent to anything ever done by Batten. But Blake was not one of those men who, when their own estimate of their services is not adopted to the letter by their Government or country, fancy that they are justified in going over to the enemy, by way of redressing their real or imaginary grievances. According to such a principle of action, no Government could ever depend on its naval or military commanders; for I believe it may be said that there is no Government that can escape, or at least that has yet escaped, the imputed fault of occasionally overlooking, or at least inadequately appreciating, great services. There is certainly, if not more excuse for, a greater tendency in men to act as Batten acted in civil wars than on other occasions. The revolt of those ships, however, probably proved in the end beneficial to the Parliament; for it set them to remodel the whole system of their navy, as they had before done that of their army, and produced the wonderful achievements of Blake, and an altogether new epoch in the history of English naval afiairs. About the time of this defection of a part of the fleet of the Parliament, a conference was held in King Street, Westminster, between those called, says Ludlow, "the grandees of the House and Army, and the Commonwealth's ifle«T'^ii which the grandees, of whom Lieutenant-General Cromwell was the hea^rkept themselves in the clouds, and would not declare their judgments either for a monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical government—maintaining that any of these might be good in themselves, or for us. 1651.] THE COMMONWEALTH'S MEN AND MONARCHY. 53 according as Providence should direct us. The Common- wealth's men," continues Ludlow, " declared that monarchy was neither good in itself nor for us. That it was not desirable in itself, they urged from the 8th chapter and 8th verse of the First Book of Samuel, where the rejecting of the Judges and the choice of a King was charged upon the Israelites, by God himself, as a rejection of Him ; and from another passage in the same Book, where Samuel de- clares it to be great wickedness, with divers more texts of Scripture to the same effect. And that it was no way con- ducing to the interest of this nation, was endeavoured to be proved by the infinite mischiefs and oppressions we had suffered under it, and by it ; that, indeed, our ancestors had consented to be governed by a single person, but with this proviso, that he should govern according to the direction of the law, which he always bound himself by oath to perform ; that the King had broken this oath, and thereby dissolved our allegiance .... Notwithstanding what was said, Lieutenant-General Cromwell, not for want of conviction, but in hopes of making a better bargain with another party, professed himself unresolved ; and having learned what he could of the j)rinciples and inclinations of those present at the conference, took up a cushion and flung it at my head, and then ran down the stairs ; but I overtook him with another, which made him hasten down faster than he desired. The next day, passing by me in the House, he told me he was convinced of the desirable- ness of what was proposed, but not of the feasibleness of it ; thereby, as I suppose, designing to encourage me to hope that he was inclined to join with us, though unwil- ling to publish his opinion, lest the grandees should be in- formed of it — to whom, I presume, he professed himself to be of another judgment." 54 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL Some time after Cromwell began again to court tlie Commonwealth party, and Ludlow says : " I took the free- dom to tell him that he knew how to cajole and give them good words when he had occasion to make use of them ; whereat, breaking out into a rage, he said they were a proud sort of people, and only considerable in their own conceits." ^ Some modem writers have adopted this view of Cromwell's respecting the Commonwealth party. Whether they and Cromwell are right or not, let the world judge, when the evidence necessary for a fair judg- ment is placed before it. So large a portion of their fleet having gone over to their enemies some six months before the Council of State began their work, in Febmary 164f , ihej had good grounds for making the setting forth an efficient navy the first business to which they should direct their attention. And in doing so they applied the same principles to the reconstruction of their navy which the Parliament had before applied to the reconstruction of their army. That reconstruction of their army the Parliament had deno- minated the " New Model," a term which the royalist smaU-wits transformed into the " New Noddle," but soon discovered to their cost that the joke was one of those witticisms which are said to produce a laugh on the wrong side of the mouth. Miracles alone, as Mr. Motley has most ably shown in his " History of the United Nether- lands,^^^ had saved England from perdition in the year 1588— miracles, and not the administrative talentlisplayed by the much-lauded Queen Elizabeth ahd her ministers. But it is not safe to trust to miracles for the safety of a Government or of a nation. And there is instruction in ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 238-241, 2nd edition, London 1721 2 Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. ii. pp. 527,528. * 1651.] COUNCIL OF STATE AND QUEEN ELIZABETH'S COUNCIL. 55 the comparison of the Council of State of the Long Parlia- ment with the Council of Queen Elizabeth. The Council of State went about their work in a very different fashion from that of Queen Elizab^eth — scolding, swearing at, and browbeating her friends, and duped by her enemies ; or of her Lord Treasurer, Burghley, " puzzled himself and still more puzzling to others." ^ and " turning comj^licated paragraphs, shaking his head, and waving his wand across the water, as if, by such expedients, the storm about to burst over England could be dispersed." ^ It would appear that the Government of the Common- wealth had, like that of Queen Elizabeth, found a de- ficiency of powder. The following minutes show the want, and their exertions to supply it : — " That it be reported to the House that the Council upon the despatch of pro- visions for Ireland finds a great want of powder." The Council recommend that the manufacture of petre (salt- petre) be forthwith set on foot in England.^ And another minute orders, " That a letter be written to Mr. Peimoger, to deal with the East India Company for their proportion of saltpetre which is now come in by the East India fleet from those parts."* The "New Model" was, in fact, merely the application to the armies and fleets of a State of the same principle which all men of common sense employ in the conduct of their ordinary business. The year 1649 was not a time when any Government, unless brained like the oligarchy com- posed of Stephano, Triiiculo, and Caliban, would have thought of advancing men with family interest over the heads of men who had nothing to recommend them but » Motley's History of the United 9tli July, 1649, MS. State Paper Netherlands, vol. i. p. 88. . Office. 2 md. vol. ii. p. 299. * Ibid, lltli September, 1G49. ' Order Book of the Council of State, / Ji S6 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIH. their skm and courage. But the Government of which the Council of State was the executive was brained very dif- ferently, not only from the three worthies above mentioned, but from the English Governments which went before and came after them— Governments that gave the command of armies to such men as Leicester and Buckingham, and commissions to such men as Ensign Northerton and the captain in Hamilton's Bawn. There is nothing that more strikingly shows the con- dition of England under the Tudors than Queen Elizabeth's habitual treatment of her soldiers and seamen. She does not treat them half or a quarter so well as a man of average humanity treats his horse or his dog. "They perish for want of victual and clothing in great numbers."* And such was the carelessness of the much-lauded Gov- ernment of Queen Elizabeth, that after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English sailors were dying by hundreds, and even thousands, of ship-fever, in the latter days of August 1588. They rotted in their ships, or died in the streets of the naval ports, because there were no hospitals to receive them. ^ How different from the condition of the troops of the Commonwealth was that of Queen Elizabeth's, " shoeless, shivering, starving vagabonds "^ will appear from what fol- lows. One of the first things to which the Council of State directed the most minute attention was the quality and quantity of the food supplied to the seamen on board their > Leicester to Burghley, 15th March, ley (vol. ii. p. 524). 1586, MS. State Paper Office, cited in 3 Motley's History of the United Motley's United Netherland, vol. i. Netherlands, vol. i. p. 438.— The abun- p. 448, note. ^^ant evidence of the miserable condi- 2 Lord Howard to tlie Queen ; to tion in which Queen Elizabeth was not Walsingham ; and to the Privy Council, ashamed to keep her troops quoted by 2'2nd August to 1st September, 1588. Mr. Motley, furnishes a striking but MSS. State Paper Office, cited by Mot- most painful picture. 1^ V 1651.] J RECX)^rSTRUCT10N OF THE NAVY. 57 ships. They found that the food was bad in quality, often unfit to be eaten, and deficient in quantity. Those persons who, like the prize-agents who keep the soldiers and sailors' prize-money for a series of years in order to make fortunes by the interest of it, supplied the provisions for the navy had no objections to starve or poison the sea- men, provided they made fortunes by the proceeding. The result of the indefatigable exertions of Sir Henry Yane and his colleagues on the Committee of the Admiralty,^ aided by such an admiral as Blake — who, like his cotem- porar}^ Turenne to his soldiers, was a father to his seamen — was similar to that produced some years before by the " New Model " of the army on the food as well as the dis- cipline of the soldiers. I have stated in the preceding volume^ that on the 20th of February, 164f , the Council of State ordered " that it be reported to the House as the opinion of the Council that the ordinance of Parliament constituting the Earl of Warwick Lord High Admiral be repealed;" that on the same day it was resolved by the House, " that the House doth agree with the Council of State as to the repeal of the ordinance constituting the Earl of Warwick Lord High Admiral;" and that, on the 26th of the same month, the Council of State ordered, "That the names of the Commissioners who are appointed td~CDminand at sea shall be ranked in this order, viz.— Colonel Popham, Colonel Blake, and Colonel Deane." Tlie commission " to Colonel Edward PophamT^ Colonel Robert Blake, and Colonel Eichard Deane, nominated and appointed by this ' There are numerous minutes evinc- on Friday night (see Vol. I. p. 51). ing the most anxious care of the sea- Others will be given in subsequent men's food. Some of these have been pages of this volume. (See Chapter already given as to the observation of XII.) Lent, as likewise the half allowance "^ Vol. I. pp. 49, 50. ) f 58 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL present Parliament to be Commissioners for the immediate ordering and commanding of the fleet now at sea, and which shall be set forth for the year ensuing, 1649," bears date "Februaiy 27, 164f ;" and empowers the said Com- missioners, or any two of them, " to hold and execute the place of Admiral and General of the said fleet, and to give commissions, with the seal of the anchor, unto the Vice- Admiral and Eear-Admiralof the said fleet, the Admiral of the Irish seas, and all other ofiicers of the said fleet ; and further to appoint and empower any one of themselves to command-in-chief the said fleet, or any part thereof." The powers of the commission are to continue to the first day of March, le^i The multifarious business of the Council of State obliged them to have different seals for their various functions. Accordingly this ccmimission thus ends—" And for the present, this shall be your war- rant. Given under the Admiralty seal of this said Council of State, this 27th day of February, 164^. " Signed in the name and by order of the Council of State appointed by authority of Parliament, " Denbigh, " Preses pro tempore."^ On the 22nd of the same month of February, 164?-, the Council of State ordered, " That the ships at sea in' the service of the State shall bear the red cross in a white flag ;2 and that the engravings upon the stern of the ships ' "That the Commission engrossed but on the 10th of March next, they and brought in for the three Commis- made an order "that Mr. Serjeant sioners to command the fleet at sea, be Bradshaw shall be President of this signed by the Karl of Denbigh, as Council."— See Vol. I. p. 38. being Preses pro tempore." — Order 2 A proclamation of Charles I in Book of the CouncU of State, 27th 1634, prohibits any but King's ships February, 164|, MS. State Paper from carrying the Union flag in the Office. The Council at tliis time ap- maintop, or elsewhere— that is, Saint pointed a President at each meeting ; George's cross and Saint Andrew's 1651.] THE COMMONWEALTH FLAG. 59 shall be the arms of England and Ireland in two es- cutcheons, as is used in the seals." ^ And on the 5th of March the Council of State ordered, " That the flag that is to be borne by the Admiral, Yice-Admiral, E/Car- Admiral, be that now presented with the arms of England and Ireland in two several escutcheons, in a red flag, within a compartment: (or)."^ This ensign of the red flag borne by the Admirals of the Government called the " Common- wealth of England" was for the next seven years to be as widely known and as victorious as the famous red flag, which was displayed on a spear from the top of the Prae- torium, the tent of the Roman general, as the signal to prepare for battle. It was fi]^t displayed against an ad- versary whose career bears a resemblance to that of Blake, in so far as he had fought with sonie distinction on land before he fought at sea. In other respects, this man dif- fered from Blake, both in his character and his exploits, as widely as it is possible for one human being lo differ from another. —^ ..^,«--.,.,,,»^ If high birth and great bodily strength and activity cross joined together ; and orders the English suly'ects to carry the red cross commonly called Saint George's cross, and the Scotch subjects to carry the white cross, commonly called Saint Andrew's cross. > Order Book of the Council of State, 22nd February, 164|, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid, die Lund. 5th March, et Meridie, 164|.— Mr. Granville Penn, who iii.his valuable memorials of his ancestor. Sir WiUiam'Penn, gives a few extracts from the Order Book of the Council of State, gives the first of the orders transcribed above, which was for all the State ships except the Admiral's, Vice-Admiral's, and Rear- Admiral's ; but he does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the second order, which was only for the Admiral's, Vice- Admiral's, and Rear- Admiral's. It appears further, from the List of the Commonwealth's fleet at sea in 1653 (London : printed by M. Simmons, and sold at his house in Aldersgate Street ; and by Thomas Jenner, at the south entrance of the Royal Exchange, 1653; and reprinted in Mr. Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir William Penn, vol. i. p. 491), that the first squadron of the fleet carried the arms of the Commonwealth em- broidered in gold on a red flag ; the second squadron on a white flag; the third squadron on a blue fljig. ] I 60 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL could make a great man, Prince Eupert would have been a great man. But it is hardly necessary to go beyond the periwigged face of this cavalier hero to see that he was not a great man; for it is a face which has little or nothing to distinguish it from those of the " round-faced peers, as like each other as eggs to eggs, who look out from the middle of the periwigs of Kneller." No one can look on the face of Cromwell-marked though it Be, as Macaulay has eloquently and truly said, " with all the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war, by sleepless nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse "—without seeing " valour, policy, authority, and public care written in all its princely lines.'^ Yes, the lines in this man's face-this man, by birth-Biita private gentleman, by occupation a brewer- were princely, were grand' and commanding ; while those of thi^son of an English princess and a German potentate whose pedigree the heralds might, perhaps, attempt to carry back to Charlemagne or Attila, were as commonplace as those of any of Kneller's round-faced periwigged peers. Even in this age of heroes, " when every year and month brings forth a new one," it needs something more than cruelty and rapacity, though backed by bodily strength and activity, to make a hero of whom "one would care to vaunt." And in that troubled time there was no room for heraldic heroes and heraldic princes, however long and fine might be their hair, their pedigrees, or their periwigs. Necessity at such times is sure to find out the men who are princely by nature, whether or not they are so by birth : and then, when the hollow image Is found a hollow image and no more, The power returns into the mighty hands Of Nature, of the spirit giant-born. 1651.] PRINCE RUPERT. 61 ^^ • Sir William Napier repeatedly expresses himself as much struck with the grand tace, as he calls it, of Soult, the greatest of Napoleon's Marshals. By one of those strange capri(^^« of fortune by which retribution is so often escaped upon earth, this German adventurer had always escaped from those fields of battle on which the vengeance of an outraged nation had taught the Stuart tyrant, and his French "Wife, ^nd his German nephews, that Englishmen were not to be oppressed with impunity, like French and German serfs. Long before he fled from Naseby, with Cromwell's horse-hoofs thundering close behind him, Rupert had ehdeavourecl to* secure some part of the phiMeY {wliTcE,'^ and tlie power of plundering the Engfeh people for ever afber, was alT He %\ig ht for) by freighting one or two vessels with it. But these ships fell into the hands of the Parliament. After the fall of Bristol — which Eupert, after a defence forming a strong contrasT^ BIa¥e^s 3efence of Lyme and Taunton, surren- dered to the army of the Parliament — the Kiiig signified his pleasure to the Lords of the Cotmcil, that they should require Prince Pupert to deliver his commissionTnto their hands. He likewise wrote a letter to Eupert, dated " Hereford, September, 1645," in which he says : " I must remember you of your letter of the 12th of August, whereby you assured me that, if no mutiny happened, you would keep Bristol for four months. Did you keep it four days? Was there anything like a mutiny? More questions might be asked; but now, I confess, to little purpose : my conclusion is, to desire you to seek your sub- sistence, until it shall please God to determine of my condition, somewhere beyond the seas — to which end I send you herewith a pass." Eupert w^ent first to Holland, then to France, where, in July 1646, he was made Mare- chal-du-camp, and had a regiment of foot, a troop of horse, and the command of all the English in France.* ' Eupert MS. in Warburton,iii. 237. translated Field-Marshal. But Field- Marechal-du-c imp has bometimes been Marshal is a much higher rank, though 1 f J ^99 62 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. It is probable tliat Eupert's arrogance made him as dis- agreeable to his own party as his cruelty and rapacity rendered him hateful to his enemies. Clarendon says he had the niisfortune_^ be no better beloy&iKby the King's party than hT^^iTBy the -parHameiTr' ~Ashe had ^ before fled femi <)romwell, lie wa^now to haye to fly before another Parliamentary officer, as terrible by sea as Crom- weU was by land. For when the seamen of that part of the fleet which had reyolted from the Parliament mutinied agamst Batten, who had brought them over to Prince Charles, Eupert obtained the command, though some of the chief seamen refused to " saU under Eupert, a foreign prmce._^' And the same eotgmpof'ary" document ("From the Hague, 2nd November, 1648 ") adds :— " The seamen desert daily ; the chief that stay are very debauched which produces duels every day." ' It is evident that ships manned by such seamen would be fit enough to become pirates; and pirates they became. It is-ateo remarkable that, tten^ we hear enough' of their depredations upon merchant-ships, not sufficiently armed to offer any eflfective resistance, we do not hear of a single instance of their attack- ing any ship of war-at least any ship of such strength as to make anything like a good and equal fight. This is, indeed the nature of pirates and robbers generaUy, who, though they may, when forced to it, fight as men fight with the hal- ter about their necks, have reaUy little or nothing at all of that high and adventurous courage which has been falsely ascribed to them by those modem writers, who have done their utmost to corrupt public morals, by making, or at ' whenT„renne.in his twentj-third year, lent to the German term Field-Mar- obtamed the appointment of Mamhal- ehal, is Marshal of France ' du-camp that appointment was then ■ Proceedings in Parliament f.-. the next m rank to that of Mar&hal. Granville Penl, .ol i p W do-France. The French term, eqaiva- ^' IGJl.] CRUELTY AND EAPACITY OF PRINCE EUPERT. 63 least attempting to make, heroes of tyrants, robbers, and villains of every description, small and great. Though there may be very much doubt about the hero- ism of this German adventurer, there is very little about his rapacity and cruelty. The cotemporary narratives of the events of Ihis^EInglish Civil War abound with instances of the outrages perpetrated by him, upon the persons, property, and dwellings of the English people. Admiral Penn, in his Journal, relates several cases that place his tynrimoTtS"antd cruel nature in a strong light. He says, under date"24tlr"'jTiiy ICSl, Hiat there came on board one of liis ships, " to serve the State, four of Eupert's men (but pressed by him since the revolt), who ventured their lives in attempting their escape from him at Toulon." ^ And the Admiral tells a story of Rupert's cruelty, so atrocious, that, as Mr. Granville Penn remarks in a note, it is to be v^ished that Rup^rt^s reputation were such as to give the lie to this dreadful statement, which I would not venture to give in any words but Admiral Penn's own : " 30th October, 1651. — About noon Captain Jordan came aboard, and informed me of a Genoese he stopped two nights since, who came from the island Terceira .... The lieutenant of the said ship, who was brother to the slain captain " [killed by a shot from Captain Jordan's ship] , " with others of the ship's company, gave us intelli- gence of Rupert's being, about six weeks since, at Terceira ; and how cruelly he murdered the gunner of this ship, being an Englishman, and refusing to serve him. He commanded him from the town of Terceii^a aboard the Reformation, wherein he is Admiral; and, having him aboard, commanded his ears to be cut off; which being done, he caused his arms to be bound together, and flung ' Admiral Penn's Journal, July 24, I60I, in Grancilk Penn, vol. i. p. 353. ( I I ^^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. him overboard into the sea, where the poor creature perished. The Lord forgive this bloody wretch, and con- vert him, if he belongeth unto ^ him; otherwise, if His Holiness please, suddenly destroy him ! '" So prays the Admiral, a prayerful man even for that time. If Eupert had ventured his person in Drogheda or Wexford, or if Blake had ever fairly fallen in with him, his life would not have been worth much. But his powers of escaping pur- suit, both by land and sea, appear to have been very extraordinary. At this very time Penn was cruising in search of him, after he had escaped from Blake, who had captured or destroyed all his pirate squadron— the whole of the revolted fleet, with the exception of the Beforma- lion and the Swallow, the two ships in which Eupert and his brother Maurice sailed, and the Marmaduhe, a ship they had recently taken. Clarendon mentions, as a proof of Eupert's bodily strength, as well as " notable vigour," that in one of the mutinies which he suppressed, " he had been compelled to throw two or three seamen overboard by the strength of his own arm." During the whole of the year 1649, Eupert, with his fleet of revolted ships, carried on a war of piracy against the merchant-ships of all nations. The Dutch sufiered from his depredations no less than the English. Accord- ing to the Eupert MSS. (published by Mr. Elliot Warburton) the Court of the exiled Prince Charles subsisted on these robberies. This, however, is denied by Clarendon, who, though neither his nor Eupert's testimony can be accepted as very conclusive, is at least as trustworthy a witness as Eupert, and who says: " Sure when it is known that Prince Eupert, instead of ever giving to the King one penny of those millions which he had taken, demanded a great » Admiral Penn's Journal, 30th Oct., 1651, in Granville Penn, vol. i. p. 380. 1649.] RUPERT ESCAPES FROM KINSALE HARBOUR. 65 debt from the King; that he received £14,000 since his being in France, and took no more notice of it to the King then if he were not concerned ; and that he went away discontented, because the King would not approve of all he did, or desired to do, it cannot be wondered that the King did not importune him to stay." ^ But whether he gave one penny to the King or not, it is certain he took many pennies from the English, who had then a Govern- ment which at least had this virtue — that it was one which would not suffer its subjects to be robbed or maltreated in any way by any but itself. There are many minutes in the "Order Book of the Council of State," during the year 1649, relating to the depredations committed by Prince Eupert on English ships. The town and castle of Kinsale being in the hands of the Irish rebels, Eupei*t found the harbour of Kinsale a convenient place for refuge, as well as for dis- posing of some of his prizes ; though the greater part were probably sold inPrench, Dutch, and other continental ports.^ But Blake, with his division of the Parliamentary fleet, shut up the pirate and his fleet in Kinsale Harbour, and established a strict blockade; while Cromwell, by his storm of Drogheda and Wexford, showed that Ireland was not, at that particular time, a very safe abode for any whom the Parliament of England designated pirates or rebels. Under these circumstances, towards the end of October, Eupert, with his usual good fortune in running away from formidable enemies, contrived to make his escape, with a ' Clarendon State Papers, 26th June, of the injuries offered unto the English 1654. nation by the French, in suffering ^ " That a letter be written to Sir prizes to be brought into and sold in George Ayscue, now in the Downs, to Dunquerque." — Order Book of the inclose unto him the case stated by Council of State, 29th September, Dr. AValker (of the Admiralty Court) 1649, MS. State Paper Office. VOL. II. F \ / 66 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. I ] considerable part of liis pirate fleet; Blake -as the winter and the strong north-east winds set in, and as it was an extremely dangerous lee-shore, and entirely without safe anchorage — being forced to ride out at a greater distance from the mouth of the harbour. ^ It appears from an original letter^ (which has never beei^ printed) among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian, from Blake to Cro mwell, that in the beginning of ISTovember, Blake was i n Cor k llav"en. This letter is dated " Cork Haven, November 5, 1649," and thus commences: " Eight Honourable, — By God's good providence on Satur- day last, in the morning, we came safe into Cork Haven, notwithstanding we were shot at divers times from a fort, at the entering of the harbour, held by the Irish." The writer then goes on to state that he finds, by the expressions of several officers, " now aboard with me, and by the rela- tion of two other officers who were yesterday in Cork," that there is a great deal of cordial and unanimous resolu- tion among them, with a firm and sincere affection, as far as I can judge, to the English interest and army." It ' Even in the preceding June, as appears from a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, " From aboard the Trucmph in Milford Haven, June 18, 1648," and signed " Eobert Blake, Ric. Deane," the weather had driven the blockading fleet to take re- fuge in Milford Haven. "We have now," the letter says, " been 13 days absent from Kinsale, from whence we were forced by extremity of weather, and driven hither where we now are with 8 ships. We shall, God willing, with the first opportunity, endeavour to get to Kinsale Bay again, and pur- sue our former resolution, if we shall find them there, or otherwise follow them whithersoever they shall go." — See the letter in Dixon's Robert Blake, new edition, pp. 104, 105, London, 1858. 2 I am indebted for a copy of this letter to the kindness of Mr. F. K. Lenthall, Recorder of Woodstock, .a lineal descendant of the Speaker of the Long Parliament. Mr. Lenthall him- self copied the letter from the original in the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian. I am also indebted to the same gentle- .man for a most graphic account of Cromwell's dissolution of his last Par- liament, which he also copied from an original letter among the Tanner MSS. j^^tjjtmMtiMitiimism^ IGiO.] LETTER OF BLAKE TO CROMWELL. Q7 would be extremely interesting, as well as imi^ortant, to know Blake's real opinion of Cromwell, about three years or a little more after this point of time, though such opinion could hardly be expected to be found in a letter from Blake to Cromwell himself. But when we consider what an unusually frank, fearless, and plainspoken man Blake was, and that, in an official letter to his Commander- in-Chief, he was under no necessity to pay him compliments, it may, I think, be fairly inferred, from the following sentences in this letter, that at this time Blake placed full and hearty confidence both in Cromwell's ability and his fidelity to the Parliament. " I look upon it," the letter continues, " as an extraordinary and very seasonable mercy of God, in stirring up and uniting so many resolute spirits to a work of so great consequence, and which, by God's further blessing and your management, may be a means of reducing, in a short time, the greatest part of Munster. The gentlemen that were chief actors in this business had j)enned certain propositions, to be tendered to your Excel- lency, in behalf of themselves and others ; but they are willing to decline that way, and to put themselves upon your goodness, of which I have made bold to assure them that they shall receive more satisfaction than if they should insist upon any conditions, they professing them- selves all resolved to live and die in defence of the Parlia- ment and army of England, under your command. To-morrow, God willing, I intend to go to Cork, to do my best to confirm (if need be) the resolutions of the soldiers and townsmen, they being now upon their duty, and expecting every day some relief from your Excellency. I purj)ose to stay here till then, and till some other ships of fire^ come hither, and then I wait on your Excellency. In the • Fire-ships. f2 / \ / 6S COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL meantime, having nothing to add but mj hearty prayers Tinto God for you and your army and undertakings, I remain, your Excellency's most affectionate and humble servant, Egbert Blake." ^ On the 20th of November, 1649, Kinsale surrendered to Blake.2 ----~~----^ Enpert directed his course southward, and his move- ments appear now to have attracted more of the attention of the Council of State than they did before. On the 1st of December 1649, the day following that on which the Coimcil received Blake's letters concerning the sur- render of Kinsale, they directed a letter to be written to Colonel Popham, the like to Colonel Blake and Colonel Deane, " to inclose unto them the informations which are sent hither concerning the spoils which are made by Prince Eupert about the Straits [of Gibraltar] , and to desire them to hold a serious consultation thereupon, and to consider in what way some prevention may be given unto him, and to return their opinions therein to the Council." ^ On the 3rd of December, the Council of State directed " a letter to be written to the Generals at sea, to give them the state of the winter fleet, and to desire them to think of taking a squadron out of the winter guard to go to seek out Eupert's fleet; and, in such ships as shall need it, to desire them to increase their number of men, not exceeding the proportion of the winter guard." * ' This letter is endorsed in Crom- well's hand, " Coll. Blacke's letter to " ("me" erased and substituted) "the Ld.-Lnt. of Ireland." = "That the letter from Colonel Blake of the 20th November, concern- ing the rendition of Kingsale, be re- ported to the House ; and Sir Henry Vane is desired to make this report." — Order Book of the Council of State, 30th November, 1649, MS. State Paper Office. ' Bid. 1st December, 1649. * Ibid. 3rd December, 1649. 1649.J BLAKE SENT IN PURSUIT OF RUPERT. 69 On the following day, the 4th of December 1649, the Council of State made an order, " That Colonel Blake shall be the person who shall be appointed to command the squadron which is to go towards Cales [Cadiz] to seek out Prince Eupert." ^ And on the same day they ordered, "That a letter be written to Colonel Blake, to let him know that this Council hath pitched upon him as the person whom they intend to send against Prince Eupert ; to let him know that he is to reside at Plymouth until all things shall be read}^ for his setting forth ; and in the meantime the Irish squadron may do service in the station to which they are appointed." ^ On the same day they ordered a letter to be written to Colonel Popham, to let him know that they had pitched upon Colonel Blake to command the squadron which is to go against Prince Eupert; and in this letter, as well as in that to Blake, they say, " which the Council hath done to prevent the delays which may be occasioned by appointing a consultation." In this letter to Popham they also say, " That this Council leaves it to him and the rest of the Generals at sea, to appoint such number of ships, and of such quality as they shall think fit, to go forth in the squadron ; that the Committee of the Admiralty will take care for the providing of all supplies which may be neces- sary for the expedition, and will likewise advise with such as are traders to the Straits for their judgment in the business." ^ On the same day the Council made an order, " That it be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty, to advise with some merchants, traders to the Straits, to know of > Order Book of the Council of State, ^ Ibid. 4th December, 1649, MS. State Paper « Ibid. Office. M 70 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. 1649.] INCREASE OF TIIE NAVY. 71 them their opinions concerning the sending of a fleet against Prince Eupert, now about the Straits, who are to report to the Council what thej shall receive from the said merchants concerning this affair." ^ On the 8th of December the Council of State made the foUowing orders : " That £14,000 be lent to the Committee of the JSTavj out of the money laid aside for the use of the emergent affairs of this Commonwealth, to be made use of by them for the setting out of the squadron which is to go against Prince Eupert." " That some part of the summer fleet may be sent as a reserve after this squadron that is now to go out." 2 The Council of State were, as I have before observed, manifestly anxious for peace with foreign States, though when attacked or insulted they showed themselves not unprepared for war. On the 13th of December they determined that two persons should be sent into Spain (one as agent, the other as counsel or consul), " to keep a good correspondence between the two nations." ^ On the 31st of December, 1649, the Council ordered a letter to be written to the Committee of the Navy, to acquaint them with the former vote (appointing Blake Admiral of the fleet against Eupert), and to enclose unto them the vote of the Council, whereby Captain Moulton is ' Order Book of the Council of State, 4th December, 1649, MS. State Paper Office.— On the 28th of December, 1649, a petition was pre- sented to the Council of State from the Company trading into Turkey, repre- senting the great losses they have sus- tained by piracies, and craving redress therein. {Bid. 28th December, 1649.) On the same day (the 28th December, 1649), there is a warrant to Mr. Wil- loughby to transport into foreign parts forty couple of English hounds. On the 5th of February, 16^^, there is an order of the Council of State, "That the Lord Ambassador of Spain shall have liberty to ship 20 horses, of which 12 are coach and the rest saddle horses." 2 Ibid. 8th December, 1649. ' Ibid. 13th December, 1649. made Vice-Admiral to the fleet now to go to the south, and likewise to enclose unto them the opinion of the Masters of the Trinity House concerning the sending of the fleet to the South." * On the 5th of January, IG^f, the Council of State sent formal notice to the Spanish Ambassador ''yet re- maining in England," that " because they find that the trade between the two nations is like to be very much disturbed by the means of the revolted ships commanded by Prince Eupert, who, with others their adherents, have betaken themselves to piracy, they [the Council of State] have thought fit to appoint a considerable fleet to go into those seas in pursuit of the said revolters and pirates, who they hear are now at Lisbon, but do presume will have no maintenance nor protection from any that are allies to this State." ^ On the 7th of January, 16|f, the Council of State made the following important minute relating to the in- crease of the navy : " That it be reported to the Parlia- ment that the Council is of opinion that it is necessary that some more ships should be built for the service and safety of the Commonwealth, and that it may at this time be more conveniently done in regard of the great stores of timber that is now cut down." There are three orders of the following day, the 8th of January, which, though not relating to naval affairs, I venture to transcribe : " That £100 be paid to Mr. Thomas Waring, for a book contain- ing several examinations of the bloody massacry {sic) in Ireland." " That Mr. Milton do confer with some printers » Order Book of the Council of State for Sir Oliver Fleming, Knt., to State, 31st December, 1649, MS. St^te the Spanish Ambassador yet remain- Paper Office. ^^g ^^ England."— 7Z/2W. 5t]i Januar)-, 2 "Instructions from the Council of 16|§. -"W. ' !,i!imili i gP.J!iWjm i [U|p B ^2 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL or Stationers, concerning the speedy printing of this book." " That Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the Book of Salmatius {sic), and when he hath done it, brino- it to the Council." » "^ The following order of the 12th of January, 16|f, confirms what has been said in the preceding volume re^ specting the pressing of seamen : " That it be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty to give order for the victualling of the ships that are to go southward, for six months from the 20th of January instant ; that thej also give orders to the Commissioners of the Navy toprm 150 men, and send them down to Portsmouth for the service of the fleet now going south." On the same day they ordered, " That it be referred to the Committee of the Ordnance to contract with Mr. Browne, the gunfounder, for ordnance for the winter fleet of the next year." ^ On the 16th of January, the Council of State ordered a letter to be written to the Committee of the Navy, " That in regard Colonel Blake is to go General of the fleet that is to go to the southward, to desire them that order be presently given for the pay of his last year's salary, that he may be thereby the better fitted for this service." On the same day they also ordered " an instruction to be prepared for Colonel Blake, to send for the merchants of this nation who are in such places abroad as he shall have occasion to apply himself imto with his fleet, and to tender unto them the engagement ; and to let them know that as this State gives protection unto them in their trade, so this State expects that they should be faithful unto them, and that they should not own or apply themselves unto any persons > Order Book of the Council of State, 7th and 8th January 16^5 MS State Paper Office. . im. 12th January, 16||. ^" 1649.] INSTRUCTIONS TO BLAKE. 78 whomsoever who come as ambassadors from Charles Stuart, and have no character from this State." ^ On the 17th of January, 16f^, the Council of State sent Blake his instructions. " You shall," say the instruc- tions, " if you find yourself strong enough, not spare the revolters, but fight with them, and by God's assistance prosecute their destruction ; and in case any foreign ships shall thereupon assist the said revolters, or fight against you, you likewise shall fight against them, and destroy or surprise them as God shall enable you ; but so that after the fight ended, in case you happen to take any foreigners, there be not made any slaughter of them in cold blood, but that they be kept and used civilly as prisoners of war. And in case that you find occasion, by reason of any un- expected assistance given to the said revolters, or any power of ships set forth by any for the surprising of our merchant-ships or prejudicing of this Commonwealth, that then and in such case you shall be and are hereby enabled, according as the Lords Admirals of England in such cases formerly were, to call unto your assistance, and embargo, arrest, and make use of any English merchants' ^ ships to join with you, to fight or make defence for the safeguard and benefit of this Commonwealth. And they are hereby enjoined to yield obedience. Furthermore, if the said ' Order Book of the Council of State, 16th January, 16|§, MS. State Paper Office. 2 As I have before shown, the mer- chant-ships were, at that time, all more or less armed. See note at p. 107 of the preceding volume, where it is shown that even colliers' ships of 160 tons carried as many as eight guns. Consequently, merchant-ships were easily made available as ships of war, and were frequently bought for the use of the State, of which the following minute furnishes an example: "That the opinion brought in from the Com- mittee of the Admiralty, concerning the buying of the merchant frigate for the use of the State, at the rate of £2750, be approved oiy—Ibid. 9 th January, IByf. ^^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. revolted fleet, or any of them, should happen to be sold by their Commander-in-Chief, or any of their captains, or other persons whatsoever, to any foreign Prince or State, or any of their subjects, or stayed there under any colour or pre- tence, you are not for all that to forbear to seize, burn, destroy, or surprise them wheresoever you can do it ; and to signify to them that these ships are part of the navy of England, and the Parliament's own ships, and were treacherously carried away by those perfidious revolters, who have no property in them nor power to sell them ; and that your commission from the Parliament enjoins you to demand them wherever they be, and to seize upon them and send them home. And whereas the dominion of these seas hath anciently and time out of mind undoubtedly belonged to this nation, and the ships of all other nations, in acknowledgment to that dominion, have used to take down their flags upon sight of the Admiral of England, and not to bear it in his presence, you are — as much as in you lieth, and as you find yourself and the fleet of strength and ability — to do your endeavour to preserve the said dominion of the sea, and to cause the ships of all other nations to strike their flags and not to bear them up in your presence ; and to compel such as are refractory therein, by seizing their ships, and sending them in to be punished according to the law of the sea, unless they submit and yield such obedience as you shall approve of: yet we would not that you should, in this expedition, engage the fleet in any peril or hazard for that particular. There are special letters of credence delivered to you, to make use of as you may have occasion." For the use of the fleet there were provided £3,000 in Spanish money— pieces of eight, bought at 4s. lOd, per piece, and £1,000 in English money. There 1649.] INSTRUCTIONS TO ASCHAM, &c. 75 were also letters of credit in Spain, Italy, &c., to the amount of £10,000.1 On the 23rd of January, the Council of State gave " In- structions for Anthony Ascham, Esq., Agent from the Com- monwealth of England to the King of Spain," by which Ascham is directed " to signify to the King of Spain that the Parliament of England hath received information that there are arrived at the Court of Spain the Lord Cotting- ton and Mr. Edward Hyde, calling themselves ambassadors from the late King's eldest son, pretending himself King of Great Britain, who have presumed to write to the mer- chants of the Commonwealth residing in Spain, requiring them to acknowledge them, the said Cottington and Hyde, as public ministers of the said Pretender." Ascham is, by his instructions, further directed " to desire the said King of Spain, that if any ships or goods belonging to the people of this Commonwealth shall be brought into any of the ports, by Eupert or any other pirate, that they may be put in safe custody, and without breaking bulk be delivered to the owners thereof."^ On the same day instructions, to the same purport, were given to Charles Vane, Esq., '' Agent from the Common- wealth of England to the King of Portugal." ^ On the 24th of January, a letter was ordered to be written to Colonel Popham and Colonel Blake, " to give them what information the Council hath received of the preparation of frigates by the enemies in Dunkirk for the infesting of the seas" ; and Colonel Popham is therefore desired to have an eye to those seas, " when that squadron is gone » Order Book of the Council of State, 17th January, 16||, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. 23rd January, 16|2. 3 Ibid, same day. *^^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIIL southward which is now to go forth with Colonel Blake." » On the following day, the 25th, an order is made, " That the General of the fleet (Blake) shall land Mr. Ascham in such port of Spain as shall be thought most convenient for his journey to Madrid." ^ :N'ext day (26th of January), it is ordered " that a messenger be sent down to Gravesend, to hasten away the ships that are to go to the southward." ^ It would appear, however, that Blake's fleet had not sailed by the 8th of February ; for on that day Blake is directed to give Mr. Ascham accommodation suitable to his quality, and, in case he shall not be received as ambassador, to re- ceive him on board again."* On Saturday, the 16th of February, 16|f, an order was made, " That all whose names are in the new Act for a Council of State for the year to come be desired to be here on Monday in the afternoon, for the putting in execution of the powers given them by the new Act ; and that all orders concerning Standing Committees formerly made be written out, with the persons that are of those committees." Of these Standing Committees, the principal were — " Admiralty, " Ordnance, " Ireland, ' Order Book of the Council of State, 24th January, 16|f, MS. State Paper Office. Ihid. 25th January, 16f§. 'Ifjid. 26th January, 16|§. * Ihid. 8th February, 16|§.— It would seem from the following order that some members of the Council of State were not members of the Parliament : " That notice be given to all the mem- bers of this Council who are not of the Parliament, that the corpse of the late Earl of Pembroke is to be carried out of town on Wednesday next, to the end that they may accompany it two or three miles onwards the way, the Parliament having ordered that all their members do accompany the corpse out of town." —Ibid. 4th February, 16|§. On the same day the Council made an order, "That a coach with seven horses shall be bought for the service of the State, for the receiving of Agents from' abroad, and likewise liveries for six footmen, and a coachman and a posti- lion, &c"~I?jid. 1G49.] OEDEPvS FOU REGULATING COUNCIL'S PROCEEDINGS. / 7 " Private Examinations, " Foreign Negotiations." ^ On Monday the 18th of February, 16^^, the Council reappointed Mr. Serjeant Bradshaw President of the Coun- cil, with the like provisions as in the preceding year.'' They then voted the reappointment of Mr. Milton, Mr. Frost [father and son], and all the clerks employed the preceding year, at the same salaries.^ On the 23rd of February, the minutes contain the following rather important construction of the Council's oath of secrecy : " That any of the Council shall have liberty to reveal whatsoever is debated, resolved, or spoken of, if they be not forbidden to reveal by the major part of those present at the said debates, resolutions, and speeches." * On the 27th of February the Council of State proceeded to make " Orders for regulating the Proceedings of the Council ; " some of which I will transcribe, that the reader may be better enabled to form an opinion of the character given them by Bishop Warburton — " a set of the greatest geniuses for government the world ever saw embarked together in one common cause ": — " That after the reading of the letters " [which included the letters received that morning or since the last meeting of the Council, and those ordered at the last meeting to be ^ Order Book of the Council of State, die Saturni, 16th February, 16if, MS. State Paper Office. On the 1st of February, the Council made an order, "That Mr. Serjeant do speak unto Colonel Goffe for the furnishing of 20 men every afternoon, well and full armed, to be placed in the chamber commonly called the Guard Chamber, there to attend until the rising of the Council." "Lamps to be set up in the galleries about Whitehall for making the passage con- venient for the members of the Council." — 3id. 1st February, 16|§. 2 Vol. i. p. 38. ' Order Book of the Council of State, die Lunae, 18th February, 16f2, MS. State Paper Office. * Ibid. 23rd February 16|§. 78 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [ClIAP. VIII. written by the secretaries] , " if there he nothing of present danger that must he instantly despatched, then all the Com- mittees of the Council that have any business stand referred to them shall make their report thereof to the Council." " That the letters sent to the Council be opened at the place of the Council's sitting, in the presence of three at the least of the Council, and then be delivered to the Secretary." " That if letters shall arrive when the Council is not sitting that are known or supposed to be of importance, and to require a more speedy despatch than to attend the ordinary meeting of the Council, the President and any two of the Council shall have power to open them, and, if necessary, to give order for the present summoning of the Council, to take it into consideration and make a despatch." " That whatever is propounded, seconded, and thirded, be put to the question, if none of the members of the Council speak against it." " That when a business is resolved by the question, the Secretary shall enter the said votes into the books, and nothing of any dehate or argument shall he entered, but only the results thereof declared in the said votes." " That when there shall be but nine members of the Council, none of them shall depart the Council Chamber without leave, during the time appointed for sitting of the Council." ^ Although at other times the Council, as has been stated in the preceding volume, had morning sittings (namely, at 7 or sometimes 8 in the morning), as well as afternoon sittings, at this time the order was, " That the Council shall sit every day, except Lord's-days" [as we shall " Order Book of the Council of State, 27tli Feb. 16*^, MS. State Paper Office. 1649.] COMMITTEE OF THE NAVY. 79 see they sat on Lord's-days when the business was urgent, as during the maich of the Scots into England before the Battle of Worcester, and during the Dutch war] , "at 3 in the afternoon, and shall not sit after 6 when the House sits, unless for business that cannot bear delay till next day." ' On the 2nd of March the Council of State made the following orders : — " That the paper now sent from the Parliament, contain- ing the increase of wages to the seamen, be sent to the Committee of the Navy." " That the Council doth declare that in the framing of the new Militia they will have no such officer as a Lieute- nant-Colonel of Horse ; and that commissions granted to any to be Lieutenant-Colonels of Horse be revoked, and commissions for Majors given in lieu of them." "That the whole Council, or any five of them, be appointed a Committee for Trade and Plantations." " That Sir Henry Yane, Colonel Wauton, Mr. Challoner,^ Colonel Popham, Colonel Stapeley, Colonel Purefoy, Earl of Salisbury, Mr. Luke Robinson, or any three of them, be appointed a Committee to carry on the affairs of the Admiralty and Navy, and to exercise the same powers as they have formerly done." ^ The following minute of the 25th of March 1650 shows the stringency of their _press warrants : " Whereas the Council of State hath contracted with Mr. Pitt, gunfounder, ' Order Book of tha Council of State, Esq.) Aubrey says : "He was as far 27th February, 16|^, MS. State Paper from a Puritan as the east from the Office. — On the same day the follow- west. He was of the natural religion, ing order was made: " That when any and of Heniy Martyn's gang, and one M(;mbers of Parliament shall come to who loved to enjoy the pleasures of the Council, there shall be chairs set this life." — Aultrcy's Letters and Lives, for them, and they shall be desired to (2 vols. London, 1813), vol. ii. p. 282. sit down." ^ Order Book of the Council of State, 2 Of Chalouer (1 homas Chaloner, 2nd March 1 6f g, MS. State Paper Office. 80 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. 1650.] ADDITIONAL INSTKCCTIONS TO BLAKE. 81 for new casting of some ordnance for tlie service of the State, in which he is to make nse of Edward Lane, these are therefore to will and require you not to press the said Edward Lane, servant to Mr. Pitt, for any other service of the State during his employment in the said service of the Commonwealth.— Given 25 Martii 1650." The warrant is addressed " to all Constables, Pressmasters, and all others whom it may concern." ^ By this time symptoms of the Dutch quarrel began to manifest themselves. A Dutch man-of-war having refused to be searched, the Council of State ordered that efficient assistance be given to the searchers to do their office.^ By this time also the Council began to be fully aware that they would have to encounter more enemies than the Dutch and the German pirate Eupert. In their instruc- tions of the 30th of March 1650, " for Eichard Bradshaw, Esq., Eesident from the Commonwealth of England with the Senate of Hamburg," they direct him to inform himself, and give them notice, " what designs are on foot and what transactions are made in Germany, Poland, Sweden, and Denmark;" and in regard to the Senate of Hamburg their instructions run thus— "You shall demand of them, in the name of the Commonwealth of England, that justice may be done upon those offenders that assaulted and attempted to assassinate the minister of the company of English merchants resident there ; and also upon those pirates who took away the deputy of that ' Order Book of the Council of State, 25th March, 1650, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. 28th March 1650.— The fol- lowing minute has reference also to the same subject: "That the Company trading to the East Indies do take care that, as soon as the ship's com- pany shall come to this town which brings the tidings of the injury offered to their trade by the Dutch, they put the thing into a way of proof and at- testation in the Admiralty, to the end that complaint may be made thereof to the States."— i(^i^. 6th May, 1650. company and some other merchants — against whom there hath been no proceeding for those crimes." ^ On the 22nd of March they ordered a letter to be written to Mr. Strick- land, to inform himself what English, especially persons of quality, are with the Scots' king at Breda. ^ On the 12th of April the Council made an order, " That Colonel Popham be desired to go forthwith to Portugal, with a fleet to consist of eight ships." ^ On the 20th of April the Council despatched " additional instructions to Colonel Eobert Blake, appointed General of the first fleet that is gone to the southward." In these " additional instructions," the Council state their case with a force and clearness which form such a remarkable contrast with some of the other writings of him who drew them (for I believe them to have been drawn by Sir Henry Vane), that they may serve as an instructive elucidation of the remark of Lord Macaulay, that while any time might have pro- duced George Pox and James Naylor, to that time alone belonged the frantic delusions of such a statesman as Vane, and the hysterical tears of such a soldier as Cromwell : — " You shall remonstrate forthwith to the King of Portu- gal, that those ships now in his ports, de facto commanded by Prince Eupert, are of a nature not capable of neutrality ; for that they were part of the Navy of England, in the real and actual possession of the Parliament, armed, equipped, and furnished by them in their own ports ; the mariners being also their own servants, hired by them, and placed in those ships in the immediate service of the Parliament, from which service, and from their duty, the said mariners have perfidiously apostatised and made defection ; and as • Order Book of the Council of State, 30th March 1650, MS. State Pa- per Office. VOL. II. G « Ihid. 22nd March, 16i§. » Ihid, 12th April 1650. ^''m 82 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. fugitives and renegades have run away with the said ships, and in the same as pirates and sea-robbers they have made depredations, and by adding to their number the ships by them taken were growing to a strength like to prove dangerous, to the interruption if not the destruction of all trade and commerce. That they are such fugitives and renegades as have not place in the world which they can pretend to be their own, nor have any port of their own whither to carry their prizes, and where to make show of any form of justice; but whatever they can by rapine take, from any whomsoever, like so many thieves and pirates, they truck the same away, when they can get admittance for that thievish trade. And being, as they are, hostes humani generis, they may neither use the law of nations, nor are capable of protection from any prince. " You shall signify the strict charge laid upon you by the Commonwealth of England to surprise ^ or destroy those revolted ships wherever you can find them. " If the King of Portugal shall refuse or neglect to do you right in the premisses, then, for default of justice from him therein, you shall seize, arrest, surprise, or destroy in the way of justice, all such ships, either merchant or other, belonging to the King of Portugal or any of his sub- jects, and secure the same and all the goods therein, and all the writings, in the same manner and form as by the instruction given you concerning the French, to be kept till the Parliament shall resolve what further directions they will give concerning them." ^ The " Instructions for Colonel Edward Popham, > It will be observed that the word to fall upon unexpectedly," •'surprise" is, in these and the other 2 Order Book of the Council of State, instructions to the same effect, used in 20th April 1650, MS. State Paper its primary sense — " to take unawares, Ofl&ce. 1650.] INSTRUCTIONS TO POPHAM. 83 appointed to command the second fleet ordered to go to the southward," dated " Whitehall, April 25, 1650," are for the most part the same as those before given to Blake. It will, therefore, only be necessary to give the following portions of them, which are, in fact, to be instructions for Blake as well as Popham : — " Whereas all particulars cannot be foreseen, nor posi- tive instructions for each emergent so beforehand given, but that many things must be left to your prudence and discreet management, as occurrences may arise upon the place, or from time to time fall out ; you are, therefore, upon all such accident, or any occasion that may happen, to use your best circumspection, and, advising with your Council of War, to order and dispose of the said fleet, and the ships under your command, as may be most advanta- geous for the public, and for obtaining the ends for which this fleet was set forth — making it your special care, in dis- charge of that great trust committed unto you, that the Com- momvealth receive no detriment, ^ "You are, upon your coming into the Bay of Weires,^ or any other place where you shall meet with Colonel Blake, to show him these your instructions, who is hereby authorised and required to put the same in execution jointly with you, if you shall continue together, or severally and by himself if you find it for the service to divide yourselves, ' Order Book of the Council of State, 25th April 1650, MS. State Paper Office. — It is not unworthy of notice that these last words are a translation of the words by which, in critical times, the power of the Ro- man Consuls was made unlimited by the decree of the Senate,—" Videant consules ne quid respublicadetrimonti capiat." 2 Oeiras. It is spelt "OejTas" in the "Wellington Despatches (vol. viii. p. 228). The Council of State dealt with Spanish or Portuguese names somewhat as Charles James Fox did, who, says Lord Brougham, " preferred Cales and Groyne to Cadiz and Corunna." — Hifi- torical Sketches of Statesyncn of the Time of George III., third series, p. 203, London, 1843. G 2 84 COMMONWnEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. as well as if tlie same had been directed particularly to himself." ^ On the 29th of April the Council gave an additional private instruction to Blake and Popham, to the effect that if they should find they were like to come to a breach with the King of Portugal, by any acts they should be necessitated to put in execution in pursuance of their instructions, they should first send for Mr. Yane, the Eesident there, to come on board, and show him their instructions, and declare their resolution, that he may give order for securing his papers, and that his person may be in safety with them, against any wrong might be done to him, or advantage made of him against the public service.^ Kupert, in the course of his flight from Kinsale to Por- tugal, captured four ships, which, having been fitted out by him as men-of-war, made up his fleet to nine vessels. The goods captured in these four ships he sold to the Portu- guese merchants for £30,000. " These prizes," says Eupert, in one of his letters to Charles, " being considerable, and being fearful of some disaster, having near three hundred prizemen aboard us, it was generally thought fit to secure and sell them with the first convenience, to do which no place was thought more convenient nor safe than Lisbon." ^ Accordingly, Eupert sailed into the Tagus, and John of Braganza, the first Portuguese king of the House of Bra- ganza, who had been placed on the throne of Portugal by the nobility in 1640, undertook to protect him in that river against all his enemies. At the approach of spring, Eupert — having, as before mentioned, fitted out his prizes as men-of-war — dropped down the river to Belleisle, with the » Order Book of the Council of ^ //>zV/. 29tli April 1650. State, 25th April 1650, MS. State Pa- » Fitzroy MS. in VTarburton, iii. per Office. 295. 1650.] RUPERT'S DEVICE FOR DESTROYING BLAKE. 85 intention of renewing his piracies ; but, before he could get clear of the river, Blake with his fleet of five ships was at its mouth, and Rupert, though he had nine ships against Blake's five, anchored under the guns of the fort. Blake, having sent an officer to ask the King's permission to at- tack the revolted ships at their anchorage, and having met with a refusal, ajffected not to comprehend the King's answer, and ordered his boats to cross the bar. A few shots were fired at them from Belim Castle. Blake sent a boat to enquire the reason for this show of hostility against a friendly Power, there being no war at that time between Portugal and England. The officer in command replied that he had received no orders to allow Blake's ships to pass. Blake then sent a remonstrance to the King of Por- tugal, according to the instructions he had received from the Council of State, that the ships to which the King of Portugal gave protection were a part of the English navy, which had revolted from the Parliament of England ; that their commanders had acted as pirates and sea-robbers, and, by adding to their fleet the ships they captured, were growing into a power likely to prove dangerous to the law- ful commerce of all civilised nations ; that therefore they were unable to appeal to the law of nations, or ask the protection of any prince in their revolt and piracy, without thereby creating a cause of war between that prince and the Commonwealth of England.^ Blake's remonstrance, strong as it was, produced not more effect than any words, however strong, usually do ; for the battle which the Parliament of England had now to maintain against the world was to be fought by other weapons than the arguments even of such a statesman as > Rupert, MS. in Warburton, iii. 135-137, London, 1852; new edition, 300, 301; Dixon's Robert Blake, pp. pp. 110-112, London, 1858. 86 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. Vane. In the meantime, the weather growing foul, Blake entered the river with his fleet, and anchored in Oejras Bay ; but weeks passed on, and he could obtain no satis- factory answer from the King of Portugal. During this time an incident occurred which exhibits two bad features that characterised the proceedings of the Eoyalist party — assassination and falsehood. An attempt to destroy Blake, not certainly in fair fight, was defended by the partisans of the German robber and pirate by a false statement, to the effect that some persons from the English fleet went on shore at Belleisle to attack a hunting-party, including Eupert, Maurice, and several other cavaliers ; the fact being that the men were sent on shore, in the ordinary way, to obtain fresh water, and while getting it were as- sailed by Eupert's party, who killed one of them, wounded three others, and made five prisoners. Towards the evening of the same day, a bombshell placed in a double-headed barrel, with a lock in the middle so contrived that on being opened it would give fire to a quick-match and cause the whole to explode, was sent by Eupert to Blake's flag-ship in a Portuguese boat, manned by two negroes, and a sailor dressed as a Portuguese tradesman, who was instructed to say he was an oil-merchant come with a present for the seamen. When these men arrived with their boat at the ship's stern, they found the ports there closed ; and while they were rowing round to the transom-port, some of the crew recognised the pretended Portuguese tradesman as one of Eupert's men, whom they had frequently met on shore at Belleisle ; and he was immediately arrested, and this honourable Eoyalist device for getting rid of Blake discovered and baffled.^ Dixon's Kobert Blake, p. 140; Thurloe, i. 145, 146.— In the "First Kupert MS. in Warburton, iii. 305; Paper of Demands, in the name of the 1650.] BLAKE ATTACKS THE BRAZIL FLEET. 87 The time consumed in these proceedings against Eupert shows that the Parliament of England was not yet by any means strong enough at sea to encounter all their enemies ; and the indefatigable exertions made by Sir Henry Vane and the Committee of the Admiralty to build new ships of war, as well as to furnish their present fleet ^ with all need- ful provisions and materials of war, form one of the most important features in the history of that which has been truly called " the Sheet-anchor of the British Empire," the British Navy. If the navy of the Parliament of England had been as strong, or half as strong, at the beginning of Blake's career as it was at the end of it — when the great Admiral, "who would never strike to any other enemy, struck his topmast to Death," soon after his most brilliant victory, the action at Santa Cruz — Blake would have made very short work of such enemies as this King of Portugal and this German pirate ; but the Parliament was entering on a new career in their naval wars, and it was natural enough that they should make some miscalculations in the adaptation of means to ends. Accordingly Blake, even when strengthened by the arrival of Popham's squadron of eight ships, still only continued to demand permission to take vengeance for the outrages perpetrated by the German pirate, instead of proceeding (as he did afterwards in the case of the Barbary pii^ates) at once to destroy him Parliament, made to the Public Mi- nister of the King of Portugal," one article is, " That justice be done upon those that murdered our men in Portu- gal, being on shore, and upon those that attempted the burning of the Admiral's ships in the river." — Order Book of the Council of State, 10th Feb. 1651, MS. State Paper Office. ' *' That the Committee of the Admi- ralty confer with Mr. Vane " [Mr. Charles Vane, the brother of Sir Henry Vane, who had been recalled from Portugal by a letter of the Coun- cil of State, 21st June 1650, MS. State Paper Office] " concerning the present condition of the tleet riding at the bar of Lisbon, to the end for the speedy supplying of them with such things as are needful."— i6if7. 3rd July 1650. I f 88 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. 1650.] TREATY OF PEACE WITH POETUGAL. 89 and his fleet. Instead of granting the permission de- manded by Blake, the King of Portugal put some of the English merchants under arrest. Upon this Blake seized the whole of the Brazil fleet, of nine sail, coming out of the river. He also threatened to seize the American fleets on their return, if the revolters were not immediately com- pelled to quit the Tagus. A squadron of thirteen Portuguese men-of-war was then equipped, and ordered to join the force under Eupert. But it is remarkable that the veteran admirals of Portugal did not consider it prudent to attack the English fleet; commanded by a man who had never held a naval commission till about a year before, when he was fifty years of age ; and who, in spite of ihe approach of winter, continued to cruise at the river's mouth, where he attacked a Brazil fleet of twenty-three sail as it was about to enter the Tagus, sank the Portuguese flag-ship, destroyed three other ships, and captured the Vice- Admiral and eleven large ships laden with the most precious cargoes. The King of Portugal now began to perceive that his sympathy for the cause represented by Prince Rupert was too expensive. It was accordingly intimated to the German princes, that the Crown of Portugal could no longer protect them against the power of the Commonwealth of England. Eupert therefore, while Blake was at sea in search of the dispersed fleet of Brazil, dropped down the river, and got clear away with his ships. The King of Portugal then despatched an envoy to London. The Council of State insisted upon the following conditions : — the immediate restoration of ships and goods seized; justice upon those that murdered our men in Portugal when on shore, and upon those that attempted the burning of the Admiral's ships in the river ; repayment of the charges in fitting out the several fleets sent to Portugal, for reducing the revolted ships protected by the King of Portugal ; restitution of, or reparation for, all English goods taken by Eupert or Maurice, or any of their ships, and brought into Portugal and disposed of there.' The Portuguese envoy, venturing to dispute some dates and details, was ordered to quit the country. The King of Portugal then sent a nobleman of high rank as his ambassador to the Parliament of England. But delays again arose, and it was not till January 1653 that the treaty of peace was concluded between England and Portugal.2 Towards the end of 1652, the King of Por- tugal had agreed to pay £50,000 to the Commonwealth, as appears from the following minute of 24th December 1652 : " That Sir Oliver Fleming and Mr. Thurloe do receive from the Portugal Ambassador the Bill or Bills of Ex- change, which he shall give for the payment of £20,000 at Lisbon, part of the £50,000 which is to be paid in whole by the King of Portugal to this Commonwealth." ^ Eupert with his pirate fleet, after leaving Lisbon, passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and entered the » «' First Paper of Demands, in the name of the Parliament, made to the Public Minister of the King of Portu- gal."— Orc/er Book of the Council of State, 10th Feb. 165f, MS. State Paper Office. 2 ♦' At the close of the dispute with the Court of Lisbon, the owners of the nine ships seized and detained by Blake at the mouth of the Tagus were allowed to present a statement of their griev- ances to the Judges of the Coui-t of Admiralty, Blake's conduct in the matter was minutely investigated; Admiral Popham was called on to give evidence as to the facts ; and after a full enquiry, the Judges decided that the General-at-sea had acted in the spirit of his instructions. But they acknowledged the private losses which the owners might have suffered by the forcible detention of their ships, and decided that the same compensation should be awarded to them for the service, as in cases where ships had been hired by the State."— Dixon's Robert Blake, p. U6, cites Judges MS. Reports, March 24, State Paper Office. » Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, December 24, 1652, MS, State Paper Office. 90 COMMONWKiLTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. Mediterranean. A manuscript memoir, found amonf, Kupert s papers, thus expresses the spirit that animated him and his companions : " Misfortune being no novelty to us we plough the sea for a subsistence; and being destitute of a port, we take the confines of the Mediterranean Sea for our harbour : poverty and despair being our companions, and revenge our guide." Coasting the shores of Andalusia, they foil ,n with the Malaga fleet during a dart night and captured two ships. Rupert then stood in for Malaga and sent forward one of his ships (the frigate Henry), with instructions to take up a position between the vessels lying outside the port and the mole, so that, when attacked in the night, they might be prevented from retreating into the harbour. But the design was defeated by the deser- tion of some of the Henry^s men, who informed the Spaniards of the intended night-attack; and a signal from the batteries warning the ships of their danger, they stood safely in while it was yet broad day. Eupert, finding las plan defeated, sailed for Velez-Malaga, higher up the coast where some English merchant-ships were lying. The Governor of Velez-Malaga, on hearing of the appear- ance oi Rupert on the coast, had despatched a com-ier to Madrid for mstruetions ; but, on the ground that this messenger had not returned when Eupert arrived, he refused to mterfere, and six English ships were fired and burnt by Rupert under the guns of the Spanish batteries. Spam was now destined to learn that a change had come over the scene, since that dark time in England's annals when her minister Gondemar had declared that there were no men in England." Blake was waiting the arrival of a supply of stores sent by the Council of State when the news reached him of this act of hostility com- mitted in a friendly port. He at once turned his bows 1650.] BLAKE DESTROYS RUPERT'S FLEET. 91 towards the entrance of the Mediterranean, and passed the Straits with all his fleet^-the first English Admiral who had sailed in those seas since the time of the Crusades. When he reached Malaga, he found that Eupert had left that part of the coast. At Capo Palos, near Carthagena, the revolted ships had last been seen in a tremendous squaU, when Eupert and his brother separated from the rest, and ran out to sea. The other revolted ships ran into Carthagena for shelter ; and when the weather cleared, the English fleet was seen riding before the harbour. Blake sent a messenger to inform the governor of the town that enemies to the Commonwealth of England had taken refuge in that port ; that he, as Admiral, carried instructions from the English Council of State to pm'sue and destroy them ; and that, the two nations being then at peace, he hoped to be aUowed to execute his orders without interference. The Spaniard sent an answer, which was tantamount to a refusal to recognise the Parliament as the supreme power in England. Besides this, Anthony Ascham, the minister sent by the English Parliament to the Court of Spain, had been basely assassinated not long before at Madrid, by some of the servants of Hyde and Cottington, as Dorislaus had been assassinated in Holland by some servants of Montrose ; and the Spanish Government had, like the Dutch, taken no effective steps to punish the assassins. Blake therefore lost no more time in messages to the Spanish governor, but, attacking the revolters, boarded the Boelnch, set fire to another ship, and drove the remainder on shore. Their guns, stores, and ammuni- tion were saved, and delivered up by the Spaniards to the 1 This was in 1650. Hume, in re- fleet, except during the Crusades, had lating Blake's entrance into the Medi- ever before sailed in those seas. terranean in 1654, says : "No English 92 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Cuap. VIH. Admirars agent. ^ The whole of the revolted fleet were now captured or destroyed, with the exception of the Reformation and the Sivallow, the two ships in which Eupert and Maurice sailed, and the Marmaduke, a ship they had recently captm-ed. The cotemporary correspondence, as given by White- lock, furnishes characteristic sketches both of Eupert and Blake: "December 20, 1650.— Letters that Prince Eupert came to Malaga and other ports, and fired and sank divers English merchant-ships, and demanded the master of a London ship, saying that he would boil him in pitch ; but the Governor of Malaga refused to deliver up the master to him.'^2 But the avenger of blood was behind him, for the next entry in Whitelock is this: "December 21.— Letters that Blake fell upon Prince Eupert in Malaga Eoad,^ sank two or three of his ships, ran on shore and exposed to ship- wreck the rest of his fleet ; only two ships escaped, where- in it is conceived Prince Eupert and his brother Prince Maurice were, and Blake in chase of them."'* There is something strange in Eupert's luck in escaping from Cromwell on land, and from Blake at sea. How came it that Eupert always managed to get away un- scathed—at Marston Moor, at Naseby, and elsewhere, where so many valiant Eoyalists went down before the Parliamentary cuirassiers and pikemen— and that noAv his and his brother's ships alone escaped? Eupert was a " tall black man," strong of body, and cruel and fierce of • Dixon's Robert Blake, pp. 155- 161 ; Kupert MS. in Warburton, iii. 313-318. 2 Whitelock's Memorials, p. 485. ' There is a minute of the Council of State of Friday, 13th December 1650, "That the letter from Colonel Blako of the 30th of October 1650, dated from aboard the Leopard in Malaga Road, be reported to the Parliament."— Or<^er Book of the Council of State, Friday, 13th December 1650, MS. State Paper Office. * Whitelock's Memorials, p. 485, 1650.] RUPERT'S LUCK IN ESCAPIXa. 93 heart. His bodily strength and, perhaps, superior horse- manship may have enabled him to escape on land, without making the supposition that he managed to get the credit of being a dashing cavalry ofiicer without much exposing his own person. But that explanation will not extend to a naval fight : and the two ships, in which he and his brother were, must have escaped by being less exposed to the enemy's fire than the rest of the fleet. Eupert by this time knew Blake too well to wait for his onset. Blake's height of 5 feet G inches, though too short for a Merton felloAvship, was far more than a match for the 6 feet odd of the " fiery Eupert," as his admirers love to call him. To fight Blake was a very diff'erent thing from cutting off a defenceless man's ears, or boiling him in pitch. It is incorrect to infer from a man's good horsemanship that he is a man of courage. Good horsemanship depends on the conformation and disposition of the muscles. In some persons what is called the riding muscle (the muscle on the inside of the thigh) is not only undeveloped, but incapable of strong development ; while the muscle on the outside of the thigh, on which walking depends, is well developed. To call a man who rides well " a dauntless rider" looks like brag ; though it may be quite true that the man is a fearless rider. But the " fearlessness " is only the confidence arising from the feeling that the muscular power gives a security unattended with risk ; and is a totally dif- ferent thing from the fearlessness which faces death, where no strength of muscle can be of any avail. A man who exposes himself to a shower of shot, as Blake constantly did, shows courage. A man who, trusting to his thews and sinews, and the power they give him of managing his horse, attacks men of far less muscular force, and worse- 94 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. mounted than himself, merely shows the confidence a strong animal has in his strength. This latter quality- was the sort of courage possessed by Prince Eupert — very different from the sort of courage evinced by Blake, and also from the sort of courage evinced by Harrison and by Cromwell. The courage of Harrison, indeed, was of that fiery and enthusiastic nature, which made him have sowmehat the relation to Cromwell that Murat bore to Bonaparte. Harrison's fate, too, bears some resemblance to that of Murat ; so that it may be said of Harrison, as it has been said of Murat : Was that haughty crest laid low, By a slave's dishonest blow? Little didst thou deem, when dashing On thy war-horse through the ranks, Like a stream which burst its banks, While helmets cleft and sabres clashing, Shone and shiver'd fast around thee, Of the fate at last which found thee. Indeed, if ever man in his warlike enthusiasm resembled the war-horse in Job, it was Harrison. " He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted ; neither turneth he back from the sword. He saith among the trumpets, Ha ! ha ! and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." The very first time that Rupert came into conflict with Cromwell and Harrison, namely at Marston Moor, he was defeated in less than half an hour ; and he and his Life -Guards, the picked men of the Eoyalist cavalry, were driven off the field in irretrievable confusion and headlong flight. On the 2nd of November, 1650, the Council of State wrote a letter to Blake, informing him that they had ordered Captain William Penn (afterwards Admiral Sir William Penn), " with as many ships as could befitted out, to sail 1660.] PENN'S UNSUCCESSFUL PURSUIT OF RUPERT. 95 southward, both for the prevention of Eupert, as much as he is able with this strength, from doing further mischief on the good people of this nation ; and for the surprisal or destruction of as many of the Portugal's fleet as he can make attempt on, in their return homeward from Brazil." In this letter the Council also say : " We desire that you, with the rest of the fleet, will repair home with all the speed conveniently you may ; that we may, upon conference with you, the better understand the state of affairs in those parts where you are and have been ; and also may give timely orders for fitting out those ships with you, against the next spring, if there should be occasion for their service." ^ On the 25th of the same month, Penn received a commission to command the Fairfax, a new frigate of 50 guns lately built at Deptford, and also another commission, to command-in-chief a squadron of eight ships for the service specified above. Penn sailed on the 30th of November from Spithead, in the Centurion, On the 17th of January 165^, he made the island of St. Michael, in the Azores, where, on the 22nd, he was joined by Lawson, who brought him out the Fair- fax. After cruising for some weeks between the Western Islands, the Eock of Lisbon, and Cadiz, Penn entered the Mediterranean, with his whole fleet, on the 29th of March. Penn's Journal from the time of his setting Bail £ca2ii.^pit- head; on 4he BOth of January 165^, to the time of his return to England, T3a--Mei-clr^5j;'^ari5e^ published by Mr. Granville Penn from the papers inthe^^ssession of his family. On the 18th of March there is this entry: " I wefit to Pendennis Castle ; having not put foot on land since my departure from this place outward-bound, which > The Council of State to General Blake, Thurloe's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 93. I 96 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. 165L] BLAKE CAPTURES FOUR FRENCH SHIPS. 97 r I p i was in last December was twelve montlis." ^ And on the 1st of April there is this entry : " About 4 afternoon, we anchored in the Downs, (praised be the name of our Heavenly Father!) where I met with the Eight Hon. General Eobert Blake." ^ 4Jiis-pttrsnit of Rupert, however, was mrsurnT^ssM.^'' Tliere is an entry m Penn's Journal, which mentions the foundering at sea of two of Eupert's three ships: "26th ISTovember, 1651. — I received a letter from Mr. Hill at Cadiz, in which he informs me that the Re- formation and the Revenge, formerly called the Marmaduke, were sunk between the islands St. Michael and Terceira ; of which ships' companies none were saved but Prince Eupert and nine more, in the Reformation's pinnace." ^ It would seem from this that Prince Eupert considered it the dutj^ of a commander to be not the last but the first to save himself when his ship was sinking. This is in accordance with a character that has come down from those times linked, if not with one virtue, with many crimes. He and his brother, after pursuing their piracies for some time in the West Indies, parted company in a storm. Maurice was never heard of again; but Eupert lived to enjoy the spectacle of th6"lf fitJMe^Tevenge exe- cuted, by command of his royal cousin, on the remains of his conquerors ; and of the great nation, wliicli Blake had rafsed to the height of power and glory, reduced to the lowest depth of discomfiture and disgrace. On the 11th of January, 165^, the Council of State ordered " that Mf.TrosTHo preptre^arTSttertrf-tKanks to be sent To Colonel Blake, in pursuaiice'or an Order of '%£.»3'iti«ae*«r^^^ ' • Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir William Penn, vol. i. p. 393. 2 im. p. 394. ' Ibid. p. 387. Parliament, for the good services done by him against Prince Eupert.** *- ———^^ — -^-— ^ 1 Eave. already mentioned the seizure of many English merchant-ships by French privateers, and the issuing by the English Admiralty of letters of marque or reprisals to the English merchants. Hitherto the English admirals had avoided attacking French ships. But the revolters having been protected by the French authorities at Toulon, Blake, on his voyage homeward, captured four French prizes. One of these was a frigate of 40 gmis, re- specting the capture of which the following story is told. Blake signalled for the captain of the French frigate to come on board his flag-ship, which the Frenchman did. The Admiral told him he was a prisoner, and asked him to give up his sword. The Frenchman refused ; upon which Blake told him he might go back to his ship, and fight it out as long as he was able. The French captain thanked him, returned to his ship; and, after two hours' hard fight- ing, struck his flag, and being brought again on board Blake's ship, made a low bow, kissed his sword, and de- livered it to Blake. A somewlixit similar story is told of Monk, whose character, except in courage, bore little re- semblance to Blake's. In one of his campaigns in Scot- land, Monk having arrived one day at the house of a certain Scotch laird, found it fit for the reception of a small garrison. But the laird refused to grant Monk's request to that effect. " Well," said Monk, " I will not violate hospitality," and he immediately commanded the ofiicers who accompanied him to evacuate the house. "Now," said he to the laird, "look to the defence, for we are about to attack." The laird, however, though > Order Book of the Council of State, 11th Jan. 165^, MS. State Paper Office. VOL. II. H 1. 98 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. 1651.] ROYALIST PIRATES IN THE SCILLY ISLES. 99 surrounded by a great number of his friends and relations, thought it wise to make terms, and consented to receive a garrison, on condition that a portion of his house should be set apart for his own use. Though the Parliament of England had now got rid of the two German pirates, Eupert and Maurice, they had still upon their hands the work of ridding themselves of a strong force of English pirates, who from the Scilly Isles and Jersey infested the English Chamxet Ruprt, at the commencemehF of liis piraticat-Tareer, had fixed on that remarkable group of small rocky islets lying off the Land's End in Cornwall, known as the Scilly Isles, ^ as a convenient situation for the establishment of one or more strongholds for the reception of his plunder. Nature and art' seemed to have combined to adapt these islands for such a pur- pose. Intricate channels with dangerous sunken rocks, and the frequent occurrence of the most sudden and violent storms, were the obstacles opposed by nature to the approach of hostile ships ; and the art of man had erected block-houses and batteries, connected with each other by lines and breastworks, at those places where a landing seemed most likely to be attempted. It has been observed, by those who have kept journals, that not more than six days of perfect calm occur in the course of the year. This violent and almost constant action of the sea renders the opinion not improbable, that these islands have, at some period antecedent to authentic history, been separated from the mainland. From the same cause the islands, though for the most part composed of granite,^ are undergoing a gradual • In the "Order Book of the Council the States-General of the United Pro- vinces, Order Book of the Council of State, 2nd April 1651, MS. State Paper Office. ^ A Guide to Mount's Bay and the Land's EndTl^j a Pliysician (Lr! Paris): of State " they are described as " the islands of Scillyes or Sorlings, ancient- ly a part of the territories belonging to the Commonwealth of England." — Instructions for the Ambassadors with diminution. At present there are more than 140 islands, of which six are inhabited, containing altogether a popu- lation of about ^,500. T^Eelirea of the islands varies from St. Mary^s^TEe largest, about 1,500 acres, to less than one acre. The islands form a compact group, rising for the most part abruptly, with rugged sides, from the deep sea around them. In the channels which separate the islands the depth of the sea is much less ; some of these channels being dry at low water, and others only kneedeep. The employments of the inhabitants of the Scilly Isles are agriculture, fishing, making kelp, and pilotage.* St. Mary's, the most important island, consists of two portions ; the smaller of which, called " The Hugh," is joined to the other part by a low sandy isthmus, on which stands " Hugh Town," the principal place in the island. This island is about 2^ miles long, IJ mile broad, and about 8 miles in circumference. The Hugh is a steep hill rising about 110 feet above the level of the sea, and was then fortified by lines, having a circuit of more than a mile, with 18 bastions or batteries, and enclosing a small fort called Star Castle. Tresco, the island next in importance, is inhabited chiefly by pilots and fishermen. Most of the houses are on the north-east side, near the beach^ opposite a harbour called Old Grinsey Harbour ; and form a village called Dolphin Town, which may perhaps be an abbrevia- tion of Godolphin Town, the Godolphin family having been long the lessees of the islands. A stone tower, called Oliver Cromwell's Castle, now deserted, coiffirifrSii^s"llie har- bour of New Grinsey; ^rni the west side of the island ; and near it are the ruins of a fortress, called King Charles's London, 1824. — The granite is, accord- ' A View of the Present State of ing to Dr. Paris, a continuation of tlie the Scilly Islands ; by the Kev. George Devonian range. WootUey, London, 1822. u 2 100 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII Castle. St. Martin's, nearly 2 miles long and about 6 miles in circumference, is chiefly inhabited by pilots and fishermen. About the middle of the 17th century, tliis island was uninhabited, but there are indications of its having been peopled at an earlier period. St. Agnes ^ is a mile in length, half a mile in breadth, on an average, and 4| miles in circumference. St. Agnes is very irregu- lar in outline, and is surrounded by rocks. Though the soil is the most fertile, and now the best cultivated, in the whole group, the shore is rocky and almost inaccessible, which may be the cause of its having apparently at that time been considered the most important of the islands after St. Mary's. In these islands 2,000 men were placed as a garrison, and with them was a considerable number of Royalist gentry, all under the command of Sir John Grenville, designated " Governor of the Islands tjf 1§t7 STaf y*S and St. Agn^, ln"Bcilly,^^on '^ ffie behalf 6? "^Sis "Majesty." ^ Before Blake drove him into Kinsale, Eupert had caiTied the plunder he got by piracy into these islands ; and, in a letter to Sir John Grenville, hi April 1649, he says he " doubts not ere long to see Scilly a second Venice. " ^ This shows that Eupert, if neither a great commander nor a great statesman, possessed at least a bold imagina- tion. In March 1649 he sent to Sir John Grenville, from Ireland, some ships laden with corn, salt, iron, and steel. And in April, in the letter to Grenville quoted above, he says : " You will receive, if these ships come safe, such provisions as we can spare here, and also some men, which I was fain to send out of my own regiment. They are all • In the Articles ofSurrender, of 23rd the latter is styled " Governor of the May 1651, cited by Mr. Dixon {Lifeof Islands of St. Mary's and St. Agnes, in Robert Blake, p. 169, note), between Scilly, on the behalf of His Majesty." Admiral Blake and Sir John Grenville, 1651.] ROYALISTS IN THE SCILLY ISLES. 101 armed, and have some to spare. The officers have for- merly served his Majesty. You may trust them. I doubt not ere long to see Scilly a second Venice. It will "Be'ttir our" security and benefit ; for if the worst come to the worst, it is but going to Scilly with this fleet, where, after a little while, we may get the King a good subsistence ; and, I beheve, we shall make a shiffc to live in spite of all factions." ^ It is observable, however, that between April 1649 and the end of 1650, Rupert had altered his opinion about the Scilly Isles as a place of security and benefit ; for, after his utter discomfitui'e by Blake, he did not return thither, but sailed for the West Indies. But, though Rupert did not join them again, the Royalist pirates in the Scilly Isles became so active as to call for the particular attention of the Council of State in the be- ginning of the year 1651. In February of that year we meet with notices, in the " Order Book of the Council of State," of " losses by pirates upon the west coast." ^ On the 26th of March following the Council of State ordered a letter to be wiitten to Major-General Desborowe, to let him know " that the Council is informed that Sir John Green- vill, Governor of Scillie, doth, contrary- to the law of arms, detain and keep in strict imprisonment divers ^rsons who are merchantmen and traders ; to desire him to seize the persons of the relations of the said Sir John Greenvill in Cornwall, and to keep them in safe custody until he shall dismiss the said merchantmen, now prisoners with him ; and he is to give notice thereof to Sir John Greenvill before his doing of it, and to expect [wait for] his answer ; and upon his writing back, to certify to the Council what effect it hath had with him, and to desert tlioroin^to do > Fitzroy MS. in Warburton, vol. iii. ^ Oi-der Book of the Council of State, pp. 289-295. ISthFeb. 165^. MS. State Paper Office. i 102 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII. \ notliiiig further therein] till further order from the Coun- cil." » On the 31st of March 1651 leave is given by the Council of State, to certain petitioners, to buy their ship, taken by two Jersey men-of-war ^ — that is, by two Royalist pirate-ships having their stronghold in the isle of Jersey, as others had in the Scilly Isles. But on the 18th of the same month the Council of State ordered, " That it be re- turned in answer to the petition of George Dickens, that this Council cannot treat with Eupert for any exchanges, but the Council will be ready to grant letters of reprisal. "^ On the 1st of April 1651, the Council of State ordered, " That a letter be written to Colonel Blake, to inclose him a copy of the Order of Parliament, to let him know that the Parliament is informed that Van Tromp [sic] is before Scilly, and hath refused to give an account of his being there to some of the Commonwealth ships that have demanded an account of him ; to desire him therefore to repair thither with the ships bound for the Barbadoes, and likewise with the three ships under his command appointed for the Irish Seas ; ^ and demand of him the cause of his being there, and not to depart from thence until he hath received such an answer as. may be for the honour and interest of the Commonwealth; and he is to give such orders for the guard of the Irish coast as he shall think fit, during the time he shall be detained in this service." ^ ' Order Book of the Council of State, 26th March 1651, MS. State Paper Office. ' Ibid. 31st March 1651. 3 Ibid. 18th March 165^. * On the 15th of March 165? an order had been made by the Council of State, " That Colonel Blake command the squadron designed for the Irish Seas"— Ibid. 15th March 165f. On the 13th of February last £1,000 had been ordered to Colonel Blake by the Parliament. (Ibid.) The warrant for payment of this sum is dated IStJi March 165?. * Ibid. 1st April, 1651. 1651.] THE SCILLY ISLES SURBENDEEED TO BLAKE. 103 On the same day it was ordered, " That a letter be written to Sir George Ayscue, that the force appointed to go with Colonel iJlake io Van Tromp must be made up with the ships under his command." ^ The complication produced by the piratical proceedings of Rupert is shown by the instructions given by the Council of State to Blake on this occasion. For while Blake is directed, by these instructions, to require Tromp to desist from any attempt prejudicial to the honour or interest of the Commonwealth of England, he is "to signify to the said Van Tromp, that by requiring him to desist it is not the intention of this Commonwealth to protect those who are now in possession of Scilly in the wrongs they have done the Dutch, or to hinder them from righting themselves upon them, so as they act nothing to the prejudice of the honour or interest of this Common- wealth, but shall be ready to give them all assistance therein, and expect the like from them in what you are there to execute." ^ A satisfactory account of Tromp's fleet having beeu received from the States-General of Holland, Blake pro- ceeded with his fleet against the Scilly Islands. Having summoned the Governor, Sir Jolin Grenville, to surrender the islands to the Parliament of England, and not receiving a satisfactory answer, he ordered 800 men, under the com- mand of Captain Morris, to land in Tresco, the island, as we have seen, next in importance to St. Mary's. A garrison of nearly a thousand men were posted behind a line of breastworks to oppose them. But Blake's troops threw themselves into the water, waded on shore, and, as soon as they were formed, attacked the entrenchments. The ' Order Book of the Council of ^ Instructions for Colonel Robert State, 1st April 1651, MS. State Paper Blake.— Ibid. Office. 104 COMMONWiLiLTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIII 1651.] TACT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 105 Eojalisis made a stout resistance, but when night came on they withdrew to their boats, and passed over to St. Mary's. At daybreak Blake erected a battery on Tresco, so placed as to command the roadstead of St. Mary's ; but seeing that his battery produced little effect on the castle and fortifi- cations, he brought his frigates through the intricate and dangerous channels, and planted them in the roadstead under the castle guns — a feat which has been achieved so often since, that, as Mr. Dixon justly observes, " it is not easy now to estimate the daring which it then implied. Up to that day it had been considered a fundamental maxim in marine warfare, that a ship could not attack a castle or other strong fortification with any hope of success. Blake was the first to perceive and demonstrate the fallacy of this maxim ; and the experiment, afterwards repeated by him in the more brilliant attacks on Porto Farino and Santa Cruz, was first tried at the siege of St. Mary's." ^ Notwithstanding a furious cannonade from the castle, the guns of the frigates having made a practicable breach, Blake ordered an assault to be made. But Grenville then sent to beg a parley, which ended in an engagement on his part to surrender the islands, with their garrisons, stores, arms, ammunition, standards, and all other imple- ments and materials of war, on condition that the lives of the ofiicers, soldiers, and volunteers should be spared. The soldiers and sailors were allowed to enter the Parliament's service. Sir John Grenville and the Eoyalist gentlemen taken with him were put on board Sir George Ayscue's squadron, and carried into Plymouth Sound. The ParKa- ment, acting in the lenieht' spirit of Blake's articles, per- I mitted Grenville to enjoy his forfeited family estates without ' Dixon's Robert Blake, p. 168; and p. 138 of the new edition. I - i molestation.^ Under date 9th August 1651, there is the following entry in the rough draft of the Order Book of the Council of State — " Mem. : Colonel Blake to leave two ships about Scilly." There is a minute of the Comicil of State of the 22nd March of this year, relating to a ship taken by Sir George Ayscue, which I will transcribe, as throwing light on the nature and effect of the Government of England at that time : " That a letter be written to Sir George Ayscue, to let him know that the Council, since the receipt of his letter, have had notice that there is more money in the ship Lemmon than is expressed in his letter ; to desire him to make an effectual search in the ship, and to compare the bills of exchange with the inventory taken of the goods, and to give an account to the Council."^ The tact of the statesmen who formed the Council of State is manifest in the careful wording of this minute, which, it will be observed, does not contain the slightest insinuation of any mtention (which it may be hoped did not exist) on the part of Sir George Ayscue to appropriate to himself a part of the money referred to without the knowledge of the Council, but yet adopts an effectual course for securing an exact account of the money. One decided advantage of a Government like this Council of State, was its capa- bility of appreciating the pure honesty and honour of a man like Blake, who would have received no credit, but on the contrary discredit, for his honesty from any of the Stuarts ; would have been set down as an " impracticable fool " (that is the favourite phrase), not only by the Govern- ment of Charles I. and Charles II., but by many a Govern- ment since. This result was, I apprehend, produced, in part > Dixon's Robert Blake, pp. 16C-1 09, March 22, 165^, MS. State Paper and the authorities there cited. Office. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, ■ I i 106 .COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. VIU. at least, by tlie large number of persons composing the Council of State. For though that Council, like other Councils, doubtless contained several unscrupulous men, it also had its own public opinion, which would be in favour of such a man as Blake; whereas if a man cheated or robbed the public, and gave half of his plunder to the Stuart, the Stuart approved of the proceeding.^ But such a proceeding was dijG&cult or impracticable with a Council of State consisting of 41 members, of whom as many as 38 (as appears by the MS. minutes) were sometimes present together. ' The Lord Cottington, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, January 27, 1635 : "When William Raylton first told me of your Lordship's intention touching Mount- norris's place for Sir Adam Loftus, and the distribution of monies for the effecting thereof I fell upon the right way, which was to give the money to him that really could do the bicsiness, which was the King hiinself; and this hath so far prevailed, as by this post your Lordship will receive His Ma- jesty's letter to that effect ; so as there you have your business done without noise : and now it rests that the money be speedily paid, and made over hither with all expedition." — Strafford's Let- ters and Despatches, vol. i. p. 511. •»] CHAPTEE IX. The fate of Dorislaus and of Ascham showed that the post of embassador from the English Parliament to foreign Powers wsbsli post^^oTmbre danger than honour. For a death like that of Dorislaus and Ascham was worse than a soldier's death on the field of battle, and was unattended by the circumstances that tcTa victorious soldier may take from death all its bitterness. Notwithstanding, however, the sad fate of Dorislaus, the Parliament of England re- solved to send another'^envoy to the States of Holland ; for, as has been said, they were desirous not only of friendly relations but of close alliance with the Dutch Eepublic, which in its form of government they considered as bearing a close resemblance to that form of government which they had established in England, and according to which they had styled themselves " The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England." They had accordingly appointed Walter Strickland, one of their members, as their agent to the United Provmces. On the 21st of June 1650, the Council of State had recalled Walter Strickland, by the following order, which explains the reason of his recall : " That a letter be >vritten to Mr. Strickland, to recall him from his residence with the States-General, the State being very sensible of the slight put upon them by not receiving of him."* ' Order Book of the Council of State, June 21, IGoO, MS. State Paper Office. \ 108 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. The Council of State did not, however, yet give up the hope of peace instead of war with the Dutch ; and they resolved to make another attempt, and to send this time two ambassadors, instead of one agent or envoy. Accord- ingly, on the 22nd of January 1G50, they made the following orders : " That such persons as shall be sent from this Commonwealth to the present Assembly of the United Provinces be sent in the quality of Ambassadors. That the number of persons who are to go as Ambassadors shall be two — Walter Strickland, Esquire, and the Lord Chief Justice St. John."^ St. John presented a petition to the House, praying to be excused from this embassy. But, uj)on a division, it was resolved, by 42 against 29, that he should go.'^ The opinion of the Council of State as to the importance of the mission may be inferred from the fact of their ap- pointing Lord Chief Justice St. John one of the ambas- sadors. John Thurloe, whose patron through life St. John had been — and WEosoon after, on the death of Walter Frost the elder, became Secretary of the Council of State, and subsequently the secretary of Cromwell — accompanied St. John and Strickland as their secretary. Oliver St. John, a barrister of Lincoln's Lin, had argued the case of ship-money in the Exchequer Chamber as one of Hampden's counsel. This would naturally bring him into frequent communication with Hampden. With Cromwell he was connected by family ties (having manied a cousin of Cromwell) as well as by political and religious opinions.^ It is not improbable that St. John was indebted * Order Book of the Council of well to Lincoln's Inn bears, after the State, Jan. 22, 165^, MS. State Paper names of the sureties, " Ki. Graves Office. John Thurloe," the words "Admissus 2 Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1362. pr. 01. St. John." --Admission Book of ^ The admission of Kicliard Crom- Lincoln's Inn. 1G51.] ST. JOHN AND STRICKLAND AMBASSADORS. 109 for his introduction to professional business to the powerful interest of the Earl of Bedford, whose great landed possessions would give him much influence with attorneys, and " to whom," says Clarendon, " St. John was allied (being a natural son of the House of Bolingbroke), and by him brought into all matters where himself was to be concerned." * St. John, like Hampden and Cromwell, was a man whose power in the Parliament was not to be measured by his power as a Parliamentary speaker. At the first opening of the Long Parliament, Pym appeared to be far the most powerful man in the House of Commons ; but he was, observes Clarendon, " much governed in private designing by Mr. Hampden and Mr. St John." ^ Clarendon describes St. John as " a man reserved, and of a dark and clouded countenance ; very proud, and conversing with very few, and those men of his own humour and inclinations." ^ To St. John, as Solicitor- General, had fallen the duty of carrying up to the Lords the Bill of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford, and there is one passage, in particular, in his speech on that occasion which has been often quoted and much criticised : " My Lords," he said, " he that would not have had others to have a laAv, why should he have any himself? Why should not that be done to him that himself would have done to others? It is true we give law to hares and deer, because they be beasts of chase : it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head as they can be found, because these be beasts of prey. The warrener sets traps for polecats and other vermin, for preservation of the warren." ^ ^ Clarendon's Hist. vol. i. pp. 324, ^ Pnd. vol. i. p. 246. 325. * Rushworth, vol. viii. p. 703. 2 Ihid. vol. iv. p. 437. 110 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. Notwithstanding the censure which has been bestowed on this argument of St. John, while the argument of Pym has escaped such censure, it will be observed that St. John really argues the case as a statesman, and Pym as an orator, but neither as a statesman nor a lawyer. As all the laws against treason in England had down to that time been made to protect the King and not the subject,^ it was not to be expected that the English law of treason should contain any power to punish an aggressor who strove, as Strafford unquestionably had done, to make the English king absolute and Englishmen slaves. Consequently, when P}Tn says that " nothing can be more equal than that he should perish by the justice of that law, which he would have subverted ; " that " there are marks enough to trace this law to the very original of this kingdom ;" and that " if it hath not been put in execution for 240 years, it was not for want of law," ^ he speaks rhetori- cally, and assumes the existence of a law which did not exist : whereas St. John put the case upon its true basis — ' Hobbes — who, though the slave of fear, was not, like most men, the slave of words — saw this with his usual clear- ness. " And for those men," he says, " who had skill in the laws, it was no great sign of understanding, not to perceive that the laws of the land were made by the King to oblige his sub- jects to peace and justice, and not to oblige himself that made them." — Behe- moth, part iii. pp. 254, 255, London, 1862. The constitutional timidity of Hobbes, which in his Latin autobio- graphy he at once admits and accounts for — he was born April 5, 1588, Atque metum tantum concepit tunc mea mater, lit pareret gemiuos, meque metumquc si mill, — explains much of his aversion to all re- sistance to constituted authority. His timidity made him shrink from and even abhor the very idea of resistance ; for resistance implied war, and in Hobbes's mind war implied all that was most detestable — " no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death." — Leviathan, -pavt i.e. 13. But with all Hobbes's intellectual power, this defect in his organisation would have reduced his countrymen to the condition of Hindus. Luckily, England produced in that age organisations very different from his. 2 Rushworth, vol. viii. pp. G69, 670. 1651.] CHARACTER OF OLIVER ST. JOHN. Ill that he whose proved purpose had been to reduce Enirlish- men to the condition of serfs, who should have no law but the will of an absolute king, should be destroyed as a public enemy, or a dangerous and noxious beast of prey. It will be perceived, then, that when the Council of State of " The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England " of 1651 resolved to send Oliver St. John as their ambas- sador to the States of the Netherlands, they made a very different selection from that made by Queen Elizabeth (who has obtained much credit for her choice of ministers at home and abroad), when, in 1588, she despatched as her envoys to the Netherlands two doctors of law—" very slow old gentlemen," one of whom valued himself above all things upon his Latinity, and the other was " a formalist and a pedant, fall of precedents and declamatory common- places which he mistook for eloquence," ^— to be duped and laughed at by Alexander Famese. " A very slow old gentle- man, this Doctor Dale," wrote Parma to Philip II. ; " he was here in the time of Madam my mother, and has also been ambassador at Vienna." 2 " If Valentine Dale," says Mr. Motley, " were a slow old gentleman, he was keen, caustic, and rapid as compared to Daniel Eogers,"^ the other egregious doctor selected for that difficult work by the wisdom of Elizabeth. It is enough to read the account, so ably given by Mr. Motley, of the conferences between those men and Farnese, to enable us to see the full force of Blake's remark about preventing " foreigners from fooling us." Whatever else might turn up out of the mission to their High Mightinesses the States of the Netherlands of Oliver St. John, it may be pretty safely concluded that that dark ' Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. ii. pp. 373-375. * Ibid. p. 373. » Ibid, p 374. 112 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. 165L] THE ENGLLSH AMBASSADOHS INSULTED. \ i \ and subtle spirit— the familiar (though how far the confi- dant we know not, and can never know) of a darker, a more powerful, and more subtle spirit— would not be " fooled " by them, as Queen Elizabeth's envoys had been fooled by Alexander Famese. To prevent such another outrage as had been perpetrated upon the unfortunate DoTTslaus^ forty gentlemen were ap- pointed to attend the ambassadors St. John and Strick- land, at once for their security and honour ; " ten thou- sand pounds," adds Ludlow, " being delivered to the Lord Ambassadors' steward, for the expense of the embassy."^ In the sum here mentioned Ludlow, however, is in error, as appears from the following minute of the Council of State, under date 30th January 165| :— " That £3,000, besides the £1,000 already paid, be furnished to the ambassadors to Holland."^ But though the forty gentlemen appointed as a guard to the ambassadors of the English Commonwealth proved sufficient to protect them from actual assassination— which was still the grand weapon of the ^ccessofr in Europe, in the T7th century, of those who, in the 16th century, had assassinated De Coligny and WiUiam the Silent, making Louisa de Coligny an orphan and twice a widow — they were not sufficient to protect them from repeated affronts and insults, and from repeated attempts at assassination, I by the Eoyalists. Thus, Mr. Strickland's coachman and another^Cf Ills servants were attacked by six cavaliers at their master's own door ; the former of whom received a I cut upon his head, and the latter lost his sword in the fray. ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 344, State, Jan. 30, 165?, MS. State Taper 2ncl edition, London, 1721. Office. '^ Order Book of the Council of } I 113 The threats of the Eoyalists ran so high that the Ambassa- dors' domestics were obliged to keep constant watch by turn. A design was formed to assassinate Lord Chief Justice St. John, -ftsd-aai attempt was madt^ >o break into his chamber. Prince Edward, "one 'of the '"Queen of Bohentia*s sons, and a brother of the pirates Ilupert and Maurice, walking in the Park at the Hague^ith his sister, and meeting the ambassadors in their coach, called out to them, " O you rogues, you dogs ! " with many other simi- lar expressions. Tliere is another story of a soi-t of ren- counter in the Park at the-Strgrmp^efween the Duke of York and Chief Justice St. John, told^by a "French writer, who gives it on the Authority "of a gentlemarT resident in Holland, when the affair happened. St. Tolin, taking a walk in the Park at the Hague, met the Duke of Tdtlt, also walking, and was grossly insulted by hifri^^so 'grossly that, says the writer who relates the story, ^' in all probability, the dispute would not have ended without bloodshed, had not the company upon the walk interfered and jparted them."i - - ^^-^ - And truly the dispute did not end without bloodshed. It might seem a small matter to a weak-minded and petu- lant boy (the Duke of York was at this time about 18), who, when he attained all the manhood he ever had, was only remarkable for the hardness of his heart and the softne^of his brains,^ to insult the Ambassador of the Goveninieht which was to Ihake England famous and terrible over the world ; but for the insults of such re2)re- * Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 164, and and Baroness of Darlinjirton, was the authorities there cited. accustomed to wonder wliat James ^ According to Horace Walpole chose his mistresses for. "We were {Reminiscences), Catherine Sedley, one none of us handsome," said she ; "^and of James the Second's mistresses if we had wit, he had not wit enougli wliom he made Countess of Dorchester to find it ottt." ' VOL. II. / ^ vy «!V f I I ii I 114 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. sentatives of the divinity of kingship, the Dutch were to paj very dearly. There can be little doubt that the Dutch Government could have prevented all this, if they had been fully re- solved to do so. For William IT. of Nassau, Prince of Orange, who had married Mary, daughter of Charles I., King of England, had died just before this time ; and his post- humous son, born in 1650, William III. of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and ultimately King of England, was then a helpless infant, whose youth was destined to suffer, from the jealousy and hostility caused by his father's infringe- ment of the constitutional rights of the States of the Netherlands. It could not therefore be said that the Dutch Government was at that time in the hands of a son- in-law of Charles I., who might be expected to look with no friendly eye upon- a Government formed of the men who had brought his father-in-law to the block. But the Dutch Government, though at that time calling itself a republic, was a republic with a very narrow basis. The election of the magistrates or councillors of the cities, who with the nobles formed the Provincial States, the deputies chosen by which formed the States- General, had been originally in the burghers at large. But during the con- fusion of the great struggle against Philip II. of Spain, it was found convenient to invest the magistrates with the power of filling up vacancies in their own number. This irregularity continued when the necessity for it had ceased, and the consequence was that the Government, though in form a republic, was a narrow oligarchy ; and probably did not feel itself attracted towards the Government calling itself the Commonwealth of England, either by admira- tion of the constitution of the English Government, or by approbation of its proceedings. The Dutch Government, 1651.] CHARACTER OF THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT. II5 moreover, had passed from the condition in which a Government is content with defensive strength, to that in which its strength is apt to become aggressive. For the Dutch Government of that time possessed the most powerful navy and the greatest admirals then in the world — a navy compared to which any navy they had yet seen possessed by England, they looked upon but as a collection of small privateers and corsairs, which they could easily sweep from the face of the sea. They were destined, in the course of two shoi-t years, to find themselves somewhat out in their reckonings. Yet it is not surprising that they should not have then known what England was capable of; for at that time England did not know herself what genius and valour could accomplish when they have freed them- selves from the withering speU of tyraimy combined with imbecility. There was no inconsiderable amount of baseness as well as of shortsightedness in the conduct of the Dutch at this time. The baseness was in some degree the cause of the shortsightedness ; for it was the cold, calculating, and nevertheless shortsighted baseness of commercial avarice, which pursues its ends with a reckless rapacity, as blind to all consequences, but the glutting of its own appetite for what it calls wealth, as the ravenous fury of a hungry tiger. Thus the Dutch, while valuing themselves on being a republic, were willing to lend their aid to the tyrants of Europe to destroy the English Commonwealth, shutting their eyes to the fact that their own destruction would be the next object those tyrants would aim at. This is established on the testimony both of royalist and republican writers. According to Hobbes, " the true quaiTel on the Dutch part was their greediness to engross all 1 2 116 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap.'IX. traffic, and a false estimate of our and their own strength." ^ Ludlow's testimony is to the same effect, and is stren^h- ened by his actual experience of the Dutch, in purchasing an agreement with England, after the Restoration, with the price of blood, in delivering three of King Charles's judges into the hands of their enemies, which made him decline the offer made to him from Holland, of the command of a body of land-forces to be shipped on board the Dutch fleet. "All men knew," says Ludlow, "they preferred the profits of trade before any other thing in the world :^ choosing rather to see a tyranny than a commonwealth established in England, as knowing by experience that they could corrupt the former, and by that means possess themselves of the most profitable parts of trade."^ On the 1st of April 1651, the Council of State despatched a letter, " demanding satisfaction for the afi'ront offered to the English ambassadors in Holland by Prince Palatine Edward." ^ On the following day it was ordered, " That the letters and instructions now read to the Lords Ambas- sadors in Holland be fair-written, signed, and sent away this night by an express, and that duplicates be sent to- morrow by the post."^ • Hobbes's Behemoth, p. 287 (Lon- don, 1682). 2 Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 166. « Ibid. p. 203. * Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, April 1, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. 5 Ibid. April 2, 1651.— The folio wing order shows that Scott performed the duties now performed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: "That Mr. Scott do hold a constant intelli- gence with the Lords Ambassadors who are now to go over into the Uni- ted Provinces." {Ibid. Feb. 28, 165f.) The following minute further shows that particular members of the Council of State were, from their personal pre- eminence, considered as Ministers, or Secretaries of State. : " That it be re- ferred to the Committee for Irish and Scottish Affairs, to consider of the par- ticulars desired in a letter from Scot- land, written to Sir Henry Vane, and in his hands, and thereupon to give order for the speedy providing." {Ibid. April 17, 1651.) By a subsequent mi- nute of May 8, it appears that this 1651.] INSTRUCTIONS TO THE AMBASSADORS. 117 In these instructions for St. John and Strickland, the Council of State say :— " Admiral Yan Tromp is arrived at the islands of Scillyes or Sorlings, anciently a part of the territories belonging to the Commonwealth of England, with a fleet under his command consisting of ten or fifteen men-of-war ; in some of which are great number of men and some persons of quality not usual in men-of-war only designed for sea-service : which said Admiral declined to have a boat of our fleet to come on board to him ; and does continue his abode with his said fleet near those islands and the western parts of England, without discovering his clear intentions therein, pretending that it is to procure satisfaction for the injui-ies done by the garrisons in those islands, and ships belonging thereunto, unto the ships of their [the United Provinces'] subjects ; but with instruc- tions, as we are informed, to compel such satisfaction with- out any limitation of means, either by possessmg himself of those islands or otherwise, and to seize upon all ships whatsoever going in or coming out from that place, where- by just cause of jealousy is given to the Parliament. And that until the intentions of the States-General in this ex- pedition be clearly made manifest to the Parliament, and assurance given to them that the said fleet may act nothing to the prejudice of this Commonwealth in honour or interest, the instructions and commission given to Yan letter was from the Lord-General Cromwell. Sir Henry Vane had en- tered the Council-room just before. He probably then read the letter to the Council. Thus, while Scott might be considered as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Vane might be con- sidered, in regard to his connection both with the Committee of the Admiralty and Navy, and with the Committee for Irish and Scottish Affairs, as Secretary of State for War. Sir Henry Vane's name stands first, both in the list of the Committee for carrying on the Af- fairs of the Admiralty and in that of the Committee for the Affairs of Ire- land and Scotland.— Order Book of the Counc'd of State, Saturday March 1, 1655, MS. State Paper Office. 118 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX ?*. V *^. I Tromp in reference to the said islands may be recalled, to avoid aU occasions of disputes and differences between the two States; the Parliament having thought fit to give order to their fleets not to suffer the said Admiral Tromp, or any other, to act anything to the prejudice of the State in honour or interest." * On the 10th of April the Council of State ordered, " That it be reported to the Parliament that the Council of State received letters from the Lords Ambassadors from Holland, relating to a paper put in by them concerning an affront offered to them by Edward, the son of the Queen of Bohemia; and that the Council of State have again by this post re- ceived letters from the said ambassadors, and some papers, relating further affronts offered unto them." ^ It would appear from the following minute that the Dutch gave a satisfactory account of Tromp's fleet at Scilly, so that for the year 1651 the war with Holland was avoided, that war which was to break out with such fury in the following year, 1652 : "That a letter be written to Colonel Blake, to enclose him a copy of the paper of the States of Holland, in answer to a paper of the ambassadors of England, concerning the going of Van Tromp towards SciUy ; and to let him know that he is so to carry the matter, that the honour of the Commonwealth may be preserved, and a good correspondence between the two nations." ^ The following minute of the same date confirms what has been said respecting the disposition of the Kings of Europe towards the Parliament of England : " That it ' " Instructions for the Ambassadors - Order Book of the Council of State, with the States-General of the United April 10, 1651, MS. State Paper Of- Provinces." — Order Book of the Coun- fice. cil of State, April 2, 1651, MS. State ^ Ibid. April l7, 1651. Paper Office. 1651.] COUNCIL'S VIGILANCE AGAINST INVASION. Ug be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty to inform themselves concerning the truth of the intelligence given of the preparation of men and shipping in Sweden; and thereupon so to appoint the fleet of the Conimonwealth, that prevention may be given to any attempts which may be made by them upon any parts of this nation to the pre- judice thereof." ^ The following minute further shows that some desi^rns were on foot of effecting a landing in some parts of England, with a view of making a diversion m favour of the King of Scots and the Eoyalists, who had probably by this time (the end of April 1651) formed the design of their invasion of England which led to the Battle of Worcester : " That such of the letters intercepted in Holland as refer to designs against this Commonwealth be referred to the con- sideration of the Committee for Examinations;" "the Committee of the Admiralty to consider of some fit ships for those parts designed upon, as showii by the intercepted letters." ^ At this particular time the ability and vigilance of the Coimcil of State were tasked to the utmost. Besides the threatened invasions from the Continent and from Scot- land," they had also received intelligence of an intended diversion in Scotland from Ireland : "That a letter be written totlie^Xord-General [Cromwell], to acquaint him with the propositions made concerning the making of a diversion in Scotland from Ireland ; and that they have written to the Lord Deputy [Ireton], to hold intelligence with his Lordship concerning the same ; to enclose the copy of the Council's letter to the Deputy to him, and to lett [sic, i.e. leave], the whole business to his Lordship's considera- » Order Book of the Council of ^ Ibid. April 28, 1651, MS. State State, April 17, 1651. Paper Office. 7 120 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. ^ tion."! And with regard to the invasion from the Conti- nent, the Council received intelligence, in the beginning of June, " of the enemy's designs to land at or near Yar- mouth." 2 On the 11th of April, several papers from the Parlia- ment's ambassadors in Holland, and two intercepted letters, were read in the House, upon which the House I assed the following resolutions : " 1. That the Parlia- ment doth approve of what the Ambassadors Extraordinary to the General Assembly of the States of the United Pro- vinces have done upon the affronts offered to them. — 2. That the Parliament doth approve of the direction given by the Council of State, to the said Ambassadors Extraordi- nary, touching their return. — 3. That it be referred to the Council of State, upon the debate now had in the House on this report, to give such orders and directions as they shall think fit, for the honour of this Commonwealth and safety of the Ambassadors. — 4. That the debates of the House this day, and the votes thereupon, he not made known to any person : and that the members of the House, and the officers thereof, he enjoined secrecy therein for 21 daysJ'^ This injunction of secrecy would appear to refer to intelligence contained in the intercepted letters, and in the ambassadors' desj)atches, respecting some designs to land foreign forces on the east coast of England, near Yar- mouth, under the command of the Duke of Lorraine ; and th6 injunction of secrecy would also appear to have been continued for a considerable time beyond the 21 days spe- cified above. For, on the 5th September of this year, * Or({ev'RooYoit\\ii Qoundl omtSLie, C ouncil of State, June 3, 1651. April 22, 1651. « Commons' Journals, April 11, 2 "Intelligence the Council have had 1651; Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1363, of the enemy's designs to land at or 1361. near Yarmouth." — Order Book of the \ 1651.] DUKE OF LOREAINE'S PROJECTED INVASION. 121 just t wo days a fter the BaMeof^Worcester, there is this minuteentered in the "Order Book of the Council of State :" " That the injunction of secrecy laid upon the business of the Duke of Lorraine be taken off." ^ It alsrr-iaippears, from the following minute of 12th August 1651, that the Council of State had reason to expect the foreign forces to sail from Dunkirk or Ostend, and the attempt at invasion to be made at or near Yarmouth: "That Colonel Popham should send some ships from the Downs to ffe f beiUl ' ^ 'Dunkirk and Ostend, to prevent any forces coming out from thence from the Duke of Lorraine to make any diversion ; and should also send some ships to Yarmouth, to prevent the landing of any in England. "2 There are various subsequent minutes to the same effect. All these minutes and the resolutions of Parliament, taken together, afford strong confirmation of the statement of General Ludlow, and also show that the Council of State h^^nformation of designs of attempting a landing- of foreign forces in England, as well as in Ireland. Lud- low states that the Council of State had reason to think that the Dutch had a design to transport some foreign forces by their fleet to the assistance of the Irish, who were, says Ludlow (and, as~fKi6n coinniahding in Ireland, he had the best means of knowing), " not only still numerous in the field, but had also divers places of strength to retreat to."^ Ludlow then goes on to give the account which has been quoted at the beginning of this volume of the designs of the Duke of Lorraine, who was a ' Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, August 12, 1651. State, Friday, Sept. 5, 1651, MS. * Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 389 State Paper Office. (2nd edition, London, 1721). ^ Order Book of the Council of J 22 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. near relation of Henry of Guise, one of the principal autHbfs'oflKe Sras'sacre of St. BartTiolomew, and also a relation of the Stnartsj. It was within the Lorraine territory that the conferences were held, among the chiefs of the " Sacred League," some 60 years before, at which it was resolved to require of the last Yalois the immediate extermination -of heresy and heretics, and the formal establishment of the " Holy Inquisition," in every 2)rovince of France. Here then was a repetition, in the 17th century, of the story of some memorable years of the 16th. " It will not take much time to put down the heretics here," wrote Philip II.'s ambassador at Paris on the 7th of June, 1585 ; "nor will it consume much more to conquer England with the forces of such powerful princes, there being so many Catholics, too, to assist the invaders. If your Majesty, on account of your Netherlands, is not afraid of putting arms into the hands of the Guise family in France, there need be less objection to sending one of that house into England, particularly as you will send forces of your own into that kingdom, by the reduction of which the affairs of Flanders will be secured." The Spaniard adds, with characteristic modesty, " To effect the pacification of the Netherlands the sooner, it would be desirable to conquer England as early as October." ^ The difference. * Letter from Mendoza to Philip IL from the MS. in theArchives of Siman- cas, in Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. i. pp. 128, 129. The Spanish ambassador also insists on the want of disciplined forces in England to oppose an invasion. It is remark- able that so late as the year 1849 a French vice-admiral, byname Dupetit- Thouars, gave a similar opinion in his evidence in the French "Enquete Parlementaire '' of 1849, respecting the facility of conquering England. Between Mendoza and Dupetit-Thouars, however, two men, Blake and Nelson, had lived, who had made it necessary for Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars to assume a landing made. The land- ing having been eflFected, Vice-Admi- ral Dupetit-Thouars assumes that the 1651.] THE ENGLISH AMBASSADOES RECALLED. 123 however, between 1585 and 1651 was important. For in 1585 England had at least the Netherlands on her side, whereasr in 1651 she had the Netherlands leagued with the rest of Europe against ner.' "'"" But if the tyrants of Lorraine, of France, of Spain, imagined that they could extinguish in England religious and civil liberty in a sea of blood, shed by assassins and not by honourable soldiers, as they had extinguished it in France, they little knew the spirit of the people they undertook to subdue and massacre : they little knew that the arts of Italian falsehood would be no match for such statesmen as Vane, and the arms of Lorraine, of Spain, of Holland, nd'Hnatch for such soldiers as Blake and Cromwell. *^ When the States of the United Provinces received the letters of the English Council of State, demanding satis- faction for the affronts offered to the English ambassadors in Holland, they remonstrated with the Queen of Bohemia and the Princess Dowager of Orange, against the be- haviour of the two princes. They also offered a reward of 200 guilders (£20) for discovery of the other offenders, and published a proclamation for the punishment of all such as should offer any violence to the persons or privileges of ambassadors or agents from foreign Powers. The smallness of the sum offered looked like an aggravation of the insult. And such the English Parliament felt it to be, for they soon after recalled their ambassadors.* The speech which St. John made, or, as Hobbes says, English would be driven before the in- slight mistake ; and that the Par- vaders like a flock of sheep. HoweA'er liamentary cuirassiers and pikemen the case might have been in 1585 were a morsel by no means easy of and 1849, wlioever expected to find digestion. England an easy conquest in 1651 ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 13G5. would have found he had made a 1 ») 124 C0MM0NWK4LTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. IX. I the " compliment which he gave," to the Dutch commis- sioners at taking leave, is a curiosity in diplomacy, and, as Hobbes observes, worth hearing. " My lords " said St. John, " you have an eye upon the event of the affairs of Scotland, and therefore do refuse the friendship we have offered. Now, I can assure you that many in the Parlia- ment were of opinion, that we should not have sent any ambassadors to you before they had put an end to the contest between themselves and that King; and then expected your ambassadors to us. I now perceive our error, and that those gentlemen were in the right. In a short time you shall see that business ended ; and then you will come to us, and seek what we have freely offered, when it shall perplex you that you have refused our prof- fer."^ As Hobbes observes after quoting these words, St. John guessed well, as we shall see in subsequent chapters. On the 2nd of July, 1651, the ambassadors took their seats in the House, when the Lord Chief Justice St. John, Mr. Strickland standing by him, gave an account of their negotiation, beginning with the particulars of their recep- tion at the Hague, and relating the several occurrences which passed between them and the Assembly of the States ; and presenting the several papers delivered in on either side, in the business of the Treaty, and the letters re-credential from the said Assembly, in French, directed thus: "Au Parlement de la Repuhlique d'Angleterre,'' These several papers having been read, it was resolved, " That the Parliament doth approve of all the proceedings of the Lords Ambassadors in this negotiation, and that they have the thanks of the House for their great and ' This parting speech of St. John is and in Heath's '' Chronicle of the Civil given, in almost the same words, in Wars/' p. 287. Hobbes's "Behemoth," pp. 285, 286; 1651.] AMBASSADORS THANKED BY rARLIAMEKT. 125 faithful services therein ; " which the Speaker gave them accordingly. The same compliment was also paid to the gentlemen that attended them abroad, for their services to the Parliament, and the respect shown to their ambas- sadors.^ ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii, p. 1 367. CHAPTER X. It is a remarkable fact, that among the members of the Council of State and of the Parliament, at the time when the Government called itself the Government of the Com- monwealth of England, were some peers, who or whose fathers had been the especial favourites of the first of the Stuart kings who reigned in England. William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the son of Eobert Cecil, who had been created Earl of Salisbury, by King James, in 1605, and Philip Herbert, created Earl of Montgomery by King James, also in 1605, and who succeeded his brother as Earl of Pembroke in 1630, were both members of the Rump, and also members of the first Council of State. Among the peers who sat as members of the Rump, was Edward Howard, a younger son of Thomas Howard, who had been created Earl of Suffolk, by King James, in 1603. This Thomas Howard — who had, in the early part of King James's reign, filled the post of Lord Chamberlain, and upon the death of the Earl of Salisbury had been made Lord High Treasurer — was the father of Lady Frances Howard, known, among other things, for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury ; and also of Edward Howard, created by King Charles, in 1628, Baron Howard of Escrick, whose son, also Lord Howard of Escrick, is known, among other things, as the single witness against Algernon Sydney, who was condemned and executed, to borrow the 1651.] CHAEGE OF BEIBERY AGAINST LORD HOWARD. 127 words of Evelyn, " on the single witness of that monster of a man, Lord Howard of Escrick, and some sheets of paper taken in Mr. Sydney's study."^ In the early part of this year (1651), a complaint had been exhibited in Parliament against this Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick, now a member of the House of Commons for the city of Carlisle. The witnesses against him had been examined strictly by a Committee of the House appointed for that purpose. The particulars of the charge are not given in the Journals of the House ; but Ludlow, in his Memoirs, gives the following account of it : — "Before I left the Parliament" [to go to Ireland], " some difference happening between the Countess of Rut- land and the Lord Howard of Escrick, Colonel Cell, who was a great servant of the Countess, informed Major- General Harrison, that the Lord Edward Howard, being a Member of Parliament and one of the Committee at Haberdashers' Hall, had taken divers bribes for the ex- cusing delinquents from sequestration, and easing them in their compositions; and that, in particular, he had received a diamond hatband, valued at £800, from one Mr. Compton of Sussex, concerning which he could not prevail with any to inform the Parliament. Major-General Han-i- son, being a man of severe principles, and zealous for justice, especially against such as betrayed the public trust re- posed in them, assured him, that if he could satisfy him that the fact was as he affirmed, he would not fail to inform the Parliament of it : and upon satisfaction received from the Colonel touching that matter, said in Parliament, ' That * It would seem the Earl of Salis- crick, respecting which marriarre, see bury, mentioned above as a member o^ the despatches of La Bodcrie, the the first Council of State, had married French ambassador at the Court of a sister of this Lord Howard of Es- James (tom. iv. p. 100). 128 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. though the honour of every member was dear to him, and of that gentleman in particular (naming the Lord Howard), because he had so openly owned the interest of the Com- monwealth as to decline his peerage, and sit upon the foot of his election by the people ; yet he loved justice before all other things, looking upon it to be the honour of the Parliament and the image of God upon them ; that therefore he durst not refuse to lay this matter before them, though ha was very desirous that the said Lord might clear himself of the accusation.' The Parliament, having received this information, referred the consideration of the matter to a committee, where it was fully examined ; and, notwithstanding all the art of counsel learned in the law, and all the friends the Lord Howard could make, so just and equitable a spirit then governed, that the Committee represented the matter to the Parliament as they found it to be." ^ It was therefore resolved by the House : " That upon consideration of the several charges against Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick, and the proofs reported, and his answer and defence thereupon, the Parliament doth, upon the whole matter, declare and adjudge him guilty of bribery : that the said Edward Lord Howard be discharged from being a member of this Parliament, and for ever dis- abled to sit in any Parliament, and from bearing any office or place of trust in this Commonwealth : that he be fined i^l 0,000 ; committed to the Tower during the plea- sure of the Parliament ; and that he do attend at the bar of the House, and, upon his knee there, receive this judg- ment."^ The Lord Howard was released, from his im- prisonment in the Tower, on the 6th of August following ; and on the 5tli of April, 1653, the fine of £10,000 imposed • Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 334, ^ Commons' Journals, June 25, 335 (2nd edition, London, 1721). 1651. 1651.] VISCOUNT LISLE AND ALGERNON SYDNEY. 129 upon him was ordered to be discharged. » His son, when thirty years after he brought Algernon Sydney to the scaf- fold, might think that he then paid back upon the Eepub- lican party the humiliation which on this occasion they had inflicted on his father. The history of this family would be an instructive iUustration of the sort of virtues which recommended men to the favour of the Stuarts, and of the depth of infamy to which the Stuarts reduced nobility in England. The fact of this Lord Howard of Escrick's sitting as a member of this assembly-may be explained easily enough, on the ground that such men as he are ever ready to side with that party, whatever its principles may be, which is the strongest for the time being. But there is a far deeper significance in the fact that Philip Earl of Pem- broke, and Philip Lord Viscount Lisle, the eldest son of the Earl of Leicester, were members of this Parliament, and also of the Council of State ; and that Algernon Sydney,' another son of the Earl of Leicester, was a member of the Parliament, and an officer of the army of the Parliament, and also a member of the last Council of State elected in November 1652. These two brothers were related by blood to the Earl of Pembroke, whose mother was the sister of Sir Philip Sydney, and also of Eobert Sydney, their grandfather, created Viscount Lisle in 1605, and Earl of Leicester in 1618, by James I. JSTo one, therefore, had better means, than they had, of knowing what was the price of King James's honours. Whether all the wickedness of the Court of the Stuart was known to all those who called themselves Cavaliers, and fought for the Stuarts like Falkland, or wrote for them like Hyde, I can- not say. If they did not know for what the Earl of 1 ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1366, 1367. VOL. II. K 130 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. Gowrie and his brother had been murdered, they could hardly miss knowing why the murderers of Sir Thomas Overbury escaped punishment, and retired with a pension of £4,000 a year. However that might be, this Earl of Pembroke knew the wickedness of that Court too well ; and Viscount Lisle knew enough of it to take an active part in the business of the Council of State, for his name appears often in the MS. minutes, showing that his attend- ance was as regular as that of most of the members. But the case of Lord Lisle 's brother, Algernon Sydney, is still more significant. Algernon Sydney was not a member of the Council of State till November 1652. He was again elected a member of the Council of State, on the restoration of the Long Parliament, in 1 659. But in 1 646 he was returned Member for Cardiff; and in 1647 he received the thanks of the House of Commons for his services in Ireland, and was appointed Governor of Dover. In April 1645 Fairfax had raised him to the rank of Colonel, and had given him a regiment. On the 2nd of July 1650, there is this minute in the " Order Book of the Council of State":—" That Colonel Algernon Sydney be desired to repair down to Dover Castle and take care of the place, the Council being informed that the enemy have some design upon the place."^ Of Algernon Sydney's qualities as a soldier, there could not be a stronger testimonial than this— that when Cromwell, after his return from Ireland in 1650, proposed to Ludlow that " some person of reputation and known fidelity might be sent over to command the horse in Ireland, and to assist Major-General Ireton in the public ' Order Book of the Council of State, July 2, 1650, MS. State Paper Offioe. 1651.] CHARACTER OF ALGERNON SYDNEY. J^ j^jj service," and desired Ludlow to propose o^ whom he thought sufficiently qualified for that station, Ludlow told him that, in his opinion, " a fitter man could not be found than Colonel Algernon Sydney;" and the only exception Cromwell made against him was " his relation to some who were in the King's interest." The character of Algernon Sydney has been a favourite theme with writers, great and small ; and, as^ls usual, the small writers have been harder upon him than the great For It IS a sourcerof wonderful self-complacency to a small man to pass judgment, from an imaginary judgment-seat on what he terms the narrow-minded obstinacy, the utter nnpracticability, the infatuated helplessness, of a ship- wrecked faction. The man fancies that, by such lofty denunciations, he establishes his own title to vast prac- tical ability. But sometimes he is undeceived before he dies. Algernon Sydney, in one of his letters to his father seems to forebode this' part ~5f Ms sad fafe, when he says : " I wander as a vagabond through the world, forsaken of my friends,- poor, and kno^vn only to be a broken limb of a shipwrecked faction." In another letter to his father, first published by Mr. Blencowe in 1825 from the original in Mr. Lambard's collection, Algernon Sydney pleads, as it were by a voice from the grave, against Jeffreys, who pronounced upon him the judg- ment of death,2 as well as against those who, after death pronounced him to be a narrow-minded, opinionative' • Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 320 (2nd edition, London, 1721). \ ^ At Algernon Sydney's trial, Finch, : the Solicitor-General, a far moreadfSit* legal sophist than Prideaux, the • Attorney-General at John Lilburne's } trial, maintained that one witness to iOnefact, and another witness to another fact, were the two witnesses required by law. It is remarkable that Sydney was destroyed by the very same fal- sification of law by which the Rump, of which he had been a member, had attempted, though in vain, to destroy John Lilburne. I K 2 132 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. LChap. X. i 1 fanatical egotist. Let us hear Algernon Sydney's defence > of himself. He thus writes to his father from Hamburg, August 30, 1660 : " Sir John Temple sends me word, your Lord- ship is very intent upon finding a way of bringing me into England, in such a condition as I may live there quietly and well. I acknowledge your Lordship's favour, and will make the best return for it I can ; but T desire you to lay that out of your thoughts ; it is a design never to be ac- complished. I find so much by the management of things at home, that it is impossible for me to be quiet one day, imless I would do those things, the remembrance of which would never leave me one quiet or contented moment whilst I live. I know myself to be in a condition that, for aU circumstances, is as ill as outward things can make it. This is my only consolation, that when I call to remem- brance, as exactly as I can, all my actions relating to our civil distempers, I cannot find one that I look upon as a breach of the rules of justice or honour. This is my strength, and, I thank God, by this I enjoy very serene thoughts. If I lose this, by vile and unworthy submis- sions, acknowledgment of errors, asking of pardon, or the like, I shall from that moment be the miserablest man alive, and the scorn of all men. I know the titles that are given me, of fierce, violent, seditious, mutinous, turbulent, and many others of the like nature ; but God, that gives me inward peace in my outward troubles, doth know that I do in my heart choose an innocent quiet retirement, before any place unto which I could hope to raise myself by those actions which they condemn. If I could write and talk like Colonel Hutchinson, or Sir Gilbert Pickering, I believe I might be quiet ; contempt might procure my safety ; but I had rather be a vagabond all my life, than ALGERNON SYDNEY. 133 )uy my bemg in my own country at so dear a rate : and if I could have bowed myself according to my interest perhaps I was not so stupid as not to know the ways of settling my affairs at home, or making a good provision for staying abroad, as well as others, and did not want credit to attain unto it; but I have been these many years outstripped by those that were below me, whilst I stopped at those things that they easily leaped over. What shall T say? It hath been my fortune from my youth, and will be so to my grave, by which my designs in the world will perpetually miscarry. But I know people will say, I strain at gnats, and swallow camels ; that it is a strange con- science, that lets a man run violently on, till he is deep in civil blood, and then stays at a few words and compliments • that can earnestly endeavour to extirpate a long-established monarchy, and then cannot be brought to see his error and be persuaded to set one finger towards the setting together the broken pieces of it. It will be thouo-ht a strange extravagance for one, that esteemed it no" dis- honour to make himself equal to a great many mean people, and below some of them, to make war upon the King; and is ashamed to submit unto the King, now he is encompassed with all the nobles of the land, and in the height of his glory, so that none are so happy as those that can first cast themselves at his feet. I have enough to answer all this in my own mind ; I cannot help it if I judge amiss ; I did not make myself, nor can I correct the defects of m^ o^vn creation. I walk in the light God hath given me ; if it be dim or uncertain, I must bear the penalty of my errors. I hope to do it with patience, and that no burden shall be very grievous to me, except sin and shame. God keep me from those evils, and, in all things else, dispose of me according to his pleasure ' - // / 134 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X J" / Hi. have troubled your Lordship very long, but it is that I might ease you of cares that would be more tedious, and as unfruitful. I do not know whither the course of my for- tune doth lead me, probably never to return to see your Lordship or my own country again. However, if I have offended your Lordship, transported by folly or the violence of my nature (I have nothing else that needs your forgive- ness), I beseech you to pardon it ; and let me have your favour and blessing along with me. If I live to return, I will endeavour to deserve it by my services ; if not, I can make no return but my prayers for you, which' shall never be omitted by your Lordship's ./ Algernon Sydney."^ In another of his letters to his father, first published by Mr. Blencowe in 1825 from Mr. Lambard's collection, and dated Venice, October 12, 1660, Algernon Sydney gives the following account of his conduct with regard to the King's trial, which shows that he had clearer notions on the ille- gality of " High Courts of Justice" than either Cromwell or Bradshaw. He says : — " The truth of what passed I do very well remember. I was at Penshurst, when the Act for the trial passed; and coming up to town I heard my name was put in, and that those that were nominated for judges were then in the Painted Chamber. I presently went thither, heard the Act read, and found my own name with others. A debate was raised how they should pro- ceed upon it ; and after having been some time silent, to hear what those would say who had the directing of that business, I did positively oppose Cromwell, Bradshaw, and others, who would have the trial to go on, and drawing rea- ' Sydney Papers, pp. 195-198, edited by R. W. Blencowe (London, 1825). 1651.] ALGERNON SYDNEY. 135 sons from these two points :— First, the King could he tried by no court ; secondly, that no man could be tried by that court. This being alleged in vain, and Cromwell using these formal words, " I tell you, we will cut off his head with the crown upon it,' I replied : ' You may take your own course, I cannot stop yoa, but I will keep myself clean from having any hand in this business ; ' and imme- diately went out of the room, and never returned.^ This is all that passed publicly, or that can with truth be re- corded, or taken notice of. I had an intention, which is not very fit for a letter."^ This last sentence has given rise to some discussion. Sir James Mackintosh, in a notejjp rinted at^ e end of Mr. ElencoweT*voiume, expresses an opinion "that the intention to which Sydney aUudes, was to procure a con- currence of both Houses of Parliament in the deposition of the King. The Lords had passed an ordinance, making it High Treason in future for a King of England to levy war against the Parliament, a measure which of itself declared the judicial proceedings against the King illegal. " Sydney, we know from a letter to his father," says the note of Sir James Mackintosh, " approved that ordinance, and blamed the resolutions of the Commons which were [ ' The Earl of Leicester's Journal agrees with this account : " 3Iy two sons, Philip and Algernon, came unex- pectedly to Penshurst, Monday 22nd, and stayed there till Monday, 29th .Jan- uary, so as neither of them were at the condemnation of the King ; nor was Philip at any time at the High Court, though a commissioner ; but Algernon (a commissioner also) was there some- times, in the Painted Chamber, but never in Westminster ^dX\r —Journal of the Earl of Leicester, p. 54, in 'Syd- ney Papers. 2 Sydney Papers, edited by R. W. Blencowe (London, 1825), p. 237. " In tliat note Sir J. Mackintosh says, "■ wliat this intention was it is no longer possible to ascertain ; but we may with tolerable certainty affirm that it was one which he wished not to be known to the Government of Charles II., who were pretty sure to read his letter, and yet was willing to communicate to his father in con- versation." \ 1 -^ 1:36 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. founded on other principles. The design of deposition seems perfectly reconcileable with the known opinion of Sydney and his connexions at the moment." Sydney, in the letter just quoted, also says that his opposition to the trial, and to the subscription of a paper declaring appro- bation of the order for the King's execution, " had so ill effects as to my particular concernments, as to make Cromwell, Bradshaw, Harrison, Lord Grrey, and others my enemies, who did from that time continually oppose me." In regard to the supposition that the words of Sydney's letter referred to private assassination. Sir James Mackintosh says: — " Even the enemies of Sydney's memory cannot surely think it probable that a man of so frank and fearless a character should have preferred expedients which had no other recommendation than their tendency to pro- vide for the personal safety of the actors. But it is alto- gether incredible that, if he had been a partisan of secret regicide, he should have needlessly alluded to such a disposition, in a letter written to supply his father with every fair means of procuring his secure admission into England." ^ In another letter beginning " Sir, " and without date or address, Algernon Sydney says : — " I confess we are naturally inclined to delight in our own country, and I have a particular love to mine ; T hope I have given some testimony of it. I think that being exiled from it is a great evil, and would redeem myself from it with the loss of a great deal of my blood. But when that country of mine is now like to be made a stage of injury, the liberty which we hoped to establish oppressed ; the Parliament and army corrupted, the people enslaved ; all things ven- dible, no man safe, but by such evil and infamous means ' Sydney Papers by Blencowe, note I. pp. 281-284, London, 1825. 1651.] ALGERNON SYDNEY. 137 as flattery and bribery ; what joy can I have in my own country in this condition ? Shall I renounce all my old principles, learn the vile court arts, and make my peace by bribing some of them ? Better is a life among strangers, than in my own country on such conditions. ^ ^ ^ Let them please themselves with making the King glorious, who think that a whole people may justly be sacrificed for the interest and pleasure of one, and a few of his followers. Nevertheless, perhaps they may find their King's glory is their shame, his plenty the people's misery."^ Now let it be observed that in all this Algernon Sydney — one of that body of statesmen whom a modern writer has thought fit to term " a small faction of fanatical egotists, more important from their passionate activity than from their talents," — was right, and they who again brought in the Stuarts upon the English nation were wrong, as the event fully proved, when, after twenty-eight years of crimes and follies, those Stuarts were expelled for ever. In estimating the conduct of Sydney, it must also be remembered that his experience had not furnished him with any remedy for the evils of which he had seen and heard so much, and which seemed inherent in monarchical government, except a re- public, or, at any rate, some form of government like that which had been established after the death of Charles. For he could hardly be expected to know that a remedy might be found such as the Government estabhshed in England after the final expulsion of the Stuarts. He had seen the evils of the monarchical government brought very near to him; for Leicester, the unworthy favourite of Eliza- beth, was as bad a man, and as incapable a minister and general, as Buckingham, the unworthy favourite of James • Sydney Papers, pp. 199-201, edited by R. W. Blencowe (London, 182o). f / ^ 138 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. 165L] CROMWELL'S ILLNESS IN SCOTLAND. 139 and Charles. It so happened that Sydney was peculiarly situated for observing both the old and the new nobility. The Sydneys belonged to the new nobility. But Algernon Sydney was descended from Hotspur and the old warrior nobility, through his mother, the Lady Dorothy Percy, eldest daughter of the Earl of Northumberland ; and he was also descended from the new or court-lackey nobility, his great-grandmother being the sister of Eobert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester of infamous memory. Moreover, his aunt, the Lady Lucy Percy, having been married to one of James's favourites, was the Countess of Carlisle, a woman celebrated for her beauty, but^ whose reputation was not likely to meet with the approbation of Algernon Sydney, any more than it would have been likely to meet with the approbation of her ancestor. Hotspur— a proud rough man, who hated the " vile court arts," which Algernon Sydney, a proud rough man also, hated. Further, the two nephews of Sir PhUip Sydney, the Earl of Pembroke and his brother Philip Herbei-t, had been favourites at James's Court ; and of that Court it may be said that its favour was even worse than its enmity, and that none ever escaped with honour from its deadly embrace. Now, when all this is taken into account, and when it is remembered that Algernon Sydney was a thoughtful and observing as well as a proud and conscientious man, one can understand that, as he could see no other remedy but a republic for those intolerable evils of a monarchical government, he was willing to take help wherever he could get it— to take help even from a despot like Louis XIY. And if we are bound to consider the papers of Barillon as sufficient evidence that 500 guineas were paid to Algernon Sydney on the part of Louis XIV., the only explanation of such a circumstance, which can in the least reconcile it with Sydney's character,' is that he considered the situation of affairs so desperate as to warrant a desperate remedy ; as his cotemporary, Thomas Hobbes, defended his retaining a friend or two at court, to protect him, if occasion should require, by saying, " If I were cast into a deep pit, and the Devil should put down his cloven foot, I would take hold of it to be drawn out by it." ' The folly of the attempt to represent that assembly of " the greatest geniuses for government the world ever saw- embarked together in "*one common cause," as"^' a small faction of fanatical egotists, more important from their passionate activity than from their talents," will be made abundantly manifest in the present chapter, from the mi- nutes of their proceedings which happily exist. During the winter of 165^, which Cromwell passed in Scotland, he had an attack of illness, which would seem to have been very severe. In a letter to the President of the Council of State, dated Edinburgh, March 24, 1650y, he says — " I thought I should have died of this fit of sickness ; but the Lord seemeth to dispose otherwise." And in May, Cromwell sent word that the air of Scotland did not agree with him, and desired to remove himself to some part of England for the restoration of his health. Leave was granted to him ; but he appears to have reco- vered his health so much as not to need to make use of it. It is extremely difficult to get at the truth respecting powerful men — I mean men powerful from their position. The truth, if likely to be distasteful to them, cannot be published diu-ing their lifetime, or even, in many cases, till long after their death. Thus some persons who attempted to publish a version of what James I. called the Go^vrie Conspiracy, different from King James's version, were punished with torture and death. And even after James's iliriTiifMiililiilmitiMililiiliiriiir^^ 140 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. accession to the throne of England, any expression of dis- sent from the doctrine of the royal wisdom and virtue brought ruin and death on the unhappy dissenter.* The common accounts say that Cromwell's illness on this occa- sion was an attack of ague. But Aubrey, in his account of Jonathan Godard, M.D., tells the following story, which may be taken for whatever it is worth : " He [Godard] was one of the College of Physicians in London ; warden of Merton College, Oxon ; physician to Oliver Cromwell, Protector ; went with him into Ireland. Qu. if not sent to him into Scotland, when he was so dangerously ill there of a kind of calenture or high fever, which made him mad, that he pistolled one or two of his commanders that came to visit him in his rage."^ The Scottish Parliament, which after the Battle of Dunbar had retired beyond the Forth, still maintained a show of decided opposition to those whom they called the English sectaries. The moderate Presbyterians, who desired monarchical government, resolved on the coronation of Charles, with a view of conciliating him, having been alarmed by a proceeding of his called the 8 tart, the nature » May 5, 1 619. " Relation of the Execution of Williams, a Counsellor at Law, as a Traitor, for writing a libelling Eook against the King, called ' Ba- laam's Ass.' "—MS. State Paper Office. 2 Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. pp. 357, 358 (London, 1813).— Au- brey was right as to Dr. Godard, as appears from the following mi- nutes: — " That Dr. Goddard shall have the sum of £100 given unto him for his care and pains with the Lord-General in his sickness. That Dr. Goddard be recommended to the Committee for the Universities, to be made master of a college in one of the Universities ; and Sir H. Vane is desired to acquaint them that the Council have, in con- sideration hereof, given him a smaller sum than otherwise they would have done, for his care and pains with the Lord-General in his sickness." ( Order Book of the Council of State, June 13, 1651, MS. State Paper Office.) It appears from a minute of May 23, 1651, that the Council also despatched two other physicians, Dr. "Wright and Dr. Bates, " to give his Lordship advice for the recovery of his health." — Ibid„ May 23, 1651. I 1561.] A NATURAL AND AN ARTIFICIAL ARISTOCRACY. 141 of which was not fully known. The ceremony of the coro- nation was performed at Scone, on the 1st of January 165^ with such solemnities as the circumstances of the times admitted. Charles, in royal robes, walked in procession from the hall of the palace to the church ; the spurs, sword of state, sceptre, and crown being carried before him by the principal nobility. The crown was carried and placed on the head of Charles by the Marquis of Argyle, who was beheaded immediately after the Restoration in 1660, and said upon the scaffold, " I placed the crown upon the King's head, and in reward he brings mine to the block." This coronation spectacle, at this particular time, is well fitted to give rise to some grave reflections. We have here two aristocracies in presence of each other — a natural and an artificial aristocracy, or, employino- the words in their strict meaning, an aristocracy and an oligarchy. The natural aristocracy consists of an army composed of the best soldiers, commanded by the best officers that the world had ever seen — " an army to which," as Clarendon has truly and eloquently said, '' victory was entailed, and which, humanly speaking, could hardly fail of conquest whithersoever it should be led ; an army whose order and discipline, whose sobriety and manners,' whose courage and success, have made it famous and terrible over the world." But then, says Mr. Denzil Holies, all of these men, from the General to the meanest centinel, were not able to make £1,000 a year lands ; most of the ' See the testimony of Baillie contrast with some other " sojours," (Memoir, p. 63), as to Cromwell's in times that might be thought more " sojours doing less displeasure at civilized.— See Wellington's Despatches Glasgow, nor [than] if they had been (particularly Gur^'ood's Selections), p. at London, though Mr. Zacharie Boyd 375, No. 426 ; p. 449, No. 507 ; p. 919, rallied on them all to their very No. 1013. faces in the High Church "-a strong ; \ V 142 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. 1651.] POSITION OF THE SCOTTISH ARMY. 143 colonels and officers being mean tradesmen, brewers, tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers, and the like — " a notable dunghill," adds this son of one of James I.'s notable peers, " if one would rake into it to find out their several pedi- grees " 1 Nevertheless, if it be true, as nowadays some persons are presumptuous enough to think, that men's deeds are their best pedigrees, such persons might be disposed to say that this army of the Parliament of England constituted a real aristocracy, while the coronation procession, with all its symbolical paraphernalia, was but a phantom. If this heraldic aristocracy dreamt that war was an art the know- ledge of which was their birthright, and which the herd of burghers and mechanics could never learn, they were suddenly startled from this dream by the trumpet-blast of an enemy more terrible than any they had ever encountered through all the dark centuries of their reign upon earth ; though that enemy's ranks were, in part, composed of " mean mechanics," and in part officered by " mean tradesmen," — by men who, when they had done their work of war, returned to their former peaceful and industrious ^ f occupations, only noticeable thereafter by their superior skill in their various trades, and their superior sobriety, honesty, and good conduct. The Eoyalist writers, who strive to make it appear that their King was not only a gallant soldier but a prudent ' • commander — though they have never been able to show, i upon any good evidence, that he displayed even the hum- \ I blest private soldier's virtue of steadiness and personal . j.. courage under an enemy's fire, or indeed that he was ^ I ever under an enemy's fire at all on any one occasion — r > HoUes's Memoirs, p. 149. inform us that after his coronation the King assumed the command of the Scottish army in person^ and took up a position to the south of Stirling, having in his front the River Carron. This particular tract of^country had witnessed some of the most desperate struggles for the independence of Scotland, when the Scots'' fought under leaders very different from this Stuart king. On the banks of the Carron had been fought the bloody^Battle of Falkirk, in which Wallace had been defeated, in conse- quence, partly at least, of the treacherous defection, during the battle, of some of the Scottish nobility with their retainers. On the banks of the Bannock had been fought the stm bloodier Battle of Bannockburn, in which Robert Bruce had given England the greatest overthrow recorded in her annals. The strong position now taken up by the Scottish army was no doubt the work, not of the King— who never showed a genius for war or anything else (ac- cording to the authority of his friend the Duke of Buck- ingham, who ought to have known his gifts), " but ducks, loitering, and loose women," '—but of David Leslie, who stiU acted as Lieutenant-General ; though his prudence and military skill were rendered of small avail under the control of this " duU blockhead," as Buckingham calls him, as they had been baffled before by the incapacity and folly of the Scottish oligarchy. • "Nay, he could sail a yacht, both nigh and large. Knew how to trim a boat, and steer a barge : Could say his compass, to the nation's joy, And swear as well as any cabin-boy. ' But not one lesson of the ruling art Could this dull blockhead ever get by heart ; Look over all the universal frame, There's not a thing the will of man can name, In which this ugly perjur'd rogue de- lights. But ducks and loit'ring," * # * — The Cabin Boy, by George Villicrs. Charles was learned in the mechanism of ships, but his knowledge in them and their uses did not extend beyond that of a child in some huge new toys. / \ I 144 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X 145 Here, as when, before the Battle of Dunbar, the Scots occupied a strong entrenched position between Edinburgh and Leith, Cromwell could neither with prudence attack them in their lines, nor find means of inducing them to hazard a battle, unless at a great disadvantage to himself. Now, as in the preceding summer, the Scottish army re- mained in their fastnesses, carefully and pertinaciously avoiding an engagement, though CromweU continued to use his utmost efforts to provoke them to it. Here, again, the generalship of David Leslie is for the last time mani- fest. Cromwell himself pays a high compliment to Leslie's skill in taking up strong positions. "The enemy," he says, " is at his old lock, and lieth in and near Stirling, where we cannot come to fight him except he please, or we go upon too manifest hazards : he having very strongly laid himself, and having a very good advantage there. Whither we hear he hath lately gotten gi-eat provisions of meal, and reinforcements of his strength out of the north, under Marquis Huntly. It is our business stiU to wait upon God, to show us our way how to deal with this subtle enemy ; which I hope He will."^ When the armies had faced each other for more than a month, Cromwell despatched Lambert into Fife, to turn the left flank of the Scottish army, and intercept their supplies. Lambert attacked a detachment of the Scots, commanded by Holborne and Brown, and totally defeated them.^ Cromwell also proceeded with his army to Perth, which was surrendered after one day's siege.^ These ' Cromwell to the Speaker, Linlith- xix. pp. 494, 495 ; Cromwelliana, p. gow, July 26, 1651, printed in Mr. 106. Carlyle's Cromwell, from the Tanner ' Cromwell to the Speaker, August MSS. -t, 1651 ; Balfour, vol. iv. pp. 313, 314 ; 2 Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1369; Lord Leicester's Journal, p. 110, in Cromwell to the Speaker, Linlithgow, Sydney Papers, edited by R. W. Blen- July 21, 1651, in Old Pari. Hist, vol, eowe (London, 1825;. 1651.] MISSTATEMENTS OF MKS. HUTCHINSON. operations speedily had the effect which Cromwell intend- ed; for on the 31st of July the Scottish army broke up their camp near Stirling, and moved to the south-westward by rapid marches.^ Mrs. Hutchinson represents the CouncU of State as very much surprised at hearing that the King of Scots was passed by Cromwell, and was marching southward ; and as not only very much surprised, but very much frightened and disturbed in their counsels, till Colonel Hutchinson encouraged and put heart into them, " as they were one day in a private council raging and crying out on Cromwell's miscarriages." ^ Modern writers in the weight they have attached to this statement, have overlooked the fact, that Colonel Hutchinson was not at that time a member of the Council of State, as I will show presently. But I will first say, in reference to Mrs. Hutch- inson's statement respecting the very gi^eat surprise of the Council of State at hearing of the King of Scots' march southward— that, so long before as the 14th of January of this year, several extracts of letters from CromweU and Lambert to the Council of State, dated from Edinburgh the 4th and 8th of that month, intimating a design of the Scots to attempt an invasion of England, had been read in the House.3 So that the idea of the invasion of England would ai^pear to have been entertained by the Scottish leaders for some time, though the fact of CromweU's havino- turned their position probably hastened the execution of the project. In reference to another statement of Mrs. Hutchinson that the Council of State "scarce had any account of A^^stTV". the Speaker. Leith, ^ Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, August 4, 1601 ; Lord Leicester's p. 3.36, Bohn's edition, London, 1854. ^^^^^-^^ V- no. ^ Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1362. VOL. II. £ i\ 116 COMMON^VKALT^ OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. / '^ Cromwell, or of his intention, or hovf the error came about to suffer the enemy to enter England, where there was no army to encounter him," ^ it is fair to hear Cromwell's ac- count of the matter. " This is our comfort," he says, " that in simplicity of heart, as towards God, we have done to the best of our judgments ; knowing that if some issue were not put to this business, it would occasion another winter's war, to the ruin of your soldiery, for whom the Scots are too hard, in respect of enduring the winter diffi- culties of this country, and to the endless expense of the treasure of England in prosecuting this war. It may be supposed we might have kept the enemy from this by inter- posing between him and England, which truly I believe we mio-ht ; but how to remove him out of this place without doing what we have done, unless we had had a command- ing army on both sides of the Eiver of Forth, is not clear to us, or how to answer the inconveniences afore-mentioned we understand not." ^ In the preceding volume I have given an account of the election of the first and also of the second Council of State. As the time drew near for the election of a Council of State for the third time— namely, for the year 1651, the third year of the new Government called the Common- wealth — an opinion manifested itself in the ParKament,that a different principle should be adopted from that on which the election had been made in the preceding year, when all the members of the first Council of State were re-elected except three and two, who had died, so that only five new members were chosen. Accordingly, on the 5th of Feb- ruary 165|, the Parliament decided that the Council of • Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson ^ Cromwell to the Speaker, Leith, p. 356. August 4, 1651. IGol.] ELECTION OF THE NEW COUNCIL OF STATE. 147 State for the ensuing year should consist of 41 persons as before, but that only 21 of those who were now of the Council should be aUowed to be re-elected.^ An inatten- tion to this important fact has led some writers, generally accurate and careful, into erroneous conclusions. Thus Mr. Brodie says, in reference to some remarks of Mrs. Hutdrmgon on the Council of State about the time of the Battle of Worcester, " her husband, though a member of the Council, appears to have been absent onBmplojTuent."* The fact, however, is that Colonel Hutchinson was a mem- ber of the Council of State for the fii'st two years, but not afterwards. Consequently, he was not a member at the time of the Battle of Worcester ; and this explains Mrs. Hutchinson's expression, "private council." With her usual exorbitant self-assertion, she charges everybody but her husband, and one or two other persons whom she ho- noured with her approbation, with cowardice and folly ; and attributes all the vigour and energy which the Council of State displayed on that occasion, to the magical influence exercised on them by Colonel Hutchinson " in a private council." As Mrs. Hutchinson's book has obtained far greater authority on this important period of English History than it deserves— for her account of this and many other matters is very untrustworthy, and written with all the conceit of knowledge without the reality — I will tran- scribe here what she says on this point, that the reader may have an opportunity of comparing it with the record of the proceedings of the Council of State, preserved in their own minutes : — " The army being small, there was a necessity for 165^ ' Commons' Journals, February 6, » History of the British Empire, vol. iv. p. 305, note. L 2 f / i 148 COMMONAVExVLTH OF ENGLAND. \^Chap. X r recruits ; and the Council of State, soliciting all the Parlia- ment men that had interest to improve it in this exigence of time, gave Colonel Hutchinson a commission for a regi- ment of horse. He immediately got up three troops, well armed and mounted, of his own old soldiers, that thirsted to be again employed under him, and was preparing the rest of the regiment to bring them up himself; when he was informed, that as soon as his troops came into Scot- land, Cromwell very readily received them, but would not let them march together, but dispersed them, to fiU up the regiments of those who were more his creatures. The Colonel, hearing this, would not curry him any more ; but rather employed himself in securing, as much as was necessary, his own county, for which he was sent down by the Council of State, who at that time were very much surprised at hearing that the King of Scots was passed by Cromwell, and had entered with a great army into England. Bradshaw himself, stout-hearted as he was, privately could not conceal his fear ; some raged, and uttered sad discon- tents against Cromwell, and suspicions of his fidelity ; they all conddered that Cromwell was behind, of whom I think they scarce had any account, or of his intention, or how this error came about, to suffer the enemy to enter here, where there was no army to encounter him. Both the city and country (by the angry presbyters, wavering in their constancy to them and the liberties they had purchased) were all amazed, and doubtful of their own and the Com- monwealth's safety. Some could not hide very pale and unmanly fears, and were in such distraction of spirit that it much disturbed their councils. Colonel Hutchinson, who ever had most vigour and cheerfulness when there was most danger, encouraged them, as they were one day in a private council raging and crying out on Cromwell's 1651.] COUKAGE AND PRUDENCE OF THE COUNCIL. I49 miscarriages, to apply themselves to councils of safety, and not to lose time in a^ccusing others, while they might yet provide to save the endangered realm, or at least to fall nobly in defence of it, and not to yield to fear and despair. These and suchlike things being urged, they at length re- collected themselves, and every man that had courage and interest in their counties went down to look to them."* ^^ Upon this passage the Reverend Julius Hutchinson, the editor of Colonel Hutchinson's Memoirs, has this note— " The trepidation of the Coimcil of State is well described by Whitelock." ISTow, so far is "VVliitelock from saying anything of the kind, that his account— wi'itten at the time, and when he was in daily conference with the Council of State, of which he was a leading member — particularly de- scribes the courage, as well as the diligence and prudence, exhibited by the Council of State in this trying crisis. Under date August 19, 1651, he says : "The Council of State dui'ing this action [the advance of the Scots' army] had almost hourly messengers going out and returning from the several forces, carrying advice and directions to them, and bringing to the Council an account of theii motions and designs, and of the enemy's motions. It could hardly be that any affair of this nature could be manao-ed with more diligence, courage, and prudence than this was ; nor, peradventure, was there ever so great a body of men so ' Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, pp. 355, 356, Bohn's edition, London, 1854. — Colonel Hutchinson, of whom we seldom hear in the records of that time, though his wife's interesting Memoirs have made his name well known, might be, and on his wife's showing was, a very respectable country gentleman ; but there needs some cor- roborative evidence, in addition to his wife's testimony, to prove that he saved the Commonwealth on this occasion. From the terms in which Mrs. Hutch- inson speaks of Monk, it may be in- ferred that Ludlow's charge against Colonel Hutchinson, of co operation with Monk, is groundless. The reader has seen, in a preceding page, Alger- non Sydney's opinion of Colonel Hutchinson — certainly not a compli- mentary one. 150 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. well armed and provided got together in so short a time as were now raised, and sent away to join with the rest of the forces attending [i. e., watching the movements of] the King."» Mr. Brodie says, " Ludlow corroborates Mrs. Hutchin- son's account."^ As far as I can see, Ludlow does not corroborate Mrs. Hutchinson in the least. Ludlow says : " They [the Scots] passed the Eiver Tweed ^ near Carlisle, there being a strong garrison in Berwick for the Parlia- ment, and were considerably advanced in their march before our army in Scotland were acquainted with their design. Major-General Harrison, with about 4,000 horse and foot, somewhat obstructed their march, though he was not considerable enough to fight them ; and being joined by Major-General Lambert, with a j)arty of horse from the army, they observed the enemy so closely as to keep them from excursions, and to prevent others from joining with them. The Scots, who were in great expec- tation of assistance from Wales, and relied much upon Colonel Massey's interest in Gloucestershire, advanced that way. Few of the country came in to them ; but, on the other side, so affectionate were the people to the Common- wealth, that they brought in horse and foot from all parts to assist the Parliament, insomuch that their number was by many thought sufficient to have beaten the enemy, without the assistance of the army ; some even of the ex- cluded members appearing in arms, and leading regiments against the common enemy."'* 'Not a word here that seems in the least to corroborate the aspersions cast by • Whitelock, pp. 502, 503, August was evidently not extensive. HowcA-er, 10, 165L the Scots did pass the border near * History of the British Empire, Carlisle. vol. iv. p. 305, note. * Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i.pp. 362, " Ludlow's geographical knowledge 363: 2nd edition, London, 1721. 1651.] ZEAL OF THE PEOPLE AGAINST THE ENEMY. 151 Mrs. Hutchinson upon the Council of State, of which her husband was not then a member, in which fact may perhaps be discovered the cause of her imputations of cowardice. Ludlow's account of the zeal of the people in all parts of England " against the common enemy" — for such the Stuarts and their adherents might be most truly called at all times, in 1745 as well as in 1645 and 1651 — is fully supported by Whitelock as well as by the MS. minutes of the Council of State ; and many will be of the opinion stated by Ludlow, that the forces suddenly raised and got together by the Council of State, particularly with such soldiers as Lambert and Harrison to lead them, would have been quite sufficient to have beaten the enemy, without the assistance of Cromwell and his army. But the best defence of the Council of State against the aspersions of Mrs. Hutchinson is afforded by their own Order Book. The fair-copy of the minutes of the Council of State for this particular time is lost, but, happily, the original rough drafts have been preserved ; and the hasty almost illegible writing, the interlineations, marginal jot- tings, and memoranda, present what may be not untruly called a graphic picture of the rapid and energetic action with which they encountered the danger that threatened them — with no trace of the " very pale and unmanly fears " which Mrs. Hutchinson has thought fit to impute to them. There is not, in fact, in the whole of this graphic record of their proceedings, one trace of ground for this malicious imputation.' / ' It is remarkable how fond Mrs. Hutchinson is of imputing cowardice and baseness. iSome of her imputa- tions of this sort are ludicrous — as, for instance, where she charges the Scots with cowardice for killing Colonel Thomhagh, who made such ppeed to Bet upon a troop of Scotch lancers, that he was somewhat in adviince of his regiment ; and the lady is wroth because the Scots did not wait, and let him kill a few of them before his iMPihutMmM 152 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. In the first place, there are some circumstances recorded in the MS. minutes of the proceedings of the Council of State, which are at variance with Mrs. Hutchinson's statement that when the Scottish army entered England, there was no army there to encounter them. On the 12th of March of this year we find, in the Order Book of the Council of State, a minute respecting the " discovery from Scotland of a plot of some gentlemen in Cheshire and Lancashire."^ On the 1 5 til of March, three days after, the Council of State ordered, " That a letter be written to the Lord-General [Cromwell], to take notice of the receipt of his letter ; to let him know that the Council look upon the discovery made by the late letters sent from his Lordship as a very great mercy, and bless God for it, and for the good news of his Lordship's recovery ; to desire him to send the person lately appre- hended there, to this town in a ship of war ; to desire his regiment came up. And then, because the Scots naturally defended themselves when they could, and asked quarter when they could not, this just and merciful woman thus characterises the l)arbarity of Thornhagh's regiment — the Scotch lancers, bo it repeated, were only a troop : " Deaf to the cries of every coward that asked mercy, they killed all, and would not a captive should live to see their colonel die ; but said the whole kingdom of Scotland was too mean a sacrifice for that brave man." When the Battle of the Metau- rus was lost, Hasdrubal spurred his horse into the midst of a Roman co- hort, and there fell sword in hand — fighting, says Livy, as became the son of Hamilcar and brother of Hannibal. But who talks of the cowardice of the Boman cohort for killing him ? Though there it was a whole cohort against one man, who possibly might have been saved (though Mrs. Hutchinson, as the wife of a colonel, and not an absolute fool, though not quite so wise as she imagined herself to be, ought to have known that in the heat of action such a thing is always difficult and often impossible), whereas in the case of Colonel Thornhagh, he was followed (if at a little distance) by his regiment. Consequently, how could it prove cowardice, in a troop attacked by a regiment, that the troop killed the colonel of the regiment instead of saving his life, when they only killed him as being the first man of his regi- ment who attacked them ? ^ Order Book of the Council of State, March 12, 165^, MS. State Paper Office. — On the same day there is a proclamation to " all officers and soldiers who have come into England, some with leave and some without leave, forthwith to repair to their colours." 1651.] GREAT EXERTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 153 Lordship to give intelligence to this Council of anything which may occur to his Lordship there, which may relate to the public peace, and the Council will take care to do the like to him."^ In consequerce of this discovery, Major-General Harrison was, on the 19th of March, sent down to the northern counties— Derby, Nottingham, Lan- caster, York ; and Sir Arthur Haselrig was desired, with the forces and garrisons under his command in the four northern counties, Northumberland, Durham, Westmore- land, and Cumberland, to give assistance to Major-General Harrison.2 On Monday the 24th of March, an order is made by the Council of State, " That an Adjutant- General be allowed to Major-General Harrison for his expedition into the North, and that he be allowed the pay of 14s. per diem for himself and two men ; which pay is to be satisfied unto him out of the incidents of the Council.''^ Qn the 7th of April an order was made "for raising 4,000 horse and dragoons for the safety of the Commonwealth." And on the same day " a petition of many godly and well-affected persons in the county of Norfolk, concerning the associating of honest men there for the defence of the public"— a pe- tition which shows that the Government was by no means generally unpopular at that particular time— was referred ' Order Book of the Council of State, Saturday, March 15, 16of, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. March 19, 165f. ' Ibid. March 24, 165f.— On the same day there is a minute of the Council of State, which still further confirms what I have before said as to the erroneous statement of Eoger Coke, that the Parliament never pressed *• either soldiers or seamen in all these wars." — Detection of the Court and State of England, vol. ii. p. 30. The following is the minute of the Council of State :— " That it be reported to the Parliament that the Council find great difficulty to get recruits for Ireland, of which the regiments there have great need. And therefore oflTer it to the consideration of the Parliament, that 2,500 recruits may be raised by way of press within the county of Cornwall, from whence the Council conceive they may be sent much cheaper and more conveniently than from other places." — Order Book of the Council of State, March 24, l65f, MS. State Paper Office. 154 COMIVIONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. I to a committee, " wlio are to speak with the gentlemen that attend that business, and give them thanks for their good affection, and consider with them what use may be made of what they offer, and report the same to the Council.'" On the following day an order was made, " That a letter be written to the Lord- General, signifying the present state of those forces in Lancashire, and the danger that tlireatens the Commonwealth in the parts adjacent ; and to desire his Excellency to order his intended expedition upon the enemy, so that he may be able to attend their attempts for the invasion of this Commonwealth."^ On the 24th of April it was ordered, " That the report concerning the business of the gentlemen who were secured in Cheshire upon the discovery of the conspiracy be made to-morrow in the afternoon."^ And we find, by the minutes of the 9th of May, that the Council of State were making great ex- ertions to send troops to' Major-General Harrison in the North — six troops of horse of 100 each, and " 100 dragoons of Captain Okey's troop of dragoons," in all 700* men despatched : and it was ordered, " That a troop of dragoons be sent to attend the demolishing of Nottingham Castle, and the two companies of foot now there are to march to Major-General Harrison." ^ On the 30th of May a letter from Major-General Harrison from Lancaster, of May 27, was referred to the Committee of Irish and Scottish Affairs.^ It appears, then, that the forces drawn northwards under * Order Book of tlie Council of State, April 7, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. « Ibid. April 8, 1651. » 7A/W. April 24, 1651. * This further shows the numerical proportion of dragoons to horse, already stated, namely, about one to six. — See Vol. I. p. 44. * Order Book of the Council of State, May 9, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. — The following order of the 13th of the same month has re- ference to what was needed at that critical time — secret service: "That £100 be paid by Mr. Frost unto Captain Bishop, to be by him paid unto a certain man for a special service." — Ibid. May 13, 1651. « Ibid. May 30, 1651. li 1651.] INVASION OF ENGLAND BY THE SCOTS. Major-General Harrison were intended not only tcf^uppress the intended insurrection in Cheshire and Lancashire, but to resist any invasion of England by the army of the Kino- of Scots ; and that therefore the Council of State was by no means taken by surprise, and altogether unprepared, by the invasion that ended in the Battle of Worcester.* When Cromwell wrote to the Speaker on the 4th of August, the army of the King of Scots had not entered England. On the 6th of August the Scots' army marched into England over the border about three miles from Car- lisle ; and on the same day Cromwell, with about 1 0,000 horse and foot, and a light train, that he might move the swifter, marched from Leith, having despatched Major- General Lambert the day before (the 5th of August), with about 3,000 horse and dragoons. In the afternoon of the 9th of August, the Council of State received by an exr)ress a letter from Mr. Georo-e Downing, dated from Newcastle on the 7th, containing the news that the King of Scots, with what forces were left with him, to the number of 14,000 men, had in- vaded England, and was advancing southward by rapid marches; part of the Parliament's forces, consistino- of the cavalry under Major-General Lambert, being in his van, and the Lord-General Cromwell with the rest following in his rear. The House being adjourned for four days, the Council of State thought this intelligence so important that they met the next moming,^ the 10th, though a Sunday, and passed the following orders : » See further evidence of this in the E. W. Blencowe: London, 1825. Order Book of the Council of State, « Tliis meeting is headed "Sunday, March 26, 1651, MS. State Paper Ai:guHt 10, 1651 ."— Order Book of t/ie Office. Coimcil of State, MS. State Paper * Lord Leicester's Journal, pp. 110, Office. Ill, in Sydney Papers, edited by 156 COMMONW^EALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. li " To write a letter to the Lord Grey to come forthwith to town ; to give him notice of the Scottish march." " That the letter now read be sent to the Lord Mayor, with a copy of the letter from Scont-master-General Downing, to be published at Paul's " [the next two words I cannot decypher, but I think they are " this forenoon ; " " this fore—" is legible]. On the afternoon^ of the same day, the Council of State again met, and made the following orders : — " That a warrant be sent to the Lieutenant of the Tower, that the prisoners in the Tower are to be kept close pri- soners till further order." " That a letter be written to General Blake, to desire him to take care of the West, in the absence of Major-General Desborowe ; and to send two ships of those with him toward the Isle of Man and those parts, to prevent the landing of any forces from the Isle of Man." "That letters be written to the several militias forthwith, to bring the forces of their counties together, without any delay, to some place where they are to be ready to execute such orders as shall be sent them from the Parliament, this Council, or Lieutenant- General Fleetwood." " That letters be written to all the militias in the way toward Staffordshire, to get together all their forces, and furnish them with a fortnight's pay, and have them ready to receive the orders of the Parliament, this Council, Lieu- tenant- General Fleetwood, or Major-General Harrison." " To write to Major-General Harrison, to give him an account of what posture things are put into in respect of forces in these parts ; and that he goes on to raise the • The heading of the afternoon's day." — Order Book of the Council of meeting is, instead of the old form " a State, Sunday, August 10, 1651, MS. meridie," " the afternoon of the same State Paper Office. / 1651.] THE BROAD PLACE AT WHITEHALL ON AUG. 10. honest men he speaks on, and that the Council will liiove the Parliament for pay for them."* Now, as the express from Scout-master-General Down- ing only arrived on Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday afternoon — that is, in the course of twenty-four hours — all these energetic proceedings were taken by the Council of State ; couriers, mounted on the fleetest horses, despatched with letters to Lord Grey, to General Blake, to Major- General Harrison, and to all the militias of the several counties; and such expedition used that satisfactory answers to their letters were received by Tuesday the 12th of August — that is in forty-eight hours, as appears by the Council's report to the Parliament, to be quoted presently — it will be observed that Mrs. Hutchinson's assertions respecting the Council of State's having been paralysed by fear to such an extent as to be incapable of efficient action, till, "one day in a private council. Colonel Hutchinson encouraged them" (she does not say the evening of Saturday, the 9th of August, the only portion of time between the receipt of the news of the Scottish invasion and their energetic action to resist it when what she asserts was possible) are to the last degree improbable, not to use a stronger word. Li fact, Mrs. Hutchinson's words, according to their most obvious construction, imply that Colonel Hutchinson was in Nottinghamshire at the time the express from Downing reached the Council of State. On that Sunday, the 10th of August 1651, "the broad place at Whitehall " (it is in these words that the iiynutes of the 'Council describe the space in front of Whitehall) presented an extraordinary spectacle. The ordinary staff consisted of twelve^ mounted messengers, who waited the * Order Book of the Council of State Paper Office. State, Sunday, August 10, 1651, MS. ^ a That the twelve messengers y 158 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. orders of the Secretary of the Council of State in " the broad place at Whitehall," which, though we pass that spot now without emotion, possessed at that time a strange and terrible interest, associated with that transaction which, even Hume admits, " corresponded to the greatest concep- tion that is suggested in the annals of human kind — the delegates of a great people sitting in judgment upon their supreme magistrate, and trying him for his misgov- ernment and breach of trust." ^ But on this memorable Sunday, the 10th of August, 1651, a large addition was necessarily made by the Secretary of the Council to his staff of mounted messengers. And one by one, as they received their despatches, courier after courier set spurs to his fleet horse, and galloped off from the door of the Council Chamber. In this case the couriers must have been far more numerous, as their business was far more momen- tous, than Sir Walter Scott's Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men Waited the beck of the warders ten. who But the speed with which the Council's couriers galloped off from the front of Whitehall, in various directions, may recall the scene so graphically described in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel :" — And out ! and out ! In hasty route, The horsemen gallop'd forth ; Dispersing to the south to scout, And east, and west, and north. hitherto attending the Council be enter- tained still in the service of the Council, to be at the direction of the Secretary. And shall have 5s. per diem [each] for their salary, and 6d. per mile for riding, in the same manner they formerly had at Derby House." "That Mr. Frost shall entertain one servant to keep the office and to be at his command to call messengers, &c., and that he shall have 2s. per diem for his salary." — Order Book of the Council of State, June 5, 1649, MS. State Paper Office. ' Hume's Hist, of England, chap. lix. 1G51.] EXEETIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 159 On Monday the 11th of August, the Council of State ordered : — "That a letter be written to the Lord Mayor of London, to desire him that a Common Council may be warned to meet this afternoon, at 2 of the clock, to be in readiness to receive some members of this Council, in order to communicate something unto them in order to public safety." "That Mr. Bond, Mr. Chaloner, Mr. Barley, Colonel Purefoy, Lord-Commissioner Whitelock, Lord Grey, Colonel Fielder, Lieutenant- General Fleetwood, Mr. Goodwyn, Mr. Scot, Mr. Carew, or any three of them, be appointed a Committee, to consider of what is fit to be done at this time for the safety of the Commonwealth, and to report their opinion to the Council from time to time, as they shaU think fit." Another Committee is appointed " to go to the Common Council of London at 4 p. m. this day, to inform them of the invasion of this land by the King of Scots, the time and manner thereof; and also of the posture of the forces of this Commonwealth both in Scotland and England, as to preven- tion of the danger to the Commonwealth thereby ; and to move the City to do their best for raising some considerable forces for the defence of the Parliament and City, in ease the enemy should pass our forces. And that they also take care for the quiet of the City within itself, and to prevent any assistance to be sent to, or any correspondence to be held with, the Scots' King, or any of his party." " That the Lord Grey be desired to repair into Leices- tershire, to do there what shall occur to him to be for the prevention of the Scots' army in their march." " That a warrant be forthwith issued, to stay the 1,500 IGO COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. backs, breasts, and pots^ that are now shipped to go to Scot- land, and that they be brought back to the Tower till further order." At the afternoon meeting of the Council of State, the Council made two orders, relating to a subject not connected with the invasion of the Scots ; which circumstance is of itself suJSicient proof that, so far from the Council's being in that state of trepidation alleged by Mrs. Hutchinson, they not only took all the requisite steps for resisting the invasion, but attended also to ordinary business. The two orders referred to are as follows : — " That a declaration be published, that all those that come to drink the waters at Lewisham in Kent do behave themselves peaceably, without tumult." "That Lieutenant- General [Fleetwood] be desired to send a fit party of horse, to prevent tumults and miscar- riages at the waters at Lewisham." Then comes the following order : — " That Mr. Rush- worth ^ and Captain Bishop maintain intelligence between the Council and the armies " [namely, 1, the army under Cromwell : 2, that under Lambert : 3, that under Har- rison] ; " and that the sum of £200 be paid to Captain Bishop by Mr. Frost, out of the monies in his hands for the use of the Council."^ On the following day, Tuesday the 12th of August, the House passed three Acts for the support of the Common- wealth against the present danger — namely : 1. An Act ' "Backs " are the back-pieces of the defensive armour ; " breasts " are the front pieces, i.e. the cuirasses or cors- lets ; " pots " are helmets. ■■* John Rushworth, the great histo- rical collector, who appears from this minute to have by this time returned to London, having been secretary to Cromwell at the time of the Battle of Dunbar, at which he was present. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, Monday, August 11, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. 1651. EXERTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. iQi empowering the Commissioners of the Militia to raise forces and money; and for reviving aU commissions formerly granted by Ordinance of Parliament, or the Council of State, to any Colonels and other officers. — 2. An Act containing instructions to the Commissioners of the Militia. —3. An Act for declaring it High Treason to hold any correspondence with the King of Scots. On the same day, Tuesday the 12th of August, the Council of State made the following orders :— " That a letter be ^vritten to the Lord Fairfax, to desire his Lordship to use his best endeavours for the raising of forces in Yorkshire." " That the 1,000 backs and breasts, the 1,500 pots, the 1,000 longi pikes, the 1,000 snaphance [flintlock] muskets, the 500 matchlock muskets, which were shipped on board the Thomas of London, Jonathan Gibbs, master, be returned back into the Tower." " That it be reported to the Parliament, that the Council of State, taking into consideration the present state of affairs upon occasion of the Scottish army marching into England, and finding that their march is not upon confi- dence, with which, when it was whole and unbroken, they could not be provoked to give battle to our army, or come out of their straights to save their own country, which they saw broken in one paii: after another ; despairing of their own country, which they have deserted as lost, they are marched into England with their last hope, that from their own party of the traitors to this Commonwealth, there wiU be a great conflux unto them for their recruits and assist- ance, in which, if they should be disappointed, they will soon come to nothing, though they should have but weak • This «i^ows that the pikes were of various lengths. VOL. II. M 162 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. opposition. And although, the Council find also, that by the great diligence and care of the Lord-General and his officers, the forces of the nation are disposed so as they conceive they will not be able to advance far before our forces will be with them, and that there will be (through God's goodness) a speedy and thorough end of the work ; yet they have thought fit, for the better x>revention of any such resort and recruit to them, and also for the better preserving the peace of these pai4;s, humbly to offer the ensuing particulars to the consideration of the Parliament, if they shall so judge fit, viz. : — " 1. AU persons joining or giving any aid whatever to the Scottish army shall be tried by the Council of War, and upon due proof of the fact shall suffer death and for- feit, as in case of treason, and be executed accordingly. "2. One-third part of the estate of offenders to all who shall discover them."^ The rest of the articles relate to disarming suspected persons, and police regulations. The Lord Mayor and the rest of the Committee of the Militia of the City, and also the Commissioners of the Militia of Westminster, the Hamlets, and Southward, are to sit daily. On the same day a letter is ordered to be written to the commander of the 2,000 foot at Weymouth, to march them with all expedition to Eeading. A warrant is ordered to be prepared, to be sent to the several Postmasters in London and elsewhere upon the roads, to require them to keerp a certain number of horses constantly in the house, to bo ready upon all occasions. Letters are ordered to be written to the militias, to apply some horses towards the post-roads ; ' Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, August 12, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. 1651.] EXERTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 163 and also to the Commissioners of the Militias of the several counties, " to enclose the Act against correspon- dence with Charles Stuart (which was, as we have seen, passed that day — and this circumstance shows the ra- pidity with which the Council acted) ; and that they take care to deliver it to the Sheriffs, who are to cause the same to be proclaimed forthwith in every market town, and at their County Courts, and that it be also sent to every parish." ^ On the same day a report is ordered to be made to the Parliament of the various proceedings they have taken upon the first notice received of the Scottish army marching towards England. The Council of State on the same day also made the fol- lowing orders : — " That six blank horse-commissions be prepared, to be given to the Lord Grey,^ for the raising of voluntarie [volunteer] horse in the counties of JS'orthampton, Leices- ter, and Eutland." '' That the Lord Grey have a commission to command the forces of Leicester, JSTorthampton, and Eutland, and to ' Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, August 12, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. 2 The Lord Grey of Groby. The Lord Grey of Werke, who had been a member of the Council of State in the two former years, was not re-elected in February 1651. Henry Grey, second Baron Grey of Groby, was created Earl of Stamford in 1628. The person here mentioned as Lord Grey of Gro- by was Thomas Grey, the eldest son of the Henry Grey above mentioned ; and as he died during the life of his father, he never became either Earl of Stamford or Baron Grey of Grol)y; but liis son, Thomas Grey, succeeded liis grandfather, in 1673, as second Earl of Stamford and lliird Baron Grey of Groby. The Lord Grey of Werke had been Sir AVilliam Grev. one of King James's baronets, and was created Baron Grey of Werke in 1624. Though the name of Grey, as a baronial name, is nearly as okl in England as that of Plantagenet, these peerages of Groby and Werke were, it will be observed, only Stuart peer- ages, the least honourable ''n the English annals. M 2 1G4 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. receive his orders from the Parliament, the Council, and the Lord-General." " That ^200 be paid unto the Lord Grey, for his inci- dent charges in his journey and expedition which he is now sent upon." ^ On Wednesday the 13th of August the Council of State continued their labours, as the following orders show : — " That Barnet be appointed for the place of rendezvous for the forces which are to be gathered together in these parts, and Tuesday next is to be the day when the forces are to rendezvous." " That the Commissioners of the Militia of Leicester, Eutland, and Northampton do draw the forces of their respective counties to several rendezvous, and send a month's pay with them, who are to receive orders from the Lord Grey." " That the Lord Grey shall have power to list what volunteer horse will offer themselves, and to assure them pay, from the time they are in actual service, for so long as they continue in service."^ The free constitutional spirit of the Council of State — a spirit in strict accordance with the ancient English prin- ciples of constitutional liberty, self-government, and self- defence — is strongly marked, even at this critical time, by the following directions to Lord Grey, to receive advice from the County Militia Commissioners ; and is in mani- fest contrast with the more centralised but not more effi- cient action of the Government, when Cromwell concen- trated the sovereignty in his single person : — "That whereas there was yesterday an order made for the giving unto the Lord Grey six blank horse- ' Order Book of the Council of Paper Office. State, August 12, 1651, MS. State * j^^j^ August 13, 1651. 1651.] EXERTIONS OE THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 165 commissions, for the raising of so many voluntary troops for the defence of those parts, the Council doth now declare that their intention is that the officers of the said troops, as also the soldiers, are to be ajDpointed and enlisted by the Lord Grey wiih the approhation of the Com- missioners of the Militia for that county in which any of the said troops shall he raised,^' ^ On Thursday, 14th August 1651, the Council thus continued their labours : — " That 1,000 dragoons be mounted to go towards the army." "That the Commissioners of the Militia of London, Westminster, Hamlets, and Southwark do make a return to the Council, by 3 p.m., what horses they have of those which they have seized that are fit for dragoons, except those that are already listed in troops for the service of the Parliament." " That it may be reported to the Parliament, that Mr. John Claypoole [sic] may be authorised to raise a troop of horse, such as shall come volimtarily ^ unto him, in the counties of Northampton and Lincoln, or elsewhere ; and that they may be paid according to the establishment of the army." ^ On Friday morning, 15th August 1651, the Council ordered : — " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Militia of Salop, to quicken them, and take notice of their slow proceeding, and to [desire them to] certify who » Order Book of the Council of and which the English Council of State, Wednesday, August 13, 1651, State was even now exerting itself to MS. State Paper Office. keep out of England. 2 Another example of the English ' Order Book of the Council of voluntary principle, in marked contrast State, Thursday, August 14, 1651, MS. to that of the centralised despotisms State Paper Office, already widely spread over Europe, 166 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. Chap. X. of the Commissioners do not appear and act vigorously in this time." " That answers be given to the letters from Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, to approve their diligence, to desire them to proceed with the greatest vigour to break bridges and stop passes, and receive orders from Major-General Harrison." " That it be reported to the Parliament, that it is the humble opinion of this Council that the regiment of Colonel Gibbons may be forthwith mounted and sent toward the army ; and that for that purpose the Parliament will give power to the Council, out of the horses now seized about London and the parts adjacent, or otherwise, to take up horses to mount the said regiments; and that the said horses be prized with the names of the proprietors of them, listed, and tickets given to them for payment of them, if any of them shall be lost or spoiled, if the Parliament shall so think fit." ' Friday afternoon, 15th August, 1651. — " That the propo- sition of Sir Michael Livesey, for the raising of a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot volunteers in the county of Kent, be accepted of, and he desired to repair into the country to press the same into execution. " That the Parliament be moved that the regiment of Colonel Gibbons may be paid as so many dragoons, for so long time as they shall be continued to serve in that con- dition." 2 Saturday, I6th August, 1651. — " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of Kent, to let them know the Coun- cil expects that they should send up their two troops of ' Order Book of the Council of * j^^^ Eriday afternoon, August 15, State, Friday morning, August 15, 1651. 165L MS. State Paper Office. 1651.] EXERTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 167 horse to the rendezvous on Tuesday next ; and that they should proceed to the raising of their regiments of foot in full numbers." ^ Monday morning, ISth August, 1651.— "That a short let- ter be prepared, to be sent to the several militias of this nation, to give them a brief account of the state of the armies." " That the letter from Colonel Blake of the loth inst. be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty." 2 Monday afternoon, 18th August, 1651.—" That a letter be wi-itten to the Lord Grey, to be by him communicated to the Commissioners of the Militia for Northampton, Leices- ter, and Rutland, to desire his Lordship to cause the whole forces of Northampton, Leicester, and Eutland to march to Daventree, the 23rd of August." " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of Militia for the counties of Leicester, Eutland, Lincoln, Northamp- ton, Warwick, Oxford, Bedford, Huntincrdon, Buckino-ham and Worcester, to draw what forces they can possibly to- gether, and to send them to Daventree on Saturday the 23rd of August, to a rendezvous ; to desire them to put a week's pay into the pockets of the private soldiers, and to send the other three weeks' [pay] to the field-officers, or, in de- fect of them, to the captains of companies ; and they are to take care that none be armed who have been in arms against the Parliament." " That Lieutenant-General Fleetwood be appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the forces which are now > Order Book of the Council of Council at that time, but only that Stat<^, Saturday, August 16, 1651, part of it which appears of the great- MS. State Paper Office. — It may be est historical interest, proper to state, that the minutes ^ /6tf^. Monday morning, August 1 8, here extracted by no means represent 1651. all the business transacted by the 168 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X appointed to rendezvous at Barnet, Daventiee, -end St. Albans." ^ Admiring as I do the great political ability, as well as the spotless integrity, of Sir Henry Yane, I might be dis- posed, if I were writing in the spirit of an advocate, to keep back the minute which follows. But, as I have said before, I am anxious to ascertain the truth, if possible, whatever it may be : — " That a letter be written to Sir H. Vane, to let him know that, in the present state of affairs, the Council are of opinion that his presence is necessary here ; to desire him, therefore, to repair up hither with all convenient speed." ^ It appears, by the subsequent proceedings of the Council in which Yane's name appears, that he obeyed this sum- mons. But why did he not come up sooner ? It is impos- sible that he should not have heard of the Scottish invasion. I can see no solution of the question but the acceptance of the authority of some of Yane's cotemporaries on this point of Yane's character — that he was naturally a timid man, and that he was at this critical time keeping out of the way, though the courage he displayed at his trial and exe- cution seemed to be at variance with that character. It is, moreover, due to Yane's memory — which was assailed by the malignity of Hyde, who himself never risked a scratch of a finger in the cause, while he never scrupled to impute cowardice to others, an imputation which veteran soldiers, really brave men, are always slow to make — that the veteran soldier Ludlow, who had proved his courage in so many battles, says that to Yane's other great and esti- mable qualities, " were added a resolution and courage, not to be shaken, or diverted from the public service."^ ' Order Book of the Council of State, * Ibid, same meeting. Monday afternoon, August 18, 1651, ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. iii. pp. MS. State Paper Office. 110, HI : 2nd edition, London, 1721, 1651.] IMPUTED TIMIDITY OF VANE. 169 The philosophy of courage is indeed a dark subject, in regard to which few men are willing to give the evidence of their actual experience, and consequently many difficulties lie in the way of a complete elucidation of it. There is a sort of courage which has been called " orator courage," which such men as Yane and Strafford possess, and which is distinct from that sort of courage which leads men to face death on fields of battle. This latter sort of courage I do not think Strafford possessed, whether Yane possessed it or not, though some modern writers have spoken of the " valour " as well as the " capacity " of Strafford. That Strafford did not possess what is commonly understood by " valour," I think is proved by his letting the Scots pass the Tyne at Newburn, when he commanded the English army for Charles I. At the same time, though Strafford behaved bravely, as well as Yane, both at his trial and exe- cution, there was a fundamental distinction between them. There was in Strafford a spirit of insolence, tyranny, and cruelty of which there is no trace in Yane. Strafford was, in one word, a bully. Yane was nothing o? that. It is also a very remarkable psychological fact, that while, both at his trial and execution, " though timid by nature "—accord- ing to Hume, who of course follows Hyde in the imputa- tion of timidity against such a formidable enemy of the Stuarts — " the persuasion of a just cause supported Yane against the terrors of death, " ^ Lambert, who had faced death on a hundred fields of battle, having been tried and condemned at the same time as Yane, obtained, by throw- ing himself abjectly on the royal mercy, a reprieve at the bar, and thus sacrificed, to the fear of death on the scaffold, all those principles he had so long and so bravely fought and bled for. There was probably a constitutional or organic I I * Hume's History, chap. Ixiii. 170 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. distinction between tlie courage and fear of Yane and Lambert. Yet, when we look at these two men at the time of the Scottish invasion, and see Yane keeping himself absent even from his ordinary duty at the Council of State, and Lambert gallantly leading the Ironside cavahy, ha- rassing the march of the Scots, and then thoroughly defeating them at Worcester ; and then look again at the trial of the same two men for their lives, and see Yane bravely facing death, and Lambert abjectly shrinking from it: when we remember, moreover, the remark of Sir William Temple, " some are brave one day and cowards another, as great captains have often told me from their own expe- rience and observation "—the reported saying of Napoleon, that " no man is brave at two o'clock in the morning " — and the fact that there were occasions on which even Kelson ^ was subject to fear, we must feel strongly the rashness and presumption of dogmatising, either generally or specially, on the subject of courage and cowardice. On Tuesday, 19th August 1651, the Council made the following orders, among many others : — " That such arms shall be taken out of the Tower as shall be necessary for the soldiers." " That authority be given to the several Postmasters upon the road, to press horses upon this exigent for the despatching of intelligence." " That a commission be sent to Colonel Blake, to com- mand-in-chief, in the absence of Major-General Desborowe, i ' I have seen it stated, on the au- thority of a friend of Nelson, that Nelson, having one day been taken by him into his phaeton -and-four for a drive, in a few minutes became uneasy ; and then, with evident marks of ner- vousness, requested that he might be set down, expressing his fears of being run away with, of which there was no danger, since the horses, though lively, were perfectly broken in. But the situation was novel to the man of the Nile and Trafalgar. jSafc,ljlHait.'.-.«Af!iia£.-«l.L. ««■■«»>.....><.; a.MMJ»j-.;>«.»,»^.,^-,jta,^j^^ 1651.] CHARLES STUART PROCLAIMED TRAITOR. 171 all the forces raised and to be raised in the comities of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset ; and that letters be written to those four counties to obey his orders." " That power be given to the Lord President of the Council, in case that any packets shall arrive here in the night-time, to open the said letters, and, according as he shall find they do import, he is to give order for the sum- moning of a Council immediately."^ Wednesday, 20th August, 1651.—" That letters be wi'itten to the Commissioners of the Militia for the counties of Wilts, Gloucester, Hereford, and South Wales, to brino- what forces they can with aU speed to a rendezvous at Gloucester, for the security of those parts ; and this ren- dezvous to be at Gloucester on Monday next." ^ Thursday, 21st August, 1651.— "That Major Winthrope do appoint a troop of horse to be in readiness, to observe such directions as shall be given to him from the Treasurer at War." " That a letter be written to the several counties throuo-h which the army is to march, to desire them to furnish them with all provisions necessary for them of all kinds." " That Mr. Waller and Mr. Cromwell be desired to repair into the county of Hmitingdon ; and that they and the Commissioners of the Militia do take care that the forces of that county may be drawn together to a rendez- vous."^ On the same day a committee was appointed, " to draw a proclamation for the proclaiming of Charles Stuart traitor, according to the debates had this day." On the same day, the 21st of August, the House received ' Order Book of ths Council of State, Tuesday, August 19, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. 2 3id. August 20, 1651. ' Fnd. August 21, 1651. 172 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. intelligence, that the Scots' army lay on the 1 7th at North- wich^and the next day advanced between Nantwich and Chester ; and that Major-Greneral Lambert and the forces with him were cheerfully followed by the officers and sol- diers of the Cheshire and Lancashire militia of foot ; who upon this emergency, though their harvest was ready to cut, promised not to leave them till they either should be properly dismissed, or the Lord put a seasonable issue to the business.^ Under the same date, Whitelock mentions " an account of forces raised in Salop and the neighbour- ing counties, and breaking of bridges, and endeavouring to divert the course of the Scots' army ;" " that the Governor of Stafford went to Harrison with 700 men;" "that 4,000 of the General's foot march in their shirts 20 miles a day, and have their clothes and arms carried by the country."^ All this sufficiently shows that a Stuart, or any other claimant of the Crown of England, had mighty small chance of success in his attempt, when made by the help of a foreign army, whether that army was Scotch, French, or German. In fact this, as well as the attempt of 1745, shows that it was a blunder of the Stuarts to think that the English would allow a foreign ai-my (for such, in fact, the Scottish army then was) to impose a King upon them. The zeal of the Parliamentary soldiers, and of the country generally, is forcibly expressed in the fact last quoted from Whitelock, that the soldiers' upper clothes and arms were " carried by the country," in order that the soldiers might march with more speed. As the Scots' army with their King advanced in that direction, " the Forest of Dean rose for the Parliament, and there was great resort of people to • Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1369. Whitelock, August 21, 1651. 1651.] GEEAT CONTRAST BETWEEN' 1651 AND 1660. 173 Gloucester and Hereford to defend those places."^ In all places, on the march of the King's army southward, the garrisons were summoned in the King's name to surrender, but without any success. And when, in the more eminent places, Charles IL was proclaimed by heralds, the people returned no approving shouts, but, on the contrary, as the Eoyalists admit, preserved a gloomy silence, or exhibited as if they truly foreboded what was to come to pass in after- years, under the King then proclaimed— the consternation of persons stricken by some great calamity.^ It is strange indeed to turn from this spectacle to that described by Pepys and Aubrey, as seen in London some nine years after this month of August 1651. What was the cause of the great change that took place, or at least that appeared to take place, between 1651 and 1660? Was it that the Government of the Long Parliament was popular, and that of Cromwell unpopular ? I think not. I think that the Government of the Long Parliament and the Government of CromweU were both unpopular ; for both were arbitrary, and both imposed, of necessity perhaps, a very heavy taxation. It might indeed at first sight appear, as it at one time appeared to me, that this zeal of the country, manifested on this occasion, against the King of Scots, contrasted vdth the zeal manifested in 1660 for the return of that same King of Scots as King of England, showed that the Government of the Long Parliament was popular, and that of Cromwell unpopular. But I think that the zeal of August 1651 only expressed the determina- tion of the English people not to have a King imposed on them by a foreign army, and not the approbation of the Government of the Eump ; though that Government, as » Perf. Diur. August 25 to Septem- « Bates, partii. pp. 120, 121. ber 1, in Cromwelliana, p. 110. \-> 174 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. 165L1 THE CRY FOR A FREE PARLlAMExVT. compared with the Govemment of Charles 11., might well be called an assembly of gods as compared with an assembly of baboons. No one can deny this who compares Charles II.'s Council, as described in Pepys's Diary, with the Council of State of the Long Parliament, as described in their own minutes ; which happily exist, to vindicate their memory to all after-ages against the scurrility not only of the Koyalist writers, but of Cromwell, who destroyed them, and of Cromwell's parasites and worshippers. If I were an advocate of this Eunip and its Council of State, as some men are advocates of Oliver Cromwell, it would be easy to say that, by 1660, things had altered greatly — that Cromwell had succeeded in so digusting all men, that they were will- ing to try once more even the Government of the Stuarts. But though it can be clearly proved that Cromwell's Govemment was unpopular, I think more unpopular than that of the Long Parliament — for Cromwell's usurpation had taken away all hope of what both the army and the people wanted, namely, " a free Parliament " — it can at the same time, I think, be proved that the Eump was unpopular also. In fact, in the saturnalia of the Eestoration, the most obtrusive exhibition was the roasting of rumps ; there was no burning of Oliver Cromwell in effigy. But there was also a significant fact, which, though not noticed by Pepys, is particularly mentioned by Aubrey : " Mem. that Threadneedle Street was all day long, and late at night, crammed with multitudes, crying out, ' A free Parliamerd ! — a free Parliament / " ^ I have never seen any completely satisfactory answer made to the question why the Eump ' Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. some very good rumps of beef. Health ii. p. 455: London, 1813.— "Bells to King Charles IL ! was di-unk in the ringing, and bonfires all over the city streets by the bonfires, even on their j ... They made little gibbets, and knees." — 3id. i roasted rumps of mutton ; nay, I saw put off so long the petitions presented to them for a free Parliament. Scot, one of their ablest members, made this answer : " The Dutch war came on-when Hannibal is ad portas, something must be done extra leges~we stayed to end the Dutch war." But the answer to this answer is that they were petitioned to dissolve, and make way for a free Parliament, long before the Dutch war was thought of. In fact, their conduct must be admitted to form the best excuse, though far from a satisfactory excuse, for the con- duct of Cromwell. On Friday the 22nd, Mr. Scot and Mr. Salwey were s^nt by the Council of State to the Major-Generals, with instructions " to let them know what course the Council have taken for raising and ordering of forces for the pre- sent occasion, besides those with them ; and thereupon to confer and debate with them, at Councils of War or other- wise, m what manner the forces of this Commonwealth may be best employed against the enemy, with consideration to all emergencies that may thence arise." ' On the same day the following orders were made :— " That a letter be written to Major-General Lambert to let him know that it is the opinion of this Comicil that a considerable force of horse and dragoons should wait upon the enemy, whereby he may be impeded in his march kept from refreshing his men, and the people discouraged' from coming in to them." " That a letter be written to the Lord-General, to ac- quaint him with the resolutions of the Council taken this day-both of the letter written to Major-General Lambert, sJtft'/'l "' "1 *^""""' "' ^■^''"- ^»' '-y "■« Council „„.o tl,c S a e Fnday August 22, 1651, MS. Major-Gonerals of the Forces of he State Paper Office : "Instructions for Parliament employed against the 8co " Thomas Scot and Richai-d Salwey, army now in England " '""'■-"'"' tl 176 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. 1651.] SKIRMISH- AT WARRINGTON. 177 and likewise of sending Mr. Salwey and Mr. Scot to the Major- Generals." " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Militia for the four northern counties, to desire them to have their militia forces speedily in readiness, and to apply them- selves to the public service, that they may be assistant to the Governors of Berwick and Carlisle, for the prevention of any correspondence between Scotland and the Scottish army in England." " That the Lord-Commissioner Whitlocke do report to the Parliament, that it hath pleased God to take out of this life Colonel Edward Popham, late one of the Generals of the fleet of this Commonwealth."^ The following minute of the same date shows that by this time, the 22nd of August, Sir Henry Yane had returned to his duty at the Council of State:—" That the Lord-Com- missioner Whitlocke and Sir Henry Vane be desired to go to Mrs. Popham from this Council, to condole with her the loss of her husband ; to let her know what a memory they have of the good services done by her husband to this Com- monwealth ; and that they will upon all occasions be ready to show respect unto those of his relations which [sic] he hath left behind him."^ "Saturday, 2^rd August, 1651.— "That the Lord-Com- missioner Whitlocke, Lord-Commissioner Lisle, Mr. Attor- ney, Mr. Say, or any two of them, be appointed a committee, ' Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, August 22, 1651, MS. State Paper Office.— The Earl of Leicester thus notices in his Journal the death of Colonel Popham: •' Wednesday, 20th August, 1651.— We had news out of Kent of the death of Colonel Popham, one of our Admirals, a person of mucli honour and eminent fidelity, who was taken away by a fever at Dover, the 19th instant." — Lord Leicester's Journal, p. 115, in Sydney Papers, edited by E. W. Blen- cowe, London, 1825. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, August 22, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. to consider of the draught of a proclamation now brought in for the proclaiming of Charles Stuart traitor, the de- claration of the said C. Stuart upon his entering into the Commonwealth of England with a Scottish army, and the letter of the said C. Stuart to the City of London ; and upon consideration of the whole, to draw up something in the nature of a proclamation, whereby he may be proclaimed traitor ; and this to be done so that it may be offered to the Parliament on Monday morning."^ By the middle of August the Parliament had got together so many troops, under those able commanders, Lambert and Harrison, that it was believed, on good grounds, that even had Cromwell remained in Scotland, the enemy could easily have been defeated. Upon Tuesday the 12th of August, the Scots' King came to Lancaster, and set all the prisoners in the Castle at liberty. Upon Wednesday the 13th he lodged at Myerscoe, Sir Thomas Tildesley's house, and from thence marched through Preston. On Thursday night he lodged at Euxten-burgh, six miles on this side of Preston, Sir Hugh Aiiderton's house, who was prisoner at Lancaster, but set at liberty by the Scots. " This Anderton," says a cotemporary Parliamentary newspaper, " is a bloody papist, and one that, when Prince Rupert was at Bolton, boasted much of beino: in blood to the elbows in that cruel mas- On the night of Friday, the 15th, the Scots' King sacre. ' Order Book of the Council of State, Saturday, August 23, 1651, MS. State Paper Office.— On the 26th of August the letter of Charles Stuart to the Lord Mavor was burnt upon the Old Exchange by the hangman ; and the Parliament's declaration against him, wherein he was called " son of the late tyrant," and declared rebel and traitor, and public enemy to the Commonwealth of Eng- land, and against all his abettors, &;c,, proclaimed there and at Westminster by beat of drum and sound of trumpet. — Lord Leicester's •Joiirnal, p. 116. VOL. IT. N 178 COMMONWE/iLTII OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. lodo^ed at Brine, six miles from Warrington, the Louse of Sir William Gerard, a papist. On Saturday the 16th of August, there was a sharp skirmish, at Warrington, between the army of the King of Scots and the forces of Lambert and Harrison. The fullest account of this skirmish which I have met with is that quoted, in Lord Leicester's Journal, from a cotempo- rary newspaper. It is commonly stated that Lambert and Harrison were " pressing hard on the rear" of the Scottish army, whereas this account, written apparently by a Par- liamentary officer who was present, mentions " the present posture of flanking and fronting the enemy ; " and their retiring to Knutsford Heath also shows that they kept on the south of the enemy— that is, between the enemy and London : — " Saturday, 16th August, — About noon the enemy's scouts came into Warrington, and presently after a for- lorn hope of horse and dragoons, we having left one com- pany of foot to dispute the pass at the bridge and fords, and to amuse the enemy ; for the said passes, and several other passes upon the river, were not tenable, by reason of the enclosed grounds, whereby our horse could not have room to charge, in order to the security of the foot. Yet that single company of the Cheshire foot disputed the bridge and pass with the enemy above an hour and a half; and then he that commanded the foot drew them off, when the enemy began to press hard upon him. Presently after the enemy marched over the pass, with horse and foot, towards our rearguard. We' marched to Knutsford Heath, being a convenient place for our horse to engage, expecting ' Tho special correspondent of Po- many of the officers of which could, liticus, who sent this relation of the like John Lilburne, wield the pen as skirmish at AVarrington, was probably well as the sword, an officer of the Parliamentary army ; 1651.] THE AEMY OF L.VMBERT AND HARBISON. 170 ! i ;• the enemy would have advanced thither ; but the van of their army came that night about five or six miles on this side Warrington. It is conceived best to continue in the present posture of flanking and fronting the enemy, till we have a conjunction with other forces, unless they press hard, and force an engagement ; and then (God willing) our forces are resolved on some open plain to fight them, we having 9,000 horse and dragoons, and between 3,000 and 4,000 foot, to give them battle." ^ It may here be observed, that the large proportion of horse to foot in the army of Lambert and Harrison (9,000 to 3,000), and the enclosed nature of the ground, " whereby our horse could not have room to charge," as well as Cromwell's orders not to risk a battle, may explain why such soldiers as Lambert and Harrison, the best perhaps (not even excepting Cromwell) whom that war had produced, did not fight a battle with the invading army at Wan-ington. If they had done so, and won the battle, which was ])yo- bable, Cromwell would have been stripped of that " crown- ing mercy " which, though it did not actually give him a crown, gave him a power greater than that of most wearers of cro^vns. On the 23rd of August, the House received intelligence from the Major-Generals, Lambert and Harrison, dated the 22nd, that the Scots' army lay the night before at Tonge, a village in Shropshire, on the borders of Staffordshire — near to which are White Ladies' Priory and Boscobel House, known in connection with the escape of Charles * Journal of the Earl of Liecester, observes, in his preface, that " it may pp. 112-114, in Sydney Papers, edited be presumed, from the care with which by K. W. Blencowe, A.M. : London, Lord Leicester has copied them, that he 1825. — In regard to the passages ex- considered them faithful accounts of tracted by Lord Leicester from the the transactions which they record." newspapers of the day, Mr. Blencow N 2 180 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. 165L] DEFK4T OF TIIE EARL OF DERBY. 181 after liis defeat at Worcester— and that tliey inclined towards Worcester; that Colonel Danvers, Governor of Stafford, witli some few horse, fell in npon some of their quarters, killed five of their men, and gave an alarm to their whole army. In another letter, it was stated that the Scots had, of horse and foot, 120 columns; that their horse were poor and harassed out; that their foot were miserably ragged, and sick creatures a great number of them; that their King was found, with cap in hand, desiring them yet a little longer to stick to him— per- suading them that, within two days' march, they should come into a country where all things would be plentifully provided for them, and shortly thence to London. It was also stated that the Parliament's forces were at Tamworth, and from thence had sent several parties to attend the enemy's motions ; and intended to dispose their own marches, in order to a conjunction with the Lord-General, and the other forces lately sent from London,^ On Friday the 22nd of August, the Scots with their King reached Worcester ^ ; where the country forces made a gallant resistance, and beat back the enemy several times. But the townsmen having laid down their arms, and some of them shooting out of the windows at the Parliament's soldiers, that had been sent by Harrison and Lambert to secure Worcester, the latter removed their ammunition and withdrew to Gloucester, 30 of them keeping the enemy in check while they were so employed.-^ The Council of State took measures for punishing the townsmen of Worcester for their conduct on this occasion, as appears by the following minute, made on the afternoon 'Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1369, Fleetwood, in Cromwelliana, p. 110. 1370 ; Whiteloek, August 23, 1651. » Whitelock, August 25, 1651. "^ Letter from Lieutenant-General i of the 29th of August : " That a letter be written to the Lord-General, to desire him to send a commission of martial law into Yorkshire, for the trial of such persons as have assisted Charles Stuart, some of which [sic] are there in restraint. And his Lordship is also to be put in mind, that in case the city of Worcester, or any persons, inhabitants of the same, who have been instruments in the betraying of that town to Charles Stuart, do fall into his hands, that he proceed to try all of them according to the late Act." ^ The Earl of Derby, who had held out the Isle of Man for the King, at this time made a descent on Lancashire, for the purpose of creating a diversion. He had got together 1,500 men, when Colonel Robert Lilbume (the brother of Lieutenant- Colon el John Lilburne), with not half that number, fell upon him near Wigan. After a hot dispute, for near an hour, the Earl's forces were routed. The Earl himself was wounded, but escaped and fled, to seftk refuge in the royal army at Worcester. The Lord Wid- drington and 80 officers and persons of quality were slain. Four hundred prisoners were taken, of whom many were officers and gentlemen. Three cloaks with stars of the Earl of Derby, his George and Garter, and other valuables, were taken. The Parliament ordered £500 to Colonel Lilburne, £200 per annum as a mark of honour for his faithful services, and £100 to his lieutenant, that brought the news from him ; and thanks next " Lord's-day in the London churches for the surrender of Stirling Castle and the defeat of the Earl of Derby," and prayers " for a blessing upon the Parliament's forces, now near an engagement.^' ^ » Order Book of the Council of ordered to Colonel Mackworth a chain State, August 29, 1651 (afternoon), of gold \iith a medal, as a mark of MS. State Paper Office. their favour " for his faithful and * Whitelock, August 29-30, 1651. — gallant refusal of the King's summons About the same time, the Parliament to render Shrewsbury Castle." — Jbid, f 182 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. The Council of State relaxed not their exertions. On Tuesday, the 2nd of September, they wrote to the Commis- sioners of Yorkshire, to hasten their forces towards Colonel Lnbume ; to Sir Arthur Haselrig, to send some forces into Scotland, to prevent the levies of the enemy ; and they re- ferred to the Committee for the Admiralty a letter of Colonel Blake, from aboard the Victory in the Downs, dated the day before (September 1, 1651).i On Wednesday the 3rd of September 1651, the day on which was fought the Battle of Worcester, much business of various kinds— some of it of great importance— was transacted by the Council of State; the numbers present in the morning being 19, in the afternoon 20. But many members of the Council of State were at Worcester— Scot and Salwey and Lord Grey of Groby being there, besides the military officers, Crom- well, Fleetwood, Harrison, and others. Of the minutes of their proceedings on that day I wiU mention two as especially deserving of attention. The first is this : " That thanks be returned to the sick and maimed soldiers living about this town, for their free offer to be a guard to the Parliament ; and to let them know that, through the good- ness of God, the state of affairs is such at present that they have not need of any other guards than what are already appointed to that service." ^ same date. On August 27, the Coun- cil of State made the following order : —"That Mr. Alderman Allein [who was a member of the Council of State, and then present] do prepare a chain of gold and a medal [he was, I sup- pose, a jeweller and goldsmith— one of Denzil Holles's " mean tradesmen "] for Colonel Maekworth, to the value of £^100, in pursuance of an Order of Parliament."— Orf/er^ooA- of the Coun- cil of State, Wednesday, August 27, 1 o5 1 , MS. State Paper Office. On Sat- urday, August 30, the Council of State ordered, " That Lord-Commissioner Whitelock be desired to report to the Parliament the letter from Colonel Lilburne, and also the narrative pre- pared of the success of the forces of the Commonwealth in Scotland and England, in pursuance of an Order of Parliament."— /At^. Saturday, Au- gust 30, 1651. ' B)id. Tuesday, September 2, 1651. ^ Ibid. Wednesday, September 3. 1651. 1651.] "THE BUSINESS OF THE DUKE OF LORRAINE." 183 The other minute is a very remarkable one, and confirms what I have before stated — that foreign nations were eagerly watching the issue of the present attempt of the Stuarts and their adherents, with a view to seize any favour- able opportunity of crushing the English Commonwealth. The minute states that " the Council have received infor- mation of some designs from Holland to land foreign forces on the coast of Suffolk ; " and they order letters to be written to the Commissioners of Norfolk and Suffolk, to furnish between them one regiment of foot to the guard of those parts, and Suffolk to send one troop of horse ; and to Colonel Wauton and Colonel Jermie, to desire them to take especial care of that part of the coast. ^ On the fol- lowing day (Thursday, the 4th of September, 1651), they order a letter to be written to Colonel Blake, to give him an account of the state of affairs at Worcester ; to acquaint him with the intelligence concerning the coast of Suffolk, and to desire him to give order that a fitting strength of ships may be applied to those parts.^ On the daj^ after that — namely, Friday, the 5th of September — there is ' Order Book of the Council of State, Wednesday, September 3, 1651, MS. State Paper Office.— I give these two minutes in full : " That a letter be written to Colonel Wauton and Colonel Jermie, to desire them to take especial care of the safety of the Island of Lothingland; to let them know the Council have received information of some designs from Holland to land foreign forces there, and therefore have thought fit to write to the Com- missioners of Norfolk and Suffolk, to furnish between them one complete regiment of foot to the guard of the island, and Suffolk to furnish one troop of horse ; to desire them to con- fer with tlie Commissioners of the two counties concerning the business, and to give orders for the marching of the forces." — "That a letter be wTitten to the Commissioners of Norfolk and Suffolk, to furnish between them one complete regiment of foot to the guard of the Isle of Lothingland, and Suffolk to send one troop of horse." By the " Isle of Lothingland " is here meant the Hundred of Lothingland, the part of Suffolk, nearest to Yarmouth, on tlie border of Norfolk. There are various subsequent minutes, which show that the Council had reason to expect that some attempts would be made to land forces on the coast near Yarmouth. — Ibid. July 2, 1652 ; Jidy 14, 1652. » Ibid. Thursday. .September 4, 1651. fj^**^^» , alC^-.^- m I 184 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X this remarkable minute : " That the injunction of secrecy laid upon the business of the Duke of Lorraine be taken off. " ' I earnestly hope that ihe fullness with which I have, in this chapter, given the proceedings of the Council of State, as recorded in their own minutes, may not have appeared tedious. And when it is considered that the occasion was the actual invasion of England by an army from Scotland, under the King of Scots, and the expected invasion by another army from Dunkii-k and Ostend under the Duke of Lorraine, it will be admitted that all the details of the preparations made, by the English Government of the year 1651, to meet such a crisis must form a study both in- teresting and instructive to the English people. It is no compliment to any Government to say of it, that it is a better Government than the Government of Charles II., or indeed than the Government of any of the Stuarts. But we have the means of comparing the Government of this Council of State of 1651 with an Eng- lish Government, in circumstances so far similar as regarded danger from powerful foreign enemies -the Government, namely, of Queen Elizabeth in 1588, and the two or three preceding years. The fullness with which Mr. Motley has given the proceedings of the English Government of that time, from original records, enables us to compare it with the Government of the Council of State of the Parliament of the Commonwealth. And if the Government of the Commonwealth be pronounced to be a sort of despotism as well as the Government of Elizabeth, the despotism of the Commonwealth must also be pronounced to be a despotism that evinced a great genius for government, while the ' Order Took of the Council of State, Friday, September 5, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. 1651.] THE GOVERNMENTS OF 1588 AND OF 1651. 185 despotism of Elizabeth must be pronounced to be a des- potism that evinced no genius for government at all. To pass over the indecent exhibitions in Elizabeth of a temper at once violent, savage, and capricious, all her proceedings in the affair of the Netherlands and Spain; her violent and vituperative language to the States of the Netherlands ; her negotiations with Parma, in which she was so signally duped ; her tardy and inefficient preparations for the Spanish invasion; her treatment of the poor men she sent from England as soldiers to the Netherlands — whom, by her inhuman neglect, she changed from brave soldiers into brigands, or famishing half-naked vagabonds, and many of whom, maimed and womided, begged their way back to England, and even at the very gates of the palace of the " good Queen Bess, the mother of her people," begged for a morsel of bread in vain — displayed as great a want of real political ability as of humanity : and formed the stronofest contrast with the statesmen of the Common- wealth, whose despotism, if despotism it is to be called, was, as compared with such despotism as that of Elizabeth Tudor, a humane, an energetic, and a sagacious despo- tism. Its humanity was shown by its provision for the wel- fare of its soldiers and sailors, as well as in its anxious care to protect the people from any possible military outrage: ordering that in their march their soldiers " shall quarter in inns and alehouses only, and not in private men's houses ; and in case of necessity, where there are not inns or alehouses, that they agree with people where they come to quarter, and duly pay for what they have." ^ ^ Order Book of the Council of very different from the estimate taken State, February 21, 165f, MS. State of them by either the Tudors or the Paper Office. — The concluding words Stuarts, with whom the English people of the above order are also indicative were "the rude and rascal commons:" of an estimate of the people of England, "And that the Parliament, if they 186 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. X. Queen Elizabeth's reputation for ability must have been obtained by the talent, which she really displayed, as a speaker and wi'iter. Her speeches certainly have the show of talent— even of sagacity. And, as compared with the Stuarts, she may be looked upon as a ruler of even some practical ability. But when compared with that of the statesmen of the Commonwealth, her Government ap- pears, on a close and minute examination, to be at once imperious and feeble : and the ruler who appointed Eobert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to oppose such a general as Alexander Farnese, must be regarded as, while by such delegation of her office admitting her own incapacity to command armies, also incapable of selecting those who could. No one who reads the evidence can refuse to agree with Mr. Motley, in his conclusion respecting the attempted invasion of England by Spain in 1588, that " very little credit can be conscientiously awarded to the diplomatic or the military efforts of the Queen's Government ;" and with the opinion of Eoger Williams, cited by Mr. Motley, that " miracles alone had saved England on that occasion from perdition." ^ But as miracles cannot be trusted to with safety in human affairs, the Government that needs the aid of miracles to accomplish its first and most essential duty— the defence from foreign invasion of the country it professes to govern — must be pronounced to be a very bad and a very incompetent Government. think fit, will give order the same may but the lackeys of the Tudors and tlie he made public, for the better satisfac- Stuarts, it may be inferred that the tion of the peopled When the nobility, Tudors and the Stuarts would not look who looked upon the people as little with much respect upon those their better than the sweepings of the kennel, lackeys trampled on. and the doorkeeper of whose house ^ Motley's History of the United insulted even members of the House Netherlands, vol. ii. pp. 527, 528. of Commons (see Vol. I. p. 13), were CHAPTER XL Another great and decisive battle was now to be added to the list of those which have made the Severn, and its tri- butary the Avon, famous in the English annals. For at Evesham, on the Avon, had been fought the battle which determined whether a Plantagenet or a De Montfort, and at Shrewsbury, on the Severn, that which determined whether a Plantagenet or a Percy, should rule in England : while at Tewkesbury, where the Avon joins the Severn, had been fought the battle so disastrous to the House of Lancaster, where Queen Margaret and her unhappy son Prince Edward were taken prisoners, and the latter was savagely murdered in cold blood after the battle. And in this civil war of the 1 7th century — a war far greater and more momentous than any of the former wars — the Battle of Edgehill, the first battle of the war, had been fought in the Vale of the Red Horse, ^ through apart of which the Avon^ flows ; and at Naseby, where the Avon ^ rises, had 1 " Not far from the foot of Edgehill was a broad plain called The Vale of the Bed Horse, a name suitable to the colour which that day was to bestow upon it ; for there happened the greater part of the encounter." — May's Hist, of the Parliament, b. iii. eh. i. 2 Washington Irving, in his " Sketch Hook," in giving an account of his walk from Strat ford-on- A von to Charlecot, " through some of those scenes from which Shakspeare must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery," particularly describes the windings of the Avon " through a wide and fertile valley, called the Vale of the Eed Horse." ' The spring which forms the source of the Avon rises in the village of Naseby. 188 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI. been fought tliat battle wbicb may be said to have deter- mined the fate of Charles I. As you trace the course of these two famous rivers, the Severn and the Avon, the latter linked with associations of another and a very different kind — with Shakspeare and his youth, his scenery, and his burialplace — you trace at the same time many of the great battles, which tell the story of the struggles by which the great English people attained that settled government, and that regulated liberty, denied as yet to all the other nations of the world. For on the Avon and the Severn were fought some of the most decisive battles of this great Parliamentary war : and though at Evesham Simon De Montfort "with all his peerage fell," his cause did not perish with him ; for he had before won the great Battle of Lewes, and, as the fruit of that battle, had founded Eepresentative Government in England, thence to spread in the course of time over the world. He may thus be truly said to have achieved, if ever man achieved, something that is more than a vain shadow — something truly excellent and great : Something, indeed, that may for ever live In honour where'er man is most divine. The length of the course of the Avon, to its junction with the Severn, may be estimated at about 100 miles. The whole length of the course of the Severn, from its source in Montgomeryshire to the Bristol Channel, is about 200 miles. And it would be difficult to name any rivers in the world associated with events of greater his- torical importance than these two English rivers. The horrors of war are a topic easy to dilate upon. But he who studies carefully the history of all those sanguinary conflicts on the banks of these two English rivers may, 1651.] THE KING'S ARRIVAL AT WORCESTER. 189 when any voice is raised to say that those fields were bedewed with blood in vain, and that man should never engage in so dangerous a game as war, be reminded of the remark of Hotspur, made shortly before that day when he determined -.'^ to abide a field, Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur s name Did seem defensible, — " I tell you, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety." For it appears that man will be satisfied with no decision of certain great questions but the decision of the sword. Soon after his an-ival at Worcester, King Charles, by proclamation, commanded all from 16 to 60 years of age to come in to him at Worcester. According to a statement in "Whitelock, none came — that is, the proclamation or sum- mons produced no effect.^ According to other accounts, this proclamation brought him about two thousand men, who with those he had with him made in all 14,000 — two thou- sand Scots having dropped off by the way.^ These 14,000 consisted, according to a statement in Whitelock, of 7,000 horse and 7,000 foot. According to the same authority, their discipline was very strict ; and some prisoners brought before their King were courteously treated by him, and having kissed his hand were discharged.^ The Scots' foot were mostly Highlanders. The Lowlanders had had enough, for the present, of their covenanted oligarchy and covenanted King. These poor Highlanders were much harassed by excessive marches and insufficient food; insomuch that they " did importune the King to take pity on them," who in reply gave them all he ever gave in return for such ' AVliitelock, August 27, 1651. ' Bates, part ii. p. 122. ■ Whitelock, August 28, 1651. 190 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XL 16.3L] OPERATIONS OF LAMBERT'S TROOPS. 191 service—" good words." The Scots proceeded to refortify Worcester, and to that end summoned in the country to repair the works, and that which was called the Eoyal Fort.i On the morning of Thursday, the 28th of August, Crom- well, advancing from the Evesham side, anived before Wor- cester. He encamped on Red Hill, about three-quarters of a mile south-eastward of Worcester, on the London road, having with him upwards of 30,000 men. The cotemporary authorities say that he " came before Worcester having about 17,000 horse and foot, with Major-General Lambert and Major-General Harrison."^ The meaning of this statement, which is not very clear, probably is that the forces he brought with him from Scotland, and those under Lambert and Harrison, amounted altogether to about 1 7,000 horse and foot. But, in consequence of the exertions of the Council of State —which have been described in the preceding pages, on the authority of their own minutes— bodies of militia were flocking to him from all parts. Bates, who is not a very great authority, says that " those who from all parts came flocking in, made up an army (if some be not mistaken in their reckoning) of fourscore thousand men and more, whom he posts round the city of Worcester." ^ Hobbes says that Cromwell, joining with the new levies, environed Worcester with 40,000 men.* Worcester is on the left bank of the Severn, with a * Letter from Lieutenant-General Fleetwood, in Cromwelliana, p. 110; and in Whitelock (the substance of letters from Lieutenant-General Fleet- wood), August 26, 1651.— Under the same date, in Whitelock, it is stated that they have very few English horse among them ; their foot Highlanders. That a messenger from the army brought an account that the Lord-General, the Lieutenant-General, the Major-Gen- erals, and the Lord Grey of Groby, met at Warwick. 2 See Proc. in Pari. (August 28 to September 4), in Cromwelliana, p. 110. " Bates, part ii. p. 123. * Hobbes's Behemoth, p. 282: Lon- don, 1682. suburb on the other side of the river, connected with the city by a bridge. Fort Eoyal, mentioned above, is on the south-east of the city, towards Cromwell's lines. At Upton, seven miles below ^ Worcester, there was a stone bridge over the Severn. Colonel Massey had broken down this bridge, but had accidentally left a foot-plank from one arch to another; and lay secure with 250 horse in the neighbouring town, leaving no guard to defend the pass. On the morning of Thursday, the 28th, the same day on which Cromwell came before Worcester, Lambert marched, with a party of horse and dragoons, from Evesham to- wards Upton. The dragoons,^ straddling upon the plank, passed over, one after another, and then fired upon the enemy in the town, who had taken the alarm ; while the horse partly forded, partly swam, their horses across the river, about pistol-shot from the bridge. The dragoons, about eighteen in number, then advanced, and took pos- session of the church, upon a little hill near the bridge- foot. The enemy drew up to the church, and fired their pistols, and thrust their swords in at the windows ; but the dragoons fired upon them, killed three or four of their men, and eight or nine of their horses, and took one prisoner, who was shot in the arm. By this time a small party of Lambert's horse were come up, at whose ap- pearance the enemy faced about without a charge. Lam- bert then sent for Fleetwood, who, being four miles behind with his brigade, mounted about 300 of Colonel Cobbet's > Bates (part ii. p. 124) makes the strange blunder— which several modern writers have copied, to the inextricable confusion of themselves and their readers— of placing Upton above instead of below Worcester. 2 The operations here described are a good illustration of the primary character and use of the sort of troops called " dragoons, " sho^^dng precisely the sort of service for which they were fitted and intended. As to the differ- ence between "horse" and " di-agoons," see Vol. L pp. 44, 45. 192 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI. 1651.] BATTLE OF WORCESTER. 193 foot behind troopers, and hastened to the bridge, the rest of his brigade following. In the meantime Lambert used all diligence to make up the bridge for the party to march over, he and Major-General Deane themselves working at it; and receiving no interruption from the enemy, the work was speedily accomplished, and the troops all marched over. In illustration of the small execution at that time done by firearms, it may be men- tioned that, although at least forty carbines were fired within half pistol-shot at Massey, " who brought up the rear of his party very stoutly," when they faced about, the only result was that Massey's horse was killed, and him- self badly wounded in the hand. By the end of August, Cromwell's forces had gotten within half musket-shot of the enemy's works, on the south side of Worcester, and his cannon played daily into the city, in which the enemy had planted some great guns. On Sunday, the 31st of August, the Earl of Derby went wounded into Worcester, having with him not above thirty horse left of all his levies in Lancashire. The King of Scots, according to a cotemporary account, seeing all his hopes in the Earl of Derby frustrated, would have marched away with his horse ; whereupon his infantry began to mutiny, protesting their horse should not desert them, but, since they must suffer, they should all fare alike. At length, with fair words and large promises of supplies from the King and their officers, they were somewhat ap- peased.^ On the right or west side of the Severn, the Eiver Teme runs into it about three miles below Worcester, and four ' Kings Pamphlets, large 4to, No. Bates, part ii. p. 124. 54, article 15. The same account— a ^ j^jj^g-g Pamphlets, large 4to, No. special express from Major-General 54, article 14 ; Cromwelliana, pp. Ill, Lambert — in Cromwelliana, p. HI; 112. ) miles above Upton. On this River Teme, at Powick, about a quarter of a mile from the place where it joins the Severn, there was a bridge. This bridge the Scots took possession of on Monday the 1st of September. Crom- well, having resolved on an attack on Wednesday the 3rd of September, the day on which the Battle of Dunbar had been fought twelve months before, ordered Fleetwood to advance in the morning with his brigade from Upton. The plan was (and preparations had been made accord- ingly) to lay a bridge of boats across the Severn close to the mouth of the Teme, and also a bridge of boats across the Teme within pistol-shot of the other bridge ; and, by this means, to connect the two parts of his army on the two banks of the Severn. Accordingly, the forces under Fleetwood began their march from Upton, between 5 and 6 o'clock on Wednesday morning, September 3. But, in consequence of some delays, probably connected with the bringing-up of the boats for the making of the bridges, they did not reach the Eiver Teme tiU between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. The boats came up much about the same time, and a bridge was presently made over the Severn, and another over the Teme. The right wing of Fleet- wood's forces then crossed the bridge of boats over the Teme at its junction with the Severn, while the left wing attacked the bridge at Powick, a quarter of a mile up the Teme. The dispute here lasted a long time, and was very hot, the Scots having drawn out a considerable body of their forces to oppose Fleetwood here. Cromwell led some regiments of horse and foot, across the bridge of boats, over the Severn at the mouth of the Teme, to act in conjunction with Fleetwood's forces, " His Excellency leading them in person, and being the first man that set foot on the enemy's ground." The ground was so VOL. II. o 194 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [CHA.P. XI. encumbered with hedges that the horse had not much liberty to act. The Scots on that side of the Severn having been driven into Worcester, then drew out all their forces that remained from the conflict on the right bank of the Severn, and made a furious attack upon Cromwell's forces on the other side of the river. Cromwell had recrossed the bridge of boats, and was ready to receive them. Although the Scots at first gained some advantages — forced some of Cromwell's troops to re- treat with disorder, and made on that side (to use Cromwell's own words) " a very considerable fight with us for three hours' space," ^ in the end they were totally beaten, and driven back into the town. Fort Eoyal was then taken, and their own cannon were turned against them. The fight and carnage were then continued in the streets of Worcester, till the Scottish foot were all killed or taken. The Duke of Hamilton had his thigh broken with a shot, and died four days after the battle. The King and David Leslie, with most of the horse, and several noblemen and persons of note, fled. Many noblemen and persons of rank were taken. The King and some few of the cavalry escaped. The wounded Earl of Derby was taken, tried for treason against the State, and executed at Bolton. The Earls of Lauderdale and Cleveland and others were sent to the Tower. Clarendon and other English writers have represented the Scottish army as making little resistance at this Battle of Worcester. Yet Cromwell's own words testify that the Scots fought so well, that for a time it was doubtful 1 Cromwell to the Speaker, Septem- Newspapers in Cromwelliana, pp. 114 ber 3 and 4, 1651; Letter from Robert — 116. Stapylton, 10 at night, September 3, 2 Cromwell to. the Speaker, Septem- 1651, in Cromwelliana, pp. 112, 113. ber 3, 1651, 10 at night. 1651.] TOTAL DEFEAT OF THE KING'S ARMY. 195 on which side success would fall. " This battle was fought with various success for some hours, but still hope- ful on your part, and in the end became a complete victory." ^ " Indeed, this hath been a very glorious mercy, and as stiff a contest, for four or five hours, as ever I have seen."^ And again, "indeed it was a stiff business," and " the slain are very many " of the enemy, " and must needs be so, because the dispute was long and very near at hand ; and often at push of pike, and from one de- fence to another."^ He does "not think the Parliamen- tary forces have lost two hundred men." And Cromwell uses that remarkable expression : — " The dimensions of this mercy are^ above" my" thoughts^ Tt*^s", for aught I know, a crowning mercy." * But, as Sir Walter Scott says, well or ill disputed, the day was totally lost. Three thousand men were slain in the fight, ten thousand were taken prisoners ; and their fate formed a melancholy con- trast to that of His sacred Majesty, and his councillors, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Lauderdale, and other noble persons, who had dragged those poor men from their homes and families, and who lived and flourished in after-years, " a spectacle for the angels." The covenanted King of the Seots — exhausted, it is said, by want of rest, having been, according to Clarendon, upon his horse most part of the night — retired a little before noon to his lodging, to eat and refresh himself, under the impression that the enemy meant to make no attempt that night.^ He had fallen asleep, and slept till the most terrible of all eartlily sounds, that of his flying ' Cromwell to the Speaker, Septem- ' Ihid. September 4, 1651. ber 4, 1651. * Ibid. 2 Ibid. September 3, 1651, 10 at * Clarendon's Hist. vol. vi. pp. 510, night. 511: Oxford, 1826. I \ o 2 196 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XL troops driven pellmell through the streets of Worcester— the sound of rapid footsteps, like that of a great river bursting a barrier— footsteps rendered swift by fear, but unsteady on streets slippery with blood— the shouts of the victors, and the cries for quarter of the vanquished— broke his slumbers. He started up, mounted his horse (which stood ready at the door), and fled instantly, surpassing even David Leslie in the faculty of flight. He immediately took his natural place here, which place was the van in flight ; as that of Eobert Bruce, as whose representative he claimed to be King of the Scots, had been the rear in retreat, and the van in onset. The first time that day that this " heir of a hundred kings " was seen by the enemy, was as the fore- most of his cavalry in headlong flight. " They make no re- sistance when any of ours overtake them," says the ofiicer in command of the pursuing cavahy— a man whose back no enemy ever saw—" but ride post and in great confusion, the King being the foremost." ^ It IS remarHHeTEat this is the first time the King is mentioiied'by any of Cromwell's officers as having been 66671 during the affair. He is before mentioned, indeed, in the^'r^WOMs : ■'''Their King (it is said) went out very meanly, with only 12 horse " ^ And here it is only, " it is said." If the King had shown himself, much more if he had exposed himself to danger, would Cromwell's despatches and the other letters from the army have said nothing of it? Clarendon, after saying that " a little before noon 16oL] THE KING'S CONDUCT IN THE BATTLE. 197 ' Letter from Major-General Har- rieon, in Wliitelock, p. 508.— The course and extent of Harrison's pur- suit are indicated in the following minute of September 12: " That the letters from Major-General Harrison and the Committee of Yorkshire, with the list of the prisoners enclosed, be reported to the Parliament."— Oro^gr Book of the Council of State, Septem- ber 12, 1651, MS. State Paper OiEce. * Cromwelliana, p. 1 15. he retired to his lodging," goes on to relate that " he had not been there near an hour when the alarm came ; and though he presently mounted his horse, which was ready at the door, before he came out of the city he met the whole body of his horse running in so great fear that he could not stop them." Lord Clarendon has also the courage to assert, that " in no other part, except where Middleton was hurt and Duke Hamilton's leg broke with a shot, was there resistance made ; but such a general consternation possessed the whole army, that the rest of the horse fled, and all the foot threw down their arms before they were charged." ^ Now, it has been shown that the battle commenced to- wards 3 P.M., and lasted, according to Cromwell's own words, " as stiff a contest for four or five hours as ever he had seen." But, according to Clarendon, the battle ended about two hours before it began. Clarendon then suddenly, without any intimation that the King had left the town to fight the enemy, begins his next sentence thus : " When the King came back into the town, he found a good body of horse, which had been persuaded to make a stand ; " and after in vain attempting to persuade them to face the enemy, and " staying till very many of the enemy's horse were entered the town, he was persuaded to withdraw him- self; and though the King could not get a body of horse to fight, he could have too many to fly with him." ^ This narrative, though constructed with the art of an unscru- pulous^advocafce, is incoherent, and, as its very incoherency proves, is manifestly untrue, except that part of it which states that the King was in his lodging while his troops were fighting. Ik was a feat of advocacy more rash than dexterous in ' Clarendon's Hist. vol.\-i. p. 612: Oxford, 1826. ^ Ibid. yo). vi. pp. 512, 5U. 4 I 4 I 198 COMMONM^EALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI. Clarendon to attempt to prove that Charles was a brave man, and his army an army of cowards. He knew, indeed, the importance of what he sought to prove ; he knew that mankind will overlook, will bear with, if they will not forgive, many things in a brave man which they will visit severely upon a coward. But it was particularly hard upon the men who composed the army with which Charles marched from Scotland to Worcester to be treated in this way. For if that army had not had among them some men unusuaUy brave, such a march would never have been attempted; for they well knew, and they had had good cause to know, the formidable qualities of the troops they would have to encounter. Dr. George Bates, who in the titlepage of his book is called " principal physician to King Charles I. and King Charles II.," and is also said, in the " Preface by a Person of Quality," to have been physician to Oliver Cromwell— an assertion which, as has been shown from the Order Book of the Council of State, is so far true that Dr. Bates was one of three physicians sent by the Council into Scotland to give Cromwell advice for the recovery of his health- states that the King, with a Council of War, viewing the enemies from the high steeple of the cathedral-church, perceived them upon their march towards the town ; that aU presently arm, and the King himself marches out to the defence of Powick Bridge, and to hinder the enemies passing over the bridge of boats. Without specifying any of the King's exploits at Powick Bridge, or saying why His Majesty left it. Dr. Bates begins his next sentence by suddenly informing us, that " the King was scarcely got back into the to;vn," when everything went wrong in the defence of the bridge. And in the next sentence, by a turn equally sudden and remarkable, he informs us' that 1651.] FALSE PANEGYRIC ON THE KING, " whilst these things were acting " — that is, whilst the King's forces were losing Powick Bridge, in consequence of the King's Majesty having " got back into the town," — " the King's Majesty, turning towards the east side of thetown» resolves to hazard a battle."^ The royal panegyrist and physician then proceeds to state that the King, with a con- siderable body of foot but a small number of horse ("for," he says, " the Scottish cavalry scarce budged") marched against the enemy at Perry-wood, " with a most undaunted and present mind,'' being followed by the Dukes of Hamilton and Buckingham, and Sir Alexander Forbes, at the head of his foot ; that at the first charge he beat the van, and made himself master of the artillery ; but after- wards, " though with wonderful sagacity he gave orders, in the heat and confusion of the fight, faced the greatest dangers with a high and steady mind, not to be matched by others, and with his own hand did many brave actions, and gave illustrious proofs of his personal valour even in the judgment of his enemies ;^ yet being overpowered by fresh men, whom Cromwell in great numbers sent in, he thought it best, that he might reserve himself for better fortune, to retreat in time, and save himself in the town ; that he then used all manner of persuasions to encourage the soldiers to renew the engagement ; till, the danger growing greater and greater, by St. Martin's Gate he went out to the horse, commanded by David Leslie, being almost entire, and directed his course towards Barbon Bridge, earnestly entreating the horse to take courage and hasten to the assistance of the foot, who were put to utmost extremity."^ If the other account be true — and Clarendon, if as ' Bates, part ii. p. 125. shown above. ' The falsehood of this has been " Bates, part ii. pp. 125, 126. 200 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI regardless of the truth, was likely to be at least as well nformed as Bates-that Charles, during the obstinate and sangumaiy conflict in which the unfortunate Scots were shedding their blood for this phantom King, whom they regarded as the representative of their great Robert Bruce was " m his lodging eating," and afterwards " refreshing himself" with sleep, and that it was the noise of the flying army, driven pellmell into the town, that broke the royal slumbers, the only part of this romance of Bates which has m It a shadow of truth, is that Charles then joined the cavalry, and " was the foremost in flight." There is a reason for taking more notice of this book of Bates than its intrinsic value merits : for this mendacious de^iption of the King's heroism at the Battle of Worcester IS a sort of measure of the degradation to which the Restoration reduced public opinion and everything else m England. The second part of Bates's book was written after the Restoration, with what object is evident enough ^^^ ihi22^ Jts^lf. HTs" always the last proof of de- basement m a nation, when the corruption of the Govern- ment awards to men who have not risked their lives in battle or in the public service the honours that only belong to those who have. Rome had fallen upon evil days when Caligula drew up his army on the seashore near Boulogne under pretence of invading Britain; and, having with great parade disposed his warlike engines, ordered his soldiers to gather the sea-shells, and fill their helmets and the skirts of their clothes, saying " these were the spoils of the ocean, fit to be deposited in the Capitol ;" and then, by letters to Rome, ordered preparations to be made for a triumph that should exceed in magnificence all former triumphs. In like manner had England fallen upon evil days, when a man, who performed the part neither of a 1651.] SCOTCH STUDENTS AMONG THE PRISONERS. 201 ^ i- great commander nor a good soldier, was held up to public view as having performed the part of both ; while the brave but unfortunate men, who shed their blood for a worthless and incapaBle^ yuuiig ""lfiarn7w^r€""TreId up to un- merited obloquy. ' ' WKehTt is considered that the students at the Scottish Universities were usually very young, of the age of boys rather than of young men, it appears, from the following minute of the Council of State, that the zeal of the Scottish Royalist gentry, in favour of their Stuart Kings, for whom they from first to last shed so much of their blood in vain, led them to take with them in this disastrous expedition some of their sons who were mere boys. For here was a mere boy, a student at the University of St. Andrews, who had accompanied his father, and shared with him the hard- ships of the long march, the perils of Worcester, and after- wards imprisonment : — " Upon the reading of the petition of Sir Adam Hepbume of Hombee, for himself and his two sons, John Cockbourne of Ormestone, and Thomas Hepburn e, student at St. Andrews in Scotland, it is ordered that the said Thomas Hepburne shall have liberty to return into Scotland to follow his studies there, he first taking the engagement ; and that Sir Adam Hepburne of Hombee and John Cock- burne [sic] of Ormestone shall have the liberty of the city and the places within the late lines of communication — they entering into bonds, in the sum of £1,000 apiece for themselves, and £500 each two sureties, upon the usual terms."* On the 10th of September the Parliament issued a ' Order Book of the Council of Hombee, for himself and his two sons], State, Thursday, March 25, 1652 MS. State Paper OflBce. [Petition of Sir Adam Hepburne of i 202 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI. proclamation, offering a reward of £1,000 "for the discovery and apprehending of Charles Stuart, and other traitors, his adherents and abettors." A month passed, however,' and Charles was still nncaptured. On Monday the 13th of October 1651, the Council of State made the following order, which appears to me to show (what before I consi- dered doubtful) that they reaUy desired to apprehend him : " That letters be written to all the ports, to make strict search of aU persons that shall attempt to go out of the land, especiaUy such as are in disguise, to prevent the going out of Charles Stuart, who we are informed is still in England ; to let them know that £1,000 is appointed by Act of Parliament for them who shaU take him."^ Crom- well, who did not attend the Council of State after the 2nd tiU the 11th of October (his name not being in the list of those present at the Council on any of the intervening days), was present on this day, the 13th of October. It may thence be inferred that Cromwell really desired the appre- hension of Charles. But it seems to have been better, both for CromweU and the Council of State, that Charles escaped, than that they should have had either the keeping of himl prisoner, or the repetition of the scene of the 30th of Jan- uary 164f in front of WhitehaU. After many adventures, which have been variously related, some of which are described in the nai-rative of a Mr! Whitgreaves,2 at whose house he was secreted two or three days— a narrative which presents a strong contrast to the fictions of Sir Walter Scott's " Woodstock," and represents Charles in a far better light than the romance does ; there JJt' ^"")."^.'^" ^"""'^^ "^ ^^ntly printed copy of this MS. in the State, Monday October 13, 1651, MS. ''Westminister Review," vol. ..pp. 432 State Paper Office. .434^,^^ ,j^^ "Retrospective Review," - i^ee an extract from a then re- No. 20. I60I.] ESCAPE OF THE KING TO FRANCE. 203 being, instead of insolent airs and attempts on the honour of his htTSlfr'^^^^ttghteTT''^ very respectful' condescension towards his host and his family, and a full sense of his forlorn condition on the part of the King — Charles found means to hire a vessel on the coast of Sussex, and landed at Havi'e-de-Grace. On the 28th of October, an extract of two letters from Paris was published, licensed by the Clerk of the Parliament, and setting forth : " That on the 19th the Scots' King arrived there, and was met by the Duke of Orleans not far from that city : that his Highness conducted him to the Louvre, whither the late Queen, his mother, repaired presently after from Chaliot, where she had been erecting a nunnery : that the King gave the company a full narrative of all the pai-ticulars of what happened at the fight at Worcester, threw out some reproachful words against the Scots, put some scurrilous language on the Presbyterian party in England, and boasted much of his own valour. That he told them how he slipt out of Worcester, and how near he was of being taken there — first in the fort, and after in his chamber : how he disguised himself, and went from county to county, and what shift he made for victuals and lodging ; sometimes being driven to beg a piece of bread and meat, and ride with bread in one hand and meat in the other, and sometimes setting a guard about a little cottage, while he rested there until the morn- ing : as also his being in London, and the manner of his passing disguised through several counties in England, till he made his escape."^ The Council of State was much occupied for some time with the disposal of the prisoners. The noblemen and the superior officers, such as Lieutenant- General David Leslie, / J ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1375. 204 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI. were committed to the Tower of London-the persons next in rank to Windsor Castle. The Order Book of the Council of State, under date 16th September 1651, contains a list of knights, colonels, &c., committed to Windsor Castle. The following minutes of 29th September relate to the other prisoners of lower rank or of no rank :— « That it be referred to the Committee for Prisoners to examine whether Chelsey College belongs to the State or to particular persons : if to the State they are to make use of It ; if to particular persons, they are to treat with them that it may be made use of for the accommodating of some' of the Soots prisoners." " That it be referred to the same Committee to make use of the church near the ground [TothUl Fields] where now they are, or of the pesthouse or of any other place for the lodging of the sick and wounded men of the Scots prisoners ; and the said Committee is to speak with the Martial-General about the providing of straw and other necessaries for the lodging of the Scots prisoners."' It is impossible to say what proportion of the Scots prisoners was shipped to the plantations. A doubt may even be raised, as will be shown presently, whether any of them were so disposed of, although undoubtedly the Council at one time contemplated such a proceeding. It is, however, quite certain that they were not all so disposed of, either after the Battle of Dunbar, or after that of Worcester There are in the Order Book minutes respecting the employ- ment of some of those of Dunbar in the coal-mines about Newcastle, and of others in agriculture in England. And with regard to those of Worcester, the Council of State, on the 1st of October 1651, made an order: " That 1,000 of 16oL] DISPOSAL OF THE PRISONERS. 20^ tlie Scottish prisoners be delivered to the use of the under- taker for the draining of the Fens, upon condition that, if ten men of each hundred do escape from them, thej do then forfeit, for every man escaping above the aforesaid number, the sum of £10."^ And again, on the 9th of Oc- tober, there is this order: "That so many of the Scottish prisoners, private soldiers, as are in Tothill Fields, and also at York, and are sound and fit for labour, be delivered over for the draining of the Fens."^ It appears, from the following minutes, that some of the English prisoners were kept at St. James's. On the 16th of October Colonel Berkstead is ordered to choose twenty out of the English private soldiers, now prisoners at St. James's, to be proceeded against by a Council of War or Court Martial ; the Court Martial to be held on Thursday, 25th of October, in the Court of Star Chamber, at West- minster, by 9 o'clock in the forenoon.^ And, from the following minute, it appears that steps were certainly taken for transporting to the plantations some of the Scots pri- soners. On the 25th of October the Council of State ordered, " That the Committee for Prisoners do, upon usual security, give license for the transporting of some Scots prisoners to the Bermudas."^ There are various orders of the Council of State respecting the treatment of the prisoners. An allowance was crdeied of 2d, per diem to each of the Scots prisoners, "for provision of victuals," at Chester, and of 2^d. per diem in London. There are orders on the 16th of September for 112 bags of biscuits for the Scots prisoners, at 16s. per cwt.; for payment of the " bakers and cheesemongers, which have furnished provisions to the Scots prisoners, at £56. 5s. per diem and ' Order Book of the Council of State, October 1, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. « Ihid. October 9, 1651. » Ibid. October 16, 1651. * Bid. October 21, 1651. 206 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XI. 1C51.] RELEASE OF THE E^VRL OF LEVEN. 207 upwards ; and that a warrant be issued to the Master and Wardens of the Company of Chirurgeons, to appoint some skilful chirurgeons to dress constantly such of the Scots prisoners as are wounded.'" The humanity of this last order would be creditable to the Council, were it not for its lateness— thirteen days after the battle. But there may have been reasons for this apparent delay which we do not know. On the same day, the 16th of September, the Lord -General [Cromwell] is "desired to give order that the Earl of Lauder- dale, Sir David Leslie, Lieutenant-General, Lieutenant- Gen- eral David Middleton, Sir William Fleming, Sir David Cun- ningham, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Hart, Sir William Douglas, now prisoners at Chester, be brought up in safe custody, under a sufficient guard, to London."^ On the 1st of October it is ordered, "That Ealph Delavall, of Seaton De- lavall, in the county of Northumberland, Esquire, desiring leave to visit the Earl of Leven,^ now prisoner in the Tower, in order to supply him with some necessaries, be permitted, according to his said desire, to come unto the Earl of Leven in the Tower."^ And on the 3rd of October, " Upon the motion of the Lord-General [Cromwell], it is ordered that General Leven [the Earl of Leven] shall have the liberty of the Tower, and that his servant may come to him, to do him such service as is necessary to him."^ On the 11th of November, the Council of State ordered, " That the Order of Parliament concerning the Earl of Leven be issued to the Committee for Irish and Scottish • Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, September 16, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. * Ibid, same day. ' The Earls of Leven and Crawford- Lindsay, Lord Ogleby, and others, had been surprised by Monk in Scot- land, and sent prisoners to London. The old Earl of Leven had been left General in Scotland by the King, and Crau-ford-Lindsay Lieutenant-General. — Lord Leicester's Journal, p. 117; Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 366. * Order Book of the Council of State, October 1, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. * Pnd. October 3, 1651. Affairs, who are to consider of what secm^ity is fit to be taken of him for his abode at Mr. Delavall his house in the county of Northumberland, and to report their opinions to the Council."^ On the 13th of November 1651, the ar- rangement for enlarging the old Earl of Leven, the veteran general of Gustavus Adolphus, from the Tower was com- pleted : the Earl of Leven to give his parole, under his hand and seal : Ealph Delavall, of Seaton Delavall in the countv of Northumberland, Esquire; John Delavall, of Peter- borough, in the county of Northampton, and John Dela- vall of &c., recognizance of £20,000 before the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal : the Earl of Leven to be confined to the said house of Seaton Delavall, or within twelve miles thereof." ^ On the 7th of October it is ordered, " That the Scots prisoners in the Tower shall have liberty to write into > Order Book of the Council of " From Tynemouth his Lordship, by State, November 11, 1651, MS. State invitation, went to dine at Seaton Paper Office.— On the same day there Delaval. Sir Ralph Delaval enter- is an order for Colonel Keith, pri- tained us exceeding well. The chief soner in Windsor Castle, to have liberty remarkable there was a little port, for three months on parole, for the which that gentleman, with great con- recovery of his health ; tlie Earl of Rothes and the Earl Mareschal of Scotland to have each a servant allowed to attend upon him in the Tower, pro- vided such servant be kept a prisoner in the Tower also. — Ibid. November 10, 1651. "Thata letter be wTitten to the Lieutenant of the Tower, to secure at the mouth of a rill of water, which, the Earl Mareschal of Scotland by running from the hills, had excavated himself alone, apart from the rest, and a great hollow in the fall as it ran. to keep him close prisoner in order to a Sir Ralph had built, or rather often further examination." — Ibid. Novem- rebuilt, a pier of stone, that fenced off ber 11, 1651. the surge to the north-east, and, at 2 Ibid. November 13, 1651. — Roger high-water, gave entrance near a little North, in liis Life of his brother the promontory of the shore ; and at h-w Lord-Keeper Guilford (vol. i. p. 266, water, the vessels lay dry upon the 3rd edition, London, 1819), gives an in- rock." teresting descript ion of Seaton Delaval : trivance and after many disappoint- ments, made for securing small craft, that carried out his salt and coal ; and he had been encouraged in it by King Charles II., who made him collector and surveyor of his own port, and no officer to intermeddle there. It stands / 208 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XL Scotland : the letters to be sent open to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who, if he find they write only concerning their own condition, shall seal the letters and deliver them to such person as they shall appoint to carry theni."^ And on the same day an order is made, " That Lieutenant-General David Leslie, now prisoner in the Tower, shall have liberty to have his servant come to him to attend upon him."^ And on the 3rd of December 1651, a further order was made, " That liberty be given to the wife of Lieutenant- General David Leslie, with two maidservants, to go in and come out of the Tower as they shall have occasion."^ On the 17th of December 1651, the Council of State ordered, " That the Earl of Carnwath shall have the liberty of the Tower, to walk for the preservation of his health," and " That the Lord Crawford-Lindsey [sic] shall have a servant allowed to attend upon him in the Tower ; "^ and on the 24th of the same December, they ordered, " That Sir David Leslie, Alexander Earl of Kellie, John Lord Bargany [sic] , and the Lord Oglebie, shall have the liberty of the Tower."^ There is a strange and painful contrast between these indulgences, granted to the Scottish officers of rank, and the harsh treatment of the private soldiers and the officers below the rank of field-officers— a treatment which ap- pears to be exactly the reverse of what justice would seem to require, since the soldiers and the officers below field-offi- cers could not possibly have had any share in the counsels which caused the invasion of England that led to the Battle of Worcester. On the day following that on which * Order Book of the Council of State, October 7, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. ' Ibid, same day. * lUd. December 3, 1651. * Ibid. December 17, 1651. * Ibid. Wednesday, December 24, 1651. 1651.] DISPOSAL OF THE PRISONERS. 209 the last order above mentioned was made respecting David Leslie (namely, on the 4th of December, 1651), an order was made, that a Committee, composed of upwards of 20 members of the Council of State, and including Sir Henry Vane and the Lord-General [Cromwell], "or any three or more of them, shall have power to dispose to plan- tations all the prisoners under the degree of field-officer taken at Worcester, or in any other place, since the invasion by the Scots' armv, as well those abroad in several erarrisons as those that are brought to London. And that they report to the Council how they shall so dispose of them. And that the said Committee do also report to the Council what they conceive fit to be done with the field-ofiicers that are prisoners." ^ According to Yattel, it is lawful to condemn prisoners of war to slavery only in cases which give a right to kill them — when they have rendered themselves personally guilty of some crime deserving of death. The ancients used to seU their prisoners of war for slaves ; but they thought they had a right to put them to death. "Li every circumstance," says Yattel, " when I cannot inno- cently take away my prisoner's life, I have no right to make him a slave." ^ As the orders for re2rulatinranuary 5, 165^, MS. State Paper Office. ^ "^ Ifnd. Friday, January 9, 165^. the garrison to the sword, and, according to Ludlow, "commanded the Governor, with divers others, to be killed in cold blood." ' Attempts have been made to clear Monk's memory from this atrocity, and to show that he not only did not " command " it, but that " it troubled him very much." ^ ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 366. — Ludlow, as may well be supposed, had no love for Monk, of whom he would be apt to say, " Vendidit hie auro pa- triam." * Lord Wharncliffe, in one of his notes to his translation of M. Guizot's Life of Monk, gives a statement from tlie continuation to Baker's Chronicle, that as "one Captain Kelly, of Colonel Morgan's regiment, was carrying the Governor to the General, one Major Butler barbarously shot him dead." Lord Wharncliffe further says, " that this account is confirmed by Sir Philip Warwick in his Memoirs, who adds that " it troubled Monk very much." 3 1651.] THE COUNCIL DISBAND THE MILITIA. 217 CHAPTER XII. The news of the victory won by tlieir forces at Worcester reached the Council of State in a few hours. On the day after the battle, the 4th of September, they made an order, '' That Colonel Berkstead " [who commanded the guard of the Parliament] " do shoot off the guns of his regiment, and cause a bonfire to be made before Whitehall Gate, in token of joy for the good news of the routing of the Scots' army near Worcester." ^ On the same day they ordered a letter to be written to the Lord Mayor, Major-General Skippon, and the Commissioners of the Militia of London, " to acquaint them with the o-ood tidings of the routing of the enemy about Worcester ; to let them know their horse are many of them dispersed ; to desire them, therefore, to send out their horse, for the gathering up of such of the enemies as shall come this way." 2 On the 6th of September the Council of State ordered, " That the 500 men of Middlesex marched out to Uxbridge be ordered every man to return to his own home." 3 On the same day (Saturday, the 6th of Septem- ber), the Council of State also made this order:— "That the dispersing of the militia in the several counties be taken into consideration on Monday morning next, after the disposing of the prisoners."'* Accordingly, on Monday the 8th of September, they • Order Book of the Council of Siate, Thursday, September 4, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. ^ Ibid, same day. ^ Ibid. September 6, 1651. * Ibid, same day. made the following order, to which I beg to direct par- ticular attention, for reasons which I will state presently. It is also important to call attention to the fact that Cromwell, the Lord-General, was not present at the Council on this occasion — indeed, he did not enter Londou till four days after — and that the meeting consisted of Bradshaw the President, Sir Henry Vane, and nine other members of the Council of State. The following is the order: — " That a letter be written to the several [Commissioners of the] Militias of the Counties in England who have sent forces to the appointed rendezvous upon the occasion of the Scots' army coming into England, to return them thanks, and also to the officers and soldiers, for their great readiness in the public service ; and to let them know that they are to disband their forces, and cause the horses and arms to be delivered unto them who set them out." ^ Now there is a statement of Ludlow^ — which has been adopted by even eminent modern writers, as denoting Cromwell's treacherous purpose at this period — that the * Order Book of the Council of State, Monday, September 8, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. — And on the following day, the Council of State ordered, " That a letter be written to the Lord-General, to let him know that money hath been ready for his army for some days past, but could not conveniently be sent unto him, in regard of the motion of the forces and dispersing of the regiments into seve- ral places, for the greater ease both of them and the people. That the Council hath appointed the Treasurers at War to wait on his Lordship, to consider how the money may be speedily sent to them, that there be not free quarter by any means taken." — 3id. Tuesday, September 9, 1651. On the same day : " That Major-General Skippon be de- sired to dismiss such of the trained band of London sis are upon the guards."— /iic?. On the 10th the Council ordered, "That it be referred to the Committee of Scottish and Irish Affairs, to consider how the orders of the House, for the disbanding of the forces lately taken into pay, may be put in execution." — Ibid. September 10, 1651. 2 Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 365, 366: 2nd edition, London, 1721.— The inference drawn by Ludlow (vol. ii. p. 447), from Cromwell's calling the vic- tory at Worcester a " crowning mercy," is quite unwarranted. Cromwell meant no more than to say that their work was done— Jinis coronat opus. I dii5iitekiMiaaiBMiiiai^i*MMBMi 218 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. very next daj after the fight at Worcester, CromweU dis- missed and sent home the militia. This is not only a misstatement of the fact, but a confusion of ideas in the mind of Ludlow respecting the very rudiments of govern- ment. The power of the militia was that which formed the main dispute between King Charles and the Parlia- ment; and for a very good reason, because it was the principal characteristic of the sovereign. There is no question that, at this particular time, the sovereign in England was the Parliament, of which the Council of State was the Executive; and in that capacity, as has been shown above by the minute extracted from their own Order Book, the Council of State, on the 8th of September, five days after the Battle of Worcester, ordered the militia to be disbanded in the several counties of England, and their horses and arms to be delivered up. It is little likely that the character and the designs, whatever they were, of Cromwell— who wrapped himself in clouds and darkness, so that not even his most intimate friends knew with any degree of certainty, though some of them might suspect, which way his ambition pointed— should be analysed by a man like Ludlow, who had in his brain such a jumble as this about the power of the militia, and the very foundations of government and sovereign power. The whole of what has been said, too, about Cromwell's excitement and elation after the Battle of Worcester, partakes of the same error ; an error which Sir Walter Scott has also fallen into, when in "Woodstock" he represents Cromwell as admitting the swearing, swag- gering cavalier Wildrake (a likely sort of confidant for such a man as Cromwell !) into his views for ejecting the Parliament, and putting the crown on his own head. The sort of excited self-assertion attributed by some writers to 165L] INCONSISTENCIES OF CKOMWELL'S CHARACTER. 219 Cromwell is quite as much out of keeping with all that we know of the character of the real Cromwell, as the absurd supposition of his admitting cavaliero Wildrake into his inmost thoughts. The haughty exultation ascribed to Cromwell on this occasion belongs to the character of a vain, pompous, ostentatious, shallow person. Whatever vices have been or may be imputed to him, the real Crom- well was, assuredly, neither vain, pompous, ostentatious, nor shallow. Pride, indeed — a very different sort of thing from vanity — the sort of pride which the consciousness of great talents directed by an iron will naturally inspires, the real Cromwell no doubt had. It was a great error in Scott's conception of Cromwell's character, to make him babble out his thoughts to a stranger as he does to Wild- rake. Vanity indeed is communicative, as well as osten- tatious, and infirm of purpose. Cromwell was not only unostentatious, but, though not cruel, he was inexorable as death, and inscrutable as the grave. In attempting to analyse the springs of action of such a character as Cromwell's, it is difficult to avoid (and I do not pretend to be able to avoid) some apparent or even real inconsistencies. For certain points, which at times seem to be tolerably clear, again become involved in im- penetrable darkness, and what seemed the clue is lost. Moreover, as regards inconsistency, may not there be incon- sistency in the actual life of a man ? In attempting to portray an actual life, we must not condemn a part of that life which is laudable, because we know the end, which is not so. There is a time v/hen we only see and reverence in Cromwell the Wallace, the Tell, the Washington of his country — a man full of compassion for the oppressed, and indignation against the oppressor — a time when we re- joice in his fortune, and honour his wisdom and valour. 220 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. But, of all this, clouds and darkness rest upon tlie end. And wliile we honour the valour and rejoice in the fortune of the successful champion of his country's liberties, we need not, in order to make a fancy portrait apparently consistent and complete, but really untrue to nature and fact, drag forward the end, which will come soon enouP-h when we shall have to pass judgment on deeds, which he who did them may once have believed it impossible for all the temptations of earth and hell to make him do. Dr. Arnold, in speaking of the almost insurmountable difficulties in comprehending such a character, says : " The genius which conceived the incomprehensible character of Hamlet, would alone be able to describe with intuitive truth the character of Scipio or of Cromwell. In both these great men, the enthusiastic element, which clearly existed in them, did but inspire a resistless energy into their actions, \\hile it no way interfered with the calmest and keenest judgment in the choice of their means.''^ What is said about the " enthusiastic element " may be true enough ; but I dissent from the assertion that the genius which conceived the character of Hamlet would be able to describe with truth the character of Cromwell. I think it probable that Shakspeare's Cromwell would not have been much more like the real Cromwell than Scott's Cromwell in " Woodst^ck."^ And one ground of my opinion ' History of Rome, vol. iii. p. 385. T. More. See Johnson's Dictionary— 2 The mention of Shakspeare's Ham- '' Eisel." Shakspeare uses the very let tempts me to venture a small criti- same word, in the same sense, in his cism on the word in Act V., scene 1, CXIth Sonnet :— printed " Esil," and which some com- uwi-i^vi mentators conjecture should be ^^^^'i^^'ke a wJhng patient, I will " Weisel," a river which runs into the -p 4.- r „ , . Baltic. I think there can be no douLt infection '- ^'''''* ""^ ''"'"^ that Shakspeare wrote " eisel," meaninsr vr^ i -.^ \, , -^ .11 1 -.i. J 1 . . No bitterness that I will bitter think " thereby any bitter diaught, as vinegar, tnmK. in which sense " eisel " is used by Sir It is evident from this, that whatever 1G51.] CROMWELL'S ALLEGED DESIGNS. is, that Shakspeare's Julius Cuesar is as unlike the real Julius Csesar as it was possible to make him. There is no point of Csesar's character better known than his aversion to anything like either menace or boasting. He gave one remarkable example of this, when he entered Rome with his army, and the tribune Metelius twice opposed him. The first time Csesar said to him, " If you don't like what is doing, get out of the way, for war needs not bold words." When Csesar, as the keys of the treasury were not found, sent for smiths and ordered them to break the doors, and Metelius again opposed him, Csesar, raising his voice, threatened to kill him if he did not desist from his opposi- tion. " And this," said he, " young man, you well know is more painful for me to have said than to do."^ This is very different from the brag and bluster about courage and fear, which form the burthen of what Shakspeare has put into the mouth of his as much a pseudo-Csesar as Scott's is a pseudo-Cromwell. Most of the writers who have treated this particular period of English History have assumed that, immediately after the Battle of Worcester, Cromwell had fully made up his mind to turn out the Parliament, and concentrate all their powers of sovereignty in his single person. As one of the principal evidentiary facts adduced for this assump- tion—namely, Ludlow's misstatement above mentioned, that Cromwell dismissed the militia immediately after the Battle of Worcester — is found not to be a fact at all (the militia having, as has been shown, been regularly dismissed by the Council of State, when the Avork for which they had been called out was done), I think it can by no means be particular liquid Shakspeare meant to river, butswallowing a partieuhirly ))it- designate, he meant a draught of tor or nauseous di-MUglit of medicine. " eisel " to denote, not swallowing a ' Plutarch, C. Cjesjir, c. 3 o. 222 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. concluded that Cromwell had at this particular time made up his mind to pursue such a course, or even that the idea of such a course had entered into his mind at all. On the 9th of September, the House ordered lands of inheritance, to the value of £1,000 per annum, to be settled on Lambert ; £500 each on Monk and Whallej ; £300 on Okej ; and £200 on Alured, for their great and eminent services to the Commonwealth. The House also ordered a Bill to be brought in, for settling so much of Scotland as is now under the power of their forces, " under the govern- ment of this Commonwealth." On the 11th of September, the House resolved " That lands of inheritance, to the yearly value of £4,000, belonging to the State [in addition to £2,500 per annum formerly granted], be settled upon the Lord-General Cromwell and his heirs, as a mark of favour from the Parliament, for his great and eminent services to the Commonwealth." Apartments were also ordered to be fitted up for Cromwell at Hampton Court. The House likewise ordered £2,000 yearly rent to be settled on Henry Ireton, Esq., Lord-Deputy of Ireland, Cromwell's son-in- law.* When the news of this grant was brought over to Ireton, he said, according to Ludlow, that the Parliament ought to pay their debts before they made any such pre- sents ; that he had no need of their land, and therefore would not have it.^ When Cromwell returned to London, he was met at Acton by the Speaker, the Lord-President Bradshaw, and many members of Parliament and of the Council of State, with the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs of London.^ He entered the city in a coach of state, and ' Pad. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1371, 2nd edition, London, 1721. • 1372. ^ 3 pj^ri j£i3j ^,^1- jjj_ p j37j^ ^^^^^ ^ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 371 : 1651.] RECEPTION OF CROMWELL BY PARLIAMENT. 223 was received, says a cotemporary journalist, " with all possible acclamations of joy."^ On the 16th of September Cromwell appeared in the House ; when the Speaker, in the name of the Parliament, made an oration to him, and gave him the thanks of the Parliament for his great services to the Commonwealth. On the very same day the " Bill for an Equal Representa- tion in Parliament" — that is, the Bill for the election of a New Parliament, in which the people should be fairly repre- sented, and consequently putting an end to the present Parliament, called the Long Parliament, which had first met on the 3rd of November 1640 — was ordered to be taken into debate the next morning, and nothing to intervene. Accordingly, on the following day, September 17, this Bill was made the subject of debate almost the whole day. But nothing further is entered in the Journals of the House concerning it, than that it was adjourned to that day se'n- niglit ; and then the report was to be inade to the House of it, the first business. The 24th and 25th of this month of September were almost wholly employed in debating the grand point of a new representative. On the latter of these days, the 25th of September, the question being put, " That a Bill be brought in for settling a time certain for the sit- ting" of this Parliament, and for calling a new one, with such fit rules, qualifications, proportions, and other circum- stances, as this Parliament shall think fit, and shall be for the good and safety of this Commonwealth," the House divided, and the Yeas went forth, when the Lord-General » Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1371.— The following minute, in the Order Book of the Council of State, has reference to this occasion : — " That 40.s. be paid to the coachman of the Earl of Pem- broke, and 30s. to the postillion, for their attending upon tlie Speaker upon the occasion of meeting the Lord- General at his return from the Battle of Worcester." — Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, September 26, 1651, MS. Stilt e Paper Office. tt; 224 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIL 1651.] COMMISSIONERS SENT TO SCOTLAND. 225 [Cromwell] and Mr. Scott, the tellers of them, brought in the numbers, 33 ; Sir H. Mildmay and Sir James Harring- ton, for the Noes, 26 ; on which the Bill was ordered to be brought in, and a Committee appointed for that purpose.^ The result of this business did not appear till November ; and in the meantime it is necessary to describe some im- portant measures, carried out by the Parliament in the month of October. I have, in a former chapter, mentioned that the Council of State had received several letters from their ambassadors in Holland, St. John and Strickland, relating repeated affronts offered to them there ; and that, in consequence of these affronts, the English ambassadors were recalled, and abruptly took their leave and came home. We shall now see the first of the long chain of disastrous consequences to the Dutch, that flowed from the affronts offered to the Ensflish ambassadors in Holland. In little more than a month after the Battle of Worces- ter, namely^ on the 9th of October 1651, the English Parlia- ment passed the famous Navigation Act ; whereby it was enacted that no goods should be imported into England from Asia, Africa, or America, except in English ships, nor from any part of Europe except in ships of the country of which the goods were the growth or manufacture : that no salt-fish, whale-fins, or oil should be imported, but what were caught or made by the people of England ; nor any salt-fish exported, or carried from one port to another in England, but in English vessels.^ ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1373. Laws were enacted, the Dutch, from ^ Scobell, part ii. p. 176. -^The most their maritime skill and their low rate eminent political economists agree as of profit at home, were able to carry to the policy of the Navigation La Scot's Speeches, in Richard Cromwell's first Parliament, repoited in Burton's Diary. 232 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. and vigour. That they had another infant too under their hands, the war with Holland, which had thrived wonderfully under their conduct ; but he much doubted that it would be quickly strangied, if it were taken out of their care, who had hitherto governed it."^ This, as far as it can be called an argument, must depend on the exactness of the analogy between a young child and a young Commonwealth, and IS open to the objections applicable to arguments drawn from metaphors. The latter part of it, however, relating to the Dutch war, is not without force ; for though, after CromweU expelled the Parliament, the Dutch war was brought to a successful issue on the part of the English, the peace made with Holland by Cromwell was neither so honourable nor so advantageous as it would have been if the Long Parliament had made it. Cromwell, Scot says in one of his speeches, " was never so successful as when he was a servant to the Commonwealth. What a dis- honourable peace he made, and what an unprofitable and dangerous war ! " * More than two years after the Parliament had neglected Ireton's plan for a New Parliament, called the " Agreement of the People," and prosecuted John Lilburne for his, we find that Cromwell himself had taken up the matter almost immediately after the Battle of Worcester— in fact, on the very first day he took his seat, the 16th of September, as we have seen. We have also seen that, on the 25th of September, the House voted upon a division (Cromwell and Scot being tellers for the majority), that a Bill should be brought in, for fixing a certain time for putting an end to the present Parliament, and calling another. A Committee was appointed, in which were ' Clarendon, vol. vi. pp. 4, 5. 2 Meaning the peace with Holland and the war with Spain. 1651.1 QUESTION OF A NEW PARLIAMENT included St. John, Whitelock, Vane, and Crofowell. A Bill was brought in and read a first time, and two days after a second time. It was then committed to a Committee of the whole House. The result appears from the following entry in the Journals : — "Friday, the 14th of November, 1651.— The question being propounded. That it is now a convenient time to de- clare a certain time for the continuance of this Parliament, beyond which it shall not sit : and the question being put, That this question be now put. The House was divided : The Noes went forth. '' Lord-General [Cromwell], f Tellers for the Yeas "I " Lord Chief Justice, I With the Yeas J ^^ " Colonel Morley, f Tellers for the Noes j ''Mr. Bond, I With the Noes J ^^ 96 " On the main question : " The Yeas went forth. " Lord-General, f Tellers for the Yeas 1 " Lord Chief Justice, 1 With the Yeas J " Colonel Morley, [ Tellers for the Noe " Mr. Bond, I With the Noes 49 47 96 ''Resolved, That this business .be resumed again on Tuesday next."^ " Tuesday, the ISth of November, 16^1. —Resolved, That the time for the continuance of this Parliament, beyond which they resolve not to sit, shall be the Third day of November, One thousand six hundred and fifty-four."^ " So » Commons' Journals, Friday, No- ^ Ibid. Tuesday, November 18, veraber 14, 1651. 1651. 234 COMMONV/E.\LTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. they have three years yet," writes Lord Leicester in his Journal.^ Thus, as this Parliament met on the 3rd of JSTovember 1640, its duration, to the 3rd of November 1654, would be 14 years ; or, according to a later resolution of the House, appointing the 3rd of November 1653, instead of the 3rd of November 1654, before fixed on, its duration would be 13 years. The Parliament thought fit to proceed to the election of a Council of State for the fourth time, for the fourth year of the new Government, in November instead of in Febru- ary ; and on Monday the 24th of November 1651, in ac- cordance with the plan they had pursued the preceding year, they chose 21 of the Council for the past year, and 20 who were not members the preceding year. Among these new members was Eobert Blake.^ Lord Leicester says, in his Journal, under date Monday, November 24, 1651: "And it was thought strange that Sir Henry Mildmay and Colonel Hanison, who were so active and painful the last year, should now be of the 20 which were of the Coun- cil and now left out."^ I transcribe from the Journals of the House the following names, as having the greatest and least number of votes or subscriptions, as it is called in the Journals : — Lord-General [Cromwell] . . ' . ng Lord-Commissioner Whitelock Lord Chief Justice St. John . Sir Henry Vane (jun.) . John Gurdon, Esq. 113 108 104 103 ' Journal of the Earl of Leicester, vember 24, 1651. P- ^^^- ' Journal of the Earl of Leicester, 2 Commons' Journals, Monday, No- p. 126. i l> 1651.] THE NEW COUNCIL OF STATE. 235 Lieutenant-General Fleetwood . . 102 Lord Chief Justice Eolle ... 95 Lord-Commissioner Lisle . . . 91 Serjeant Bradshaw .... 89 Sir Arthur Haselrig .... 89 Dennis Bond, Esq. .... 88 Thomas Scott, Esq 86 Colonel Purefoy . . . . . 82 Colonel Wauton ..... 78 &c. &c. &c. Eobert Blake, Esq. .... 42 Earl of Pembroke ..... 42 Henry Marten, Esq. (the last and lowest of this year) 41 * On the 26th of November it was resolved by the Parlia- ment, that henceforth no Chairman of any Committee shall continue longer in the chair than the space of one month, and that this vote shall extend likewise to the President- ship of the Council of Stata. " It was said," wiites Lord Leicester in his Journal, under date November 26, 1651, " that Serjeant Bradshaw, who had been President of the Council from their beginning,^ was much troubled at this vote, by which he lost his Lordship, and came to be plain Serjeant Bradshaw ; and that he endeavoured to bring the matter again into debate into the House, upon the point of what was meant by a month : but this for the present was stopped at the Council, and Seijeant Bradshaw was > Commons' Journals, Monday, No- State appointed a President at each vember 24, 1651. meeting. But on March 10 they made 2 This is not strictly accurate. For the an order, " That Mr. Serjeant Bradshaw first three weeks of their existence, or shall be the President of this Council." rather more — namely, from February (See Vol. I. p. 38.) 17 to March 10. 164|-the Council of 236 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. 165L] THE OLD ENGLISH NOBILITY. 237 desired to take the chair, and his time limited to that day month, from Monday the 1st of December."^ At this time two events happened, both of them very unfavourable to the Parliament. The first of these was the death of Ireton, who died of the plague at Limerick, on the 26th of November 1651, at the age of 41.2 The other event was the Parliament drawing on themselves the bitter hostility of Lambert, who was appointed by them Ireton's successor in Ireland ; but soon after, thinking him- self unworthily treated by them, threw up the appointment. Henry L-eton, whose career was thus prematurely cut short, and who, had he lived, must have been one of the most powerful opponents or supporters of the Government of Cromwell, belonged to that class of ancient gentry whose names had been unsullied by the honours of the Stuarts. He was born in 1610, and was the eldest son of German Ireton of Attenton, Esq., in the county of Notting- ham. His family was related to that of Colonel Hutchin- son, also a Nottinghamshire family, and through them to the Byrons of Newstead ; but how long they had possessed estates there I do not undertake to say, nor whether, like the Hampdens and others, they professed to go beyond the Conquest. It was much the fashion at that time to trace de- scents, either from those who had come in with William or (as Christopher Sly puts it) with " Richard Conqueror," or had been " there when the Conqueror came." No doubt the pedigree of all families extends, in some way or other, ' Journal of the Earl of Leicester, Ireton died of a fever; but Ludlow P- 127. (vol. i. p. 383), who was with him 2 Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 382 : till within two days of his death, states 2nd edition, London, 1721.— Lord that his condition, *' a burning fever, Leicester, in his Journal (p. 127, in rendered him more liable to the con- Sydney Papers by Blencowe), says tagion." beyond the Conquest, the pedigree of the Slys no less than the pedigree of the De Veres. But the way is the question. Mrs. Hutchinson — who, with many noble qualities, was not exempt from human infirmities — traces her descent, by her mother's side, from those who came in with the Conqueror, and by her father's side from those who were " there when the Conqueror came ; " and says of the Mayor of Notting- ham and his wife — " He was a very honest bold man, but had no more than a burgher's discretion ; he was yet very well assisted by his wife, a woman of great zeal and cour- age, and with more understanding than women of her rank usually have : " overlooking the fact that there lived at that time an Englishman, named Thomas Hobbes, to whom Mrs. Hutchinson would hardly have allowed more than a burgher's pedigree,^ but who possessed an under- standing considerably more powerful than all the under- standings of all the Apsleys, of all the St. Johns, and of all the Hutchinsons put together. Besides, these sweeping assertions respecting pedigree — assertions assuming an uninterrupted male descent for 600 years — are, prima facie, always improbable, and, though within the limits of the possible, extremely difficult to prove strictly. It is easy to assert of an obscure family, as Mrs. Hutchinson and Mr. Hyde have asserted, that they had possessed an estate, which " had continued in their family, and descended from father to son, from before the Conquest." But it is not so easy to produce the evidence necessary to satisfy a competent tribunal of the absolute truth of such assertions. The * Hobbes's fjither, vicar of Charlton a glover, which is a great trade there, and West-port, near Malmesbury, had and in times past much greater." — Life an elder brother, Francis, Alderman of of Mr. Thomas Hobbes of Malmcs- Malmesbury, which is the title of the bury, in Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii.p. 506: chief magistrate there, " by profession London, 1813. 238 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIL best test of this is to take a given number of families, re- specting which, from their conspicuous position, a satisfac- tory body of evidence is not only known to exist, but is open to public inspection. Such a given number of fami- lies is furnished by the Peerage of England, from the Nor- man Conquest to the present time. Now, in all that con- siderable number of families, there is, I believe, but one, of which the name as well as the lands and honours descended, through successive generations, from male heir to male heir, from the 1 1th to the 1 7th century. This family is that of the De Veres, Earls of Oxford. There are one or two others (for example, the Percys and the Berkeleys) that in name existed as long ; but their lands and honours had, in the course of time, passed by a female into another family, which had assumed their name. It will be found, on a close examination, that in a large proportion of the families referred to, the line has ended in a daughter or daughters, through whom their estates have passed into other families, and have not reverted to the sons of younger branches of such families. The result is well expressed in the words of Lord Chief Justice Crew, in his eloquent exor- dium in delivering the opinion of the Judges on the case referred to them by the House of Lords in the time of Charles I., respecting the right to the Earldom of Oxford : " And yet Time hath his revolutions; there must be a period and an end to all temporal things, finis reriim : an end of names and dignities, and whatsoever is terrene ; and why not of De Yere ? For where is Bohun ? Where is Mow- bray ? Where is Mortimer ? Nay— which is more and most of all— where is Plantagenet ? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality ? " ^ ' 3 Cru. Dig., p. 170. 1651.] THE NEW ENGLISH NOBILITY. 239 Tliere was a certain family, by name Burun, which held certain lordships in the county of Nottingham, in the reigns of William II., of Stephen, and of Henry II. The last of these was Eoger de Burun, whose barony was given by King John to William de Briwere. After an interval of more than 300 years, Henry YIII. gave New- stead Abbey, in the same county, to a family of the name of Byron, which family is described as " descended from the above family of Burun." Lord Byron, the poet, loudly boasted of his Norman descent, and of the power and great- ness of his Norman ancestors, the Buruns. But, besides the change in the vowels of the name, there would need a long and strong chain of proof to bridge over that chasm of 300 years, between Henry II. and Henry YIII. It is also notorious that Henry VIIL, like other despots, granted his favours to new men and new women ; for he gave the whole revenue of a religious house, of considerable value, to a woman, as a reward for making a pudding which happened to gratify his palate.' The descendant of this fortunate woman-cook, when boasting of his " father's hall — a vast and venerable pile," so old that itwould have fallen had not " strength been pillared in each massive aisle" — would be apt to keep the "pudding " in the background. Lord Byron, perhaps, meant emphatically to disclaim descent from the lady above referred to, when he said, on selling Newstead Abbey : " I have parted with an estate which has been in my family for nearly 300 years, and was never disgraced by being in possession of a lawyer, a churchman, or a woman during that period."'^ According to Fuller, " not only all the cooks, but the meanest turnbroach, in the Kind's kitchen, did lick his fingers." ' Fuller's Church History, p. 337. 2 Moore's Life of Byron vol. i. p. 4 79. 240 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. 1651.] OXFOKD AND CAMBRIDGE STATESMEN. 241 Socrates, in the " Gorgias " of Plato, divides adulation into several branches, of which, he sajs, Ehetoric is one, and Cookery another. The cases above mentioned are apt examples of the way in which the latter branch of adulation performs its work, and attains its object. It might be an enquiry neither altogether uninteresting nor unimportant, to investigate the proportions in which Cookery and Ehe- toric have contributed to the formation of " noble families." But, by whatever branch of adulation an abbey was obtained from Henry VIII., there could hardly be a more strange ethical phenomenon, than that a man should boast, and be not merely tolerated but admired for boasting, that he in- herited an abbey which had been given to his ancestor by Henry VIII. It might be a just ground of pride to be the inheritor of a " Castle Dangerous." It might even be matter of satisfaction to be descended from those who had founded an abbey or a priory ; such foundation being a proof of ancient power and wealth, and of a zeal sincere, if blind and misdirected, for the glory of God and the well- being of man. But public morality must have reached a strange state of confusion, when the possession of property which has the mark on ifc of public robbery^ —performed too, without personal risk, on women, and on unarmed, unwarlike men— should be esteemed an honourable distinc- tion. Poets may challenge our sympathy for bold cow- stealers and bold buccaneers. Hardihood and courage, even when employed in a bad cause, are still hardihood and courage. But a man has no more cause to boast of the possession of the most picturesque or richest ^ ' This terra belongs to the transac- use : but that it should be used for the t ion, because this property was appro- necessary expenses of government; priated in direct violation of the King's and the subject never afterwards charged promise, solemnly declared in Parlia- either with taxes or loans.— See Coke, ment, that none of it for ever, in time 4 Inst. 43, 44. to come, should be converted to private abbey in England, than of that of Crossraguel in Ayrshire, obtained by roasting a man alive ; or than of any trinkets he may have inherited from his ancestors the beadles, who, in the performance of their duty, hauled Hostess Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet to what were termed by Ancient Pistol "base durance and contagious prison," and who, by somewhat overstepping the exact limits of their function, may have obtained the said trinkets from the persons of those ladies. The analogy seems nearly com- plete. In both cases some antiquity of family is proved. And if the office of beadle temp, Henry V. should be con- sidered as not quite equal in dignity to that of lackey temp. Henry VIII., the greater antiquity of the beadle descent may, perhaps, make up the difference. In 1626 Henry Ire ton went to Oxford, as a gentleman- commoiler"or"TfImty College, and in 1629 he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts. Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Lord Bacon, mentions it as a remarkable fact, that the statesmen of Queen Elizabeth were all members^ of the University of Cambridge. He adds that Cambridge had the honour of educating those celebrated Protestant bishops whom Oxford had the honour of burning ; and at Cambridge were formed the minds of aU those statesmen, to whom chiefly is to be attributed the secure establish- ment of the Eeformed religion in the North of Europe. But of the men most distinguished on the side of the Par- liament in the great struggle of the 17th century, Oxford produced as many as Cambridge ; for while Cromwell Fairfax, Milton, Hutchinson, and Marvell wCTTtTainbridge men, Hampden, Pym, Vane, Blak^,andrreton were Oxford men. Of the men most distinguished on the side of the King, Cambridge produced nearly as many as Oxford ; for while Laud and Hyde were Oxford men, Strafford and VOL. II. R \ ■^ 242 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIL Falkland were Cambridge men. Hobbes also was an Oxford man, but Oxford repudiated him ; and if she could not burn him, as^^hetedbtTrned the Protestant bishops a century before^ 'sIieT)urned his works. For on* the 21st of July, 1683, the "Leviathan," at the same time with a book " Of Purgatory," had the honour to be condemned by the Convocation to be publicly burned in the "school- court or quadrangle."* ~*" ~ But 'ffiough the men educated at the two great English Universities do not afford any indication of the spirit of those Universities, the order of the Council of State, mentioned in the preceding volume, that a letter be written to Dr. Hill, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, respecting the students of that society willing to go to sea in the summer's fleet,^ shows that the Parliament considered that they had friends among the Cambridge students. I may add here, that no argument in favour of public schools can be drawn from the men of that time ; neither Hamp- den, nor Clarendon, nor Fairfax, nor Cromwell, nor Blake, having been educated at a public school. But of the public schools, Westminster would appear to have been then particularly conspicuous; and this was before the time of Busby, who was appointed head-master in 1640. Anthony Wood, speaking of Yane's early life, says he "was bred at Westminster School, with Sir Arthur Ha- selrig, Thomas Scot the regicide, and other notorious anti- monarchists."^ From Oxford, Ireton removed to the Middle Temple, where, as appears by the Society^s books, he entered as a student on the 24th of November 1629 ; but he was never called to the bar. I have already mentioned the important * Wood's Ath. Oxon., art. Hobbes." Tliomas » Vol. I. p. 59. 2 Ibid. art. "Vane." 165L] THE INNS OF COURT LIFE-GUARD. 243 part which the gentlemen of the Inns of Cou]-t took in the war between the King and the^ Parliament. I would add here, that besides Ireton, Lambert, Ludlow, and Michael Jones, the colonels of some of the most distinguished of the Ironside regiments had been members of the Inns of Court, as appears from the following passage of Ludlow^s Memoirs, which may be found to possess some interest, as giving an account of the origin of a corps of gentlemen forming a life-guard for the General of the Parliament, many of whom became afterwards distinguished officers : " Soon after my engagement in this cause," says Ludlow, " I met with Mr. Richard Fiennes, son to the Lord Say, and Mr. Charles Fleetwood,' son to Sir Miles Fleetwood, then a Member of the House of Commons ; with whom con- sulting, it was resolved by us to assemble as many young gentlemen of the Inns of Court (of which we then were), and others, as should be found disposed to this service, in order to be instructed together in the use of arms, to ren- der ourselves fit and capable of acting, in case there should be occasion to make use of us. To this end we procured a person experienced in military affairs, to instruct us in the use of arms ; and for some time we frequently met to exercise at the Artillery Ground in London. And being informed that the Parliament had resolved to raise a life- guard for the Earl of Essex, to consist of a hundred gentle- men, under the command of Sir Philip Stapleton, a Mem- ber of Parliament, most of our company entered themselves ^ It may be mentioned, as an in- stance of the inaccuracy of Noble {Memoirs of the House of Cromwell), that he describes Charles Fleetwood as having risen from the rank of a trooper in the Earl of Essex's forces ; whereas, as appears from what Lud- low here says, he was only one of a number of young gentlemen of the Inns of Court, who Tolunteered to form the Earl of Essex's life-guard, which was to consist of a hundred gentlemen. B 2 244 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. therein, and made up the greatest part of the said gnard ; amongst whom were Mr. Richard Fiennes, Mr. Charles Fleetwood (afterwards Lieutenant-General),Major-General Harrison/ Colonel Nathaniel Rich, Colonel Thomlinson, Colonel Twisleton " [who, as we have seen, as well as Fleet- wood, commanded a regiment of horse at Dunbar^] , "Colonel Bos well. Major Whitby, and myself, with divers others."^ Ludlow was ten years younger than Ireton, who, after having devoted some time and attention to the study of the law, left the Inns of Court long before Ludlow came there, and went to reside on his family estate in Nottinghamshire, where he was the neighbour as well as friend of his kinsman Colonel Hutchinson, and, according to Mrs Hutchinson, " a very grave, serious, religious person." When the Civil War broke out, Ireton was one of the very few gentlemen of Nottinghamshire (Sir Thomas Hutchinson and his son, the Colonel, being others) who undertook each to raise a troop of horse for the Parliament. Almost all the nobility and gentry of that county — including the Lord Chaworth and Sir John Byron of Newstead (afterwards Lord Byron), and all his brothers — were, says Mrs. Hutchinson, "passionately the King's."^ Ireton was major of a Nottinghamshire regiment of horse, of which Thornhagh was colonel, which joined Colonel Oliver Cromwell's regiment of horse before the skirmish near Gainsborough, when the King's troops were routed, and their commander. Sir Charles Cavendish, was killed. After this, Mrs. Hutchinson says, " Major ' This appears to contradict com- Member for Wiltshire in the Long Par- pletely the Royalist stories of Harrison's liament; and his honesty and veracity low origin ; since he here is enrolled have never been impeached, first in a company of gentlemen of ^ See Vol. I. p. 365 of this History, the Inns of Court, and then in the ^ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 43, General's Life-guard, consisting of a 44 : 2nd edition, London, I72L hundred gentlemen. Ludlow was * Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, himself the son of Sir Henry Ludlow, p. 117 : Bohn's edition, London, 1854. 1651.] IRETONS MILITARY CAREER. 245 Ireton quite left Colonel Thornhagh's regiment, and began an inseparable league with Colonel Cromwell, whose son- in-law he afterwards was." ^ Under the " New Model " of the army, Ireton accepted the appointment of captain in the regiment of horse com- manded by Algernon Sydney, who was at least ten years younger than himself; but he soon rose to be a colonel of horse, and, at Cromwell's express request, was nominated Commissary- General of the Horse, being the next officer in authority under Cromwell, who was Lieutenant- General of the Horse. Ireton also, by Cromwell's express desire, commanded the left wing of the Parliamentary army at Naseby. Here fortune went against him, for his wing was defeated by Prince Rupert, and he himself wounded and taken prisoner ; though, when Fairfax and Cromwell had gained the battle, he made his escape from his captors. Some modern writers have asserted that Ireton's military knowledge was equal, if not superior, to Cromwell's. What- ever his military knowledge might be, he certainly was not anything like so fortunate a soldier, not only as Cromwell, but as Lambert. For here, when Ireton had a splendid opportunity, fortune, which is everything in war, went against him ; while fortime never went against Cromwell, and, as has been shown in the preceding volume, the victory at Dunbar was due very much to Lambert, to whom Cromwell gave the command of the army that morning ; but, much or little, it was more due to Lambert than the victory at Naseby was to Ireton. In fact, Lam- bert showed at Dunbar something of that rare qualit}^, military genius, which Ireton, though he may have pos- sessed it, never, as far as I know, had any opportunity of showing. ' Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 161 : Bohn's edition, London, 1854. 246 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. I am not making these remarks for the purpose, in the least, of running down Ireton ; but I wish to obtain, as far as I can, a correct estimate of Ireton's abilities, with a view to the elucidation of the question of his influence upon the mind of Cromwell. Whitelock's criticism of Ireton's " Agreement of the People " was probably influenced by the clause excluding practising lawyers from Parliament. " The frame of this 'Agreement of the People,'" says Whitelock, "was thought to be, for the most part, made by Commissary- General Ireton, a man full of invention and industry, who had a little knowledge of the law, which led him into the more errors." ^ But when the fear lest Ireton should bring about those reforms which the lawyers were averse to was removed by his death, Whitelock speaks of him without disparagement, for he says : " This gentleman was a person very active, industrious, and stiff in his ways and purposes ; he was of good abilities for council as well as action, made much use of his pen, and was very forward to reform the pro- ceedings in law, wherein his having been bred a lawyer was a great help to him. He was stout in the field, and wary and prudent in councils ; exceedingly forward as to the business of a Commonwealth. Cromwell had a great opinion of him, and no man could prevail so much, nor order him so far, as Ireton could." ^ In regard to what is said above respecting Ireton's making much use of his pen, the numerous papers dravm up by Ireton are written in a clear, terse, and masculine style, and display a skilful command of language, as well as great knowledge and sagacity. * Whitelock's Memorials, p. 356. Ibid. p. 516. 16oL] THE ARMY'S REPBESENTATION TO PARLIAMENT. 247 The " Representation from His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax and the Army under his command, humbly ten- dered to the Parliament, concerning the just and fun- damental rights and liberties of themselves and the kingdom, with some humble proposals and desires in order thereunto, and for settling the peace of the king- dom," ^ was chiefly the production of Ireton ; and shows that, as early as June 1647, those who led the opinions of the army desii'ed, on grounds which are very clearly stated, " That some determinate period of time may be set for the continuance of this and future Parliaments, beyond which none shall continue, and upon which new writs may of course issue out, and new elections suc- cessively take place, accordmg to the intent of the Bill for Triennial Parliaments. And herein we would not be misunderstood to desire a present or sudden dissolu- tion of this Parliament ; but only, as is expressed before, that some certain period may be set for the determining of it, so that it may not remain, as now, continuable for ever, or during the pleasure of the present members. And we should desire that the period to be now set for ending this Parliament may be such as may give sufiicient time for provision of what is wanting, and necessary to be passed in point of just reformation, and for further securing the rights and liberties, and settling the peace of the kingdom." ^ Now the grounds on which this is put are so clearly stated, that the fact of Cromwell's being a party to * Printed at Cambridge, by Roger OflRcers and Soldiery under his coin- Daniel, printer to the University, with mand : J. Rush worth. Secretary." — the following tiat: "St. Albans, June Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 615-625. 14, 1647.— By the appointment of his • Ibid. p. 622. Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax, with the 248 COMMONWE.y.TH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XJI. them becomes a most important element in the solution of that complicated problem, the character of Cromwell. The grounds are these : " We are so far from designing or complying to have any absolute arbitrary power fixed or settled, for continuance, in any persons whatsoever, as that, if we might be sure to obtain it, we cannot wish to have it so in the persons of any whom we might best confide in, or who should appear most of our own opinions or principles, or whom we might have most personal assu- rance of, or interest in ; but we do and shall much rather wish that the authority of this kingdom, in a Parliament rightly constituted, free, equally, and successively chosen, according to its original intention, may ever stand and have its course ; and therefore we shall apply our desires chiefly to such things, as (by having Parliaments settled in such a right constitution) may give more hopes of justice and righteousness to flow down equally to all in that its antient channel, without any overtures tending either to overthrow that foundation either of order or government in this kingdom, or to ingross that power for perpetuity into the hands of any particular person or party whatsoever. ^^ The paper then meets the objection, that the change of the present Parliament may prove for the worse, as to the persons elected, with this argument — that the supreme power, or sovereignty, being " unlimited, unless in point of time, is most unfit and dangerous, as to the people's interest, to be fixed in the persons of the same men, during life or their own pleasures ; " but that a change or new election is required, in order " that the people may have an equal hope or possibility, if they have made an ill choice at one time, to mend it in another ; and the members themselves may be in a capacity 1661.] THE ARMY'S REPRESENTATION TO PARLIAMENT. 249 to taste of subjection as well as rule, and may be so inclined to consider of other men^s cases, as what may come to be their own,'' The paper then declares that in England, " by many positive laws and antient constant custom, the people have a right to new and successive elections unto that great and supreme trust, at certain periods of time ; which is so essential and fundamental to their freedom, as it cannot or ought not to be denied them, and without which the House of Commons is of very little concernment to the interest of the commons of England : yet in this we would not be misunderstood to blame those worthies of both Houses whose zeal to vindicate bhe liberties of this nation did procure that Act for the continuance of this Parliament, whereby it was secured from being dissolved at the King's pleasure, as former Parliaments have been, and reduced to such a certainty as might enable them the better to assist and vindicate the liberties of this nation (immediately before so highly invaded, and then also so much endangered) ; and this we take to be the principal ends and grounds for which, in that exigency of time and affairs, it was procured, and to which we acknowledge it hath happily been made use of; but we cannot think it was by those worthies intended, or ought to be made use of, to the perpetuating of that supreme trust and pouter in the persons of any, during their own pleasures, or to the debarring of the people from their right of elections totally, now when those dangers or exigencies were past, and the affairs and safety of the Commonwealth would admit of such a change,''^ The testimony of Whitelock as to the authorship of ' Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 620-623. l 250 COMJVIONAVEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. this paper is very important. "In these declarations and transactions of the armj/' says Whitelock, under date June 16, 1647, "Colonel Ireton was chiefly em- ployed, or took upon him the business of the pen ; and having been bred in the Middle Temple, and learned some grounds of the laws of England, and being of working and laborious brain and fancy, he set himself much upon these businesses, and therein was encouraged and assisted by Lieutenant-General Cromwell, his father- in-law,^ and by Colonel Lambert, who had likewise studied in the Inns of Court, a.nd was of a subtle and working brain." ^ We have in these two extracts, taken together^ some ex- ceedingly important evidence bearing on the characters of Ireton, of CromweU, of Lambert, and of that portion of the members of the Eump who pertinaciously resisted the dissolution of that remnant of the Long Parliament. The first things that must suggest themselves to the reader of the preceding extracts from the " Eepresenta- tion " of the army of the Parliament are, the cfearness and masculine force of the language, and the soundness of the constitutional knowledge, the more remarkable as coming from a body of soldiers— soldiers who formed a strange contrast to the cavalier Wildrakes who were their cotem- poraries, and a still stranger contrast to the Ensign Northertons who were their successors. And yet, the very same state of things which produced the illiterate ' Exactly one year before this time, daughter to Oliver Cromwell, Lieute- Ireton was married to the eldest rant-General of the Horse to the said daughter of Cromwell ; as appears Sir Thomas Fairf;tx, were married by from the following extract from the Mr. Dell, in the Lady Whorwood her Kegister of Marriages in the parish of house in Holton, June 15 1646 " Holtou, near Oxforl: "Henry Ireton. '^ Whitelock's Memorials, Jime 16 Commissary-General to Sir Thomas 1647. ' Fairfax, and Bridget, ♦ * # # 1651.] GENIUS OF CROMWELL AND MARLBOROUGH. 251 brutality of such military men as Ensign Northerton, and the captain in Hamilton's Bawn — who announced his opinion to be that Your Noveds, and Bluturks, and Omurs, and stuff, By G — they don't signify this pinch of snuff ! — produced a certain officer, by name John Churchill, nearly as illiterate as they ; who, even late in life, owned that for his knowledge of English History he was chiefly indebted to Shakspeare ; but who, nevertheless, performed military achievements which proved him to be a man of the greatest genius, for they furnished examples of the successftd exertion of some of the highest of man's reason- ing and inventive faculties. Men have sat on thrones, on woolsacks, in professors' chairs ; men have shone in pulpits, in senates, in courts of justice, in popular assemblies ; men have been commanders of armies, leaders of political parties, shrewd and energetic organisers of great popular movements ; nay more, men have for a time been oracles, dictators in philosophy and letters, without possessing any extraordinary portion of what is highest in human intellect. But to win great and decisive battles, in the face of such disadvantages and difficulties as were met and overcome by Cromwell and Marlborough, and to make a proper use of those battles when won, implies the possession, in a preeminent degree, of some of the higher faculties that distinguish man as man. And yet neither Cromwell nor Marlborough could have written the passages I have quoted from the " Repre- sentation " of the army of the Parliament ; while he who wrote it, though an able and well-educated man, and a good soldier, probably could not have won the battles won by Cromwell and by Marlborough. How then is the extraordinary influence which, by the 252 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. / concurrent testimony of many witnesses, Ireton possessed over the mind of Cromwell to be accounted lor P I think it may, without injustice to either of them, be accounted for by the sincere respect entertained by Cromwell for Ireton's 4iistorical and legal knowledge, so much greater than his own, as weU as for his capacity, 'honesty, and singleness of purpose. The mode of accounting for this influence adopted by Clarendon and others, that Ireton prevailed over Cromwell by his obstinacy, is childish. It is only weak people who are vanquished by the mere obstinacy of others. A strong, brave, clearsighted man like Cromwell would treat what is commonly understood by obstinacy with very little ceremony ; but he would treat with respect opinions formed deliberately and conscien- tiously, and supported by sound knowledge and clear and cogent arguments. Another thing that distinctly appears, from several passages in the extract given above from the paper which, though penned by Ireton, was penned, as Whitelock ex- pressly declares, with Cromwell's encouragement and assis- tance, is that Cromwell was at that time decidedly averse to the perpetuating of the supreme power in any man or body of men during their own pleasure; that therefore Cromwell's seizing upon that supreme power by force, and treating it so far as his own private property as to assume that he had a right to leave it, whether as an inheritance, or a gift by will,^ was a direct contradiction of his own ' It is commonly stated, on the authority of Secretary Thurloe — who, in his letter to Henry Cromwell, an- nouncing the death of his father, the Protector, says, " His Highness was pleased before his death to declare my lord Richard successor," — that Crom- well appointed his eldest surviving .^on Richard his successor. But in a pre- ceding letter of August 25, to Henry Cromwell, Thurloe says: " He did by himself declare a successor, in a paper, before he was installed by the Parlia- ment, and sealed it up in the form of a letter, directing it to me, but kept both the name of the person and the 1651.] IRETON A CHECK ON CROMWELL'S AMBITION. 253 opinions, in this writing deliberately and solemnly ex- pressed. These observations apply to Lambert equally as to Cromwell. In fact, the whole of Lambert's subsequent career shows him to have been a man devoid of principle, and, except as a mere soldier, devoid of talent for action. Cromwell and Lambert were thus both, to a certain extent, in the power of Ireton, who — having been assisted by them in those papers, which so clearly set forth the grounds of constitutional government, and being known to both of them as a man not to be turned aside from what he deemed the path of his duty either by interest or fear — formed an obstacle, which, if not insurmountable, was at least formid- able, to any attempt on the part of either to concentrate the supreme power in his own person. Besides, Cromwell, who was a man in whom the family affections appear to have been strong, liked as well as esteemed Ireton, and took a warm interest in his wellbeing and advancement. Mrs. Hutchinson tells a story which is illustrative of this. She says that Cromwell used his utmost endeavours to persuade Colonel Saunders into the sale of a place of his paper to himself. After he fell sick in such a drawer of a cabinet in his at Hampton Court, he sent Mr. John closet they should find his will. But Barrington to London for it, telling his daughter had disposed of it else- him it lay upon his study-table at where, and so they never came to the Whitehall ; but it was not to be found sight of it:'— Memoirs of Boger Earl there, nor elsewhere, though it hath of Orrery, prefixed to Orrery s State been very narrowly looked for." This Letters, vol. i. pp. 53, 54: Dublin, account appears to me to confirm the 1743. Though many of Mr. Morrice's statement made by the Rev. Thomas statements are of little value, even Morrice, chaplain of Roger Boyle, Lord when made on the authority of the Broghill,andfirstEarlof Orrery. This Earl of Orrery, who had a case to statement is : — " Cromwell had made make out for himself, there can be no Eleetwood his heir ; but one of his doubt that Lord Orrery had the means daughters, knowing where his will of being better informed than most per- was, took it and burnt it, before sons, in regard to some matters relating Fleetwood could come at it. When to Cromwell and his family ; and his Cromwell was asked who should sue- version of the matter above mentioned ceed him, he made no reply ; but said, may very possibly be the true account. 4 254 COMIVIONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. called Ireton, " which Cromwell earnestly desired to buy for Major-General Ireton, who had married his daughter."^ These facts furnish, of themselves, a sufficient answer to those modern writers, who treat with contempt the notion of Cromwell's being influenced by Ireton in this matter. But the case is yet stronger: for it is to be remembered that Ireton was at the head of a powerful army in Ireland, and that Lu dlow, ^ his second in command, was both an able and hardy soldier, and as firmly opposed as Ireton to the domination of Cromwell, or of anybody else. It is true that, if the matter came to the arbitrament of the sword — as a somewhat similar question had come, some 1,700 years before, also between a father-in-law and a son-in-law, at the Battle of Pharsalia — Ireton and Ludlow would have had to fight two men, Cromwell and Lambert, who were probably greater soldiers than they. Yet, in the great game of war, it is impossible for any human foresight to foretell the issue. And though Csesar thoroughly de- feated Pompey at Pharsalia, it was the opinion of General Sir William Napier, and of a greater authority, Napoleon Bonaparte, that at Dyrrachium, only a short time before the Battle of Pharsalia, Pompey had quite outgeneralled Csesar. When all these things are borne in mind, it will appear that it is a very shallow view of the question to treat with contempt the notion of Cromwell's being in- fluenced by Ireton. Cromwell knew his situation a little better than these modern writers, and would have regarded this mode of explaining him and his schemes as something even below contempt. I therefore consider it beyond a doubt, that Ireton was a check, and a very powerful check » Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, his appointment in Ireland to Crom- p. 324 : Bohn's edition, London, 1854. well. See Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. 2 Ludlow, as well as Ireton, owed pp.321, 322: 2ndedition, London, 172 L 1651.] IRETON'S SUCCESSOR APPOINTED. 155 upon Cromwell's restless ambition, and lust of domination and seTf^aggrandisement. But by*^Ireton's death Cromwell was at liberty to pursue the instincts of his nature, in which the most profound human calculation was combined with the fierce, quick, restless, ravenous instincts of a beast of prey. " Kean's Eichard the Third," says a writer who had had an opportunity of observing Napoleon Bonaparte, " reminded me constantly of Bonaparte — that restless quickness, that Catiline inquietude, that fearful somewhat, resembling the impatience of a lion in his cage." The other event, unfavourable to the Parliament, which I have mentioned as happening about this time, was connected with the appointment of a successor to Ireton in Ireland. On Wednesday, the 21st of January 165^, the Council of State ordered, " That it be humbly oflPered to the Parliament as the opinion of this Council, that Major-General Lambert may be appointed Commander of the military forces in Ireland, under the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if the Parliament shall so think fit ; and the Lord President of the Council is desired to offer this to the Parliament accordingly."^ On Friday the 31st of January, the Council ordered, " That a letter be prepared, in pursuance of an Order of Parliament of this day, to be sent to Major-General Lambert ; to inclose the vote of Parliament unto him, and to desire him to repair hither in pursuance of the said vote."^ There is so much difference between the account of this business given in the Memoirs of Ludlow, and the account of it given in the Memoirs of Mrs. Hutchinson, that probably either Lambert or his wife — who was, says Mrs. * Order Book of the Council of MS. State Paper Office. State, Wednesday, January 21, 165^, * Ihid. Friday, January' 31, 105^. 256 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. Hutchinson, " as proud as her husband "—had given some offence to that austere and haughty matron. And as we know little of Lambert's pedigree, a matter of immense weight with Mrs. Hutchinson, further than that he " is said to have been born of a good family, and to have been edu- cated for the bar," Mrs. Hutchinson probably considered it a piece of high presumption for a man, whom she might consider as only, at best, belonging to the " underling gentry,'" to aspire to the high place of Deputy of Ireland, while her husband. Colonel Hutchinson, was never thought of for such a post. Be that as it may, Mrs. Hutchinson tells a rather long story, in which Lambert's " pride " and "heart full of spite, malice, and revenge," are made to bear a very prominent part. But though Mrs. Hutchin- son's story is somewhat long, it fails to state the facts cor- rectly, and therefore need not be repeated. Two sentences of it, however, as characteristic of Cromwell's desire of missing no opportunity of advancing himself and his family, I quote :— "There went a story that, as my Lady Ireton was walking in St. James's Park, the Lady Lambert, as proud as her husband, came by where she was; and as the present princess always hath precedency of the relict of the dead prince, so she put my Lady Ireton below ; who, notwithstanding her piety and humility, was a little grieved at the affront. Colonel Fleetwood " [he was then Lieutenant-General Fleetwood] "being then present, in mourning for his wife, who died at the same time her lord did, took occasion to introduce himself, and was im- mediately accepted by the lady and her father, who de- signed thus to restore his daughter to the honour she had • A plirase of Mrs. Hutchinson. See Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 130 • Bohn's edition, London, 1854. f ;l ^oiMamiSitmita 1651.] CROMWELL'S CHILDREN. 257 fallen from."> It is observable that, whatever truth or falsehood there may be in this story, which Mrs. Hutch- inson gives as she heard it, she mentions " piety and hu- mility " as virtues really belonging to the widow of Ireton. And she is consistent in her account of Cromwell's children. She says afterwards : " His [Cromwell's] wife and children were setting up for principality, which suited no better with any of them than scarlet on the ape. His daughter Fleetwood " [the lady mentioned above as Ireton's widow] " was humbled and not exalted with these things ; but the rest were insolent fools." She afterwards says : "Richard was a peasant in his nature, yet gentle and virtuous — a meek, temperate, and quiet man, but became not great- ness."^ Mrs. Hutchinson's testimony on some of these points is very valuable, inasmuch as she, with a woman's instinct, has observed and recorded certain shades of character, which writers like Ludlow, whose attention was wholly directed to political and military matters, did not notice, or did not think worth recording. Her remark that Cromwell's children, with the exception of his daughter Bridget and his son Eichard (his eldest son Oliver, who was killed when young, must also be excepted), "were insolent fools," con- firms the stories told about his youngest daughter, Frances, who appears to have belonged strictly to that class of women, in whom two ruling passions predominate — The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.' Her love of pleasure was manifested in carrying on a » Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of of Marston Moor, would appear, from Colonel Hutchinson, pp. 360, 361: his father's estimate of him, to have Bohn's edition, London, 1854. been a youth of promise. * 3id. pp. 370, 376.— His eldest s The idea of Pope, that, while men son, Oliver, who was killed when very engage in the career of ambition partly young in a skirmish before the Battle from the love of its very trials and VOL. [I. S 258 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. flirtation with Jerry White, one of her father's chaplains, who was discovered by Cromwell " in the lady's chamber, on his knees, kissing the lady's hand." When Cromwell, in a fary, asked " what was the meaning of that posture before his daughter Frank," Jerry, with wonderful presence of mind, said, " May it please your Highness, I have a long time courted that young gentlewoman there, my lady's woman, and cannot prevail ; I was therefore humbly praying her ladyship to intercede for me." The result is so characteristic of Cromwell that the story may be true, though Oldmixon, who tells it, is no great authority : yet he says, " I knew them both, and heard this story told when Mrs. Wliite was present, who did not contradict it, but owned there was something in it." The Protector (the story says), turning to the young woman, cried, " What's the meaning of this, hussy? Why do you refuse the honour Mr. White would do you ? He is my friend, and I expect you should treat him as such." The young woman, with a very low curtsey, replied, " If Mr. White intends me that honour, I shall not be against him." " Say'st thou so, my lass ? " cried Cromwell. " Call Goodwyn ; this busi- ness shall be done presently, before I go out of the room." Goodwyn came : Jerry and " my lady's woman " were mar- ried in presence of the Protector, who gave her £500 for her portion ; and that, with the money she had saved be- fore, made Mr. White easy in his circumstances ; " except in one thing," adds the nairator, " which was, that he perils, and are then glad to escape from it to the quiet and repose of ob- scurity, —"every lady would be queen for life," irom the mere love of domineering, agrees somewhat with the distinction of Plato in applying the word fryefiovi- Khs to Zeus, and &aat\iKhs to Juno. — See Ast's note to Plato's Phadrus, p. 110 : — " 'Hye fioviKhv est sensu quem Sloici posthac nobilitdrunt, idea re- gons, quae principatum omnium rerum tenet, contra fiacriXiKhv, id quod potes- tatem suam regiam manifestat, im- perio exercendo ; ut dominationis cu- jusdam significatio in hac voce insit. Imperiosa enim Juno est." — Ast. 1651.] LAMBERT'S QUARREL WITH THE PARLIAMENT. 259 never loved his wife, nor she him, though they lived to- gether near fifty years afterwards." The love of sway of this daughter of Cromwell was manifested in the eagerness she displayed to become the wife of Charles II. Lord Broghill, afterwards Earl of Orrery — who, while living with Cromwell, carried on a secret correspondence with some persons about the King — had discovered that Charles was favourable to a design " of making a match betwixt His Majesty and one of Cromwell's daughters, the Lady Frances." But Lord Broghill failed in all his attempts to obtain Cromwell's consent to it. " Upon this my Lord withdrew, and meet- ing Cromwell's wife and daughter, they enquired how he had succeeded ; of which having given them an account, he added, they must try their interest in him ; but none could prevail."^ If " the Lady Frances " had accomplished her wish of becoming the wife of Charles Stuart, she would, most probably, have become acquainted with a somewhat disagreeable illustration of the vanity of human wishes. While, in jpnrsuance of the Order of Parliament above mentioned, Major-General Lambert was making great preparations to go over to Ireland, in the quality of Deputy to General Cromwell, the commission of the latter, as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, expired. There- upon the Parliament took that affair into consideration ; and many of the members affirmed that the title and office of Lieutenant of Ireland was more suitable to a monarchy than to a " free commonwealth." Neverthe- less, the question was likely to have been carried for the * Memoirs of Roger, Earl of Orrery, Boyle, the first Earl of Orrery, Lord by the Rev. Mr. Thomas Morrice, his President of Munster in Ireland:" Lordship's chaplain (pp. 40-43), pre- 2 vols., Dublin, 1743. — Burnet also fixed to "a Collection of the State Let- states that he had the story from Lord ters of the Right Honourable Roger Broghill's own lips. 8 2 260 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. 1G5L] CHAEACTER OF LAMBERT. 261 renewing of Cromwell's commission under the same title. But CromweU, says Ludlow, " having at that time another part to act, stood up, and declared his satisfaction with what had been said against constituting a Lieutenant in Ireland, desiring that thej would not continue him with that character. Upon which, the question being put, the Parliament, willing to believe him in earnest, ordered it according to his motion. He further moved that, though they had not thought fit to continue a Lieutenant of Ire- land, they would be pleased, in consideration of the worthy person whom they had formerly approved to go over with the title of Deputy, to continue that character to him. But the Parliament, having suppressed the title and office of a Lieutenant in Ireland, thought it altogether improper to constitute a Deputy, who was no more than the substi- tute of a Lieutenant ; and therefore refused to consent to that proposal, ordering that he should be inserted one of the Commissioners for Civil Affairs, and constituted Com- mander-in-Chief of the Forces in Ireland. In the manao-e- ment of this affair, Mr. Weaver, who was one of the Com- missioners of Ireland, but then at London and sitting in Parliament, was very active, to the great discontent of General Cromwell, who endeavoured to persuade the Par- liament that the army in Ireland would not be satisfied, unless their Commander-in-Chief came over qualified as .Deputy. Mr. Weaver assured them that, upon his know- ledge, all the sober people of Ireland, and the whole army there except a few factious persons, were not only weU satis- fied with the present Government, both civil and military, of that nation, but also with the governors who managed the same; and therefore moved that they would make no alteration in either, and renew their commissions for a longer time. This discourse of Mr. Weaver, tending to ' persuade the Parliament to continue me in the military command " [the command-in-chief, which he had held since the death of Ireton, his own command being that of Lieutenant-General of the Horse], " increased the jealousy which General Cromwell had conceived of me, that I might prove an obstruction to the design he was carrying on to advance himself by the ruin of the Commonwealth. And therefore, since Major-General Lambert refused to go over with any character less than that of Deputy, he re- solved, by any means, to place Lieutenant-General Fleet- wood at the head of affairs in Ireland. By which conduct he procured two great advantages to himself, thereby put- ting the army in Ireland into the hands of a person secured to his interest by the marriage of his daughter; and, drawing Major-General Lambert into an enmity towards the Parliament, prepared the latter to join with him in opposition to them, when he should find it convenient to put his design in execution."^ By the proceeding above described, CromweU secured the assistance of the ablest officer in the army, whom he, ac- cording to some accounts, further bound to his interest by " deluding him with hopes and promises of succession " to his place and power on his [Cromwell's] death; though Lam- ][)ert — who, though an able soldier, was a weak politician — discovered somewhat late that Cromwell " intended to con- firm the Government in his own family."^ Sir Walter Scott, in " Woodstock," has well expressed the opinion en- tertained of Lambert by the army : " If Lambert had been here," said Pearson boldly, " there had been less speaking and more action." "Lambert! What of Lambert?" • Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. Colonel Hutchinson, p. 372 : Bohn's 412-415: 2nd edition, London, 1721. edition, London, 1854. 2 Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of 262 COMx^ONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. said CromweU, sharply. "Only," said Pearson, "tliat I long since hesitated whether I should foUow your Excel- lency or him ; and I begin to be uncertain whether I have made the best choice— that's all." " Lambert ! " exclaimed Cromwell, impatiently, yet softening his voice, lest he should be overheard descanting on the character of his rival,— '' What is Lambert?— a tulip-fancying fellow, whom nature intended for a Dutch gardener at Delft or Rotterdam ! " The horticultural tastes of Lambert are noticed by Mrs. Hutchinson, who never misses an opportunity of having a fling at him. " Lambert," she says, " was turned out of aU his places by CromweU " [when he showed his indig- nation on finding how he had been swindled], "and re- turned again to plot new vengeance at his house at Wim- bledon, where he fell to dress his flowers in his garden, and work at the needle with his wife and his maids."^ Cromwell, having thus secured Lambert, then set himself to obtain the concurrence of Major-General Harrison, who, as well as Lambert, had a great interest in the 'army! This he did by working upon Harrison's fanatical delusions, teUing him that the course he was pursuing was the only course for securing the speedy advent of the reign of the saints.^ We are now in a position to see the extraordinary sig- nificance of those proceedings of Cromwell which imme- diately followed Ireton's death. ' IVIrs. Hutcliinson's Memoirs of the North of England ; that his horti- Colonel Hutchinson, p. 372, Bohn's culture is much spoken of, and that edition -The editor of Mrs. Hutchin- he is said to have painted flowers not son s Memoirs, in a note to this pas- to have embroidered them sage, says that, from a Life of Lambert =^ Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of which had been put into his hands, it Colonel Hutchinson, p. 262 Bohn's appears that Lambert enjoyed a good edition ; Ludlow's Memoirs, vol ii pp reputation among his countrymen in 563-566: 2nd edition, London 1721 1651.] MEETING AT THE SPEAKER'S HOUSE. 263 About a week after the execution of King Charles, it had been settled, Cromwell being one of the consenting parties to that settlement, that the " office of a King in this nation was unnecessary, burthensome, and dangerous," and the abolition of that office was voted accordingly.* It appears, however, that between February 1649 and De- cember 1651, Oliver Cromwell saw reason to change his opinions on this important point. For on the 10th of December 1651— and, what is very remarkable, only two days after he received the news of Ireton's death, which reached London on the 8th of December — " Cromwell," says Whitelock, " desired a meeting with divers Members of Parliament, and some chief officers of the army, at the Speaker's house ; and, a great many being there, he pro- posed to them, that now, the old King being dead, and his son being defeated, he held it necessary to come to a settlement of the nation. And in order thereunto, he had requested this meeting, that they together might consider and advise what was fit to be done, and to be presented to the Parliament." " He held it necessary to come to a settlement of the nation." Wliy? He and his brethren of the Rump had abeady fully settled the nation, two years before, in the way of what they called " a free Commonwealth." Why seek to reopen the question of settling the nation ? was a question that, if any of the abler men had been present — Blake, or Vane, or Ireton, who could never ask question more — would naturally have been asked. But it is a most significant feature of the business that this meeting was called within fourteen days after Ireton's death, and just two days after the news of that event had reached London ; and that none Commons' Journals, February 7, 1 64|. 264 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Ch^^p. XII. of the statesmen of the Council of State were present at it, as appears by the names of those who spoke, P'iven bv Whiteloek. ^ On the proposition, thus propounded bj CromweU, a discussion took place ; and it is remarkable that the point of importance in this discussion is a totally distinct one from that which formed the subject of the division of the House on the 18th of November, just twenty-two days before. The point is raised thus :— Whiteloch.—" I should humbly offer, in the first place, whether it be not requisite to be understood in what way this settlement is desired— whether of an absolute republic, or with any mixture of monarchy ? " Cromwell.— " Mj Lord-Commissioner Whiteloek hath put us upon the right point ; and, indeed, it is my meaning that we should consider whether a republic, or a mixed monarchical government, wiU be best to be settled ; and if anything monarchical, then in whom that power shall be placed ? " Whiteloek—" There may be a day given for the King's eldest son, or for the Duke of York, his brother, to come in to the Parliament ; and, upon such terms as shall be thought fit and agreeable both to our civil and spiritual liberties, a settlement may be made with them." Cromwell— "T\^^i will be a business of more than ordi- nary difficulty ; but really, I think, if it may be done with safety, and preservation of our rights, both as Englishmen and as Christians, that a settlement of somewhat with monarchical power in it would be very effectual." " Generally," adds Whiteloek, " the soldiers were against anything of monarchy ; the lawyers were generally for a mixed monarchical government, and many were for the Duke of Gloucester to be made King. But CromweU still 165L] A SETTLED QUESTION EEOPENED. 265 put off that debate, and came off to some other point ; and in conclusion, after a long debate, the company parted without coming to any result at all ; only Cromwell dis- covered, by this meeting, the inclinations of the persons that spake, for which he fished, and made use of what he then discovered."^ Now, it is certainly a strange proceeding that, not two years after the Government had been settled as what they called " an absolute republic without any mixture of mon- archy," one of those who had been a party to that settle- ment, and who in his individual character was certainly not a limb of the sovereign power in England, which sove- reign power was then the Parliament, should take upon him to call a meeting for the express purpose of considering the expediency of changing the Government. Was not this proceeding, in itself, an act of high treason against the State ? It was open to Cromwell to have propounded his question in the Parliament : but to propound it at a i3rivate meeting — for such this was, though held at the Speaker's house — was, to say the least, a most questionable proceed- ing. In fact, what Yane said on a subsequent occasion seems quite applicable to this proceeding — " This is not honest ! Yea, it is against morality and common honesty ! " There are certain important considerations, connected with this matter, which a man so clearsighted and saga- cious as Cromwell could hardly have overlooked, had not his mind been, as it were, fascinated by the idea which had taken possession of it — the idea of transferring the king- ship of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the family of Stuart to the family of Cromwell. Coleridge, in the course of his admirable analysis of the character of Pitt, says : • Whitelock's Memorials, p. 516. 266 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. " The influencer of his country and of his species was a young man, the creature of another's predetermination, sheltered and weather-fended from all the elements of ex- perience ; a young man whose feet had never wandered, whose eye had never turned to the right or to the left, whose whole track had been as curveless as the motion of a fascinated reptile." Great as was the difference, in other respects, between the characters and the careers of Pitt and Cromwell, in this one momentous particular the fate of the veteran statesman-soldier — the man who had fought his way to power, in a long series of battles, won by daring that never failed in the hour of trial, and by sagacity that was never at fault — resembled that of the man who, by an education which, according to Coleridge, though it des- troys genius will often foster talent, acquired a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words — a dexterity diverting his attention from things, from present objects, obscuring his impressions, and deadening his genuine feelings — and who persuaded himself and the nation, that extemporaneous arrangement of sentences was eloquence, and that eloquence implied wisdom. Thus, by becoming the slave of one tyrant idea, the man whose life had been so stormy, so diversified, so full of experience, died, as it were, to his former self ; so that the experience of all that stormy and eventful past was lost to him, and he became like a man " to whom the light of nature had penetrated only through glasses and covers ; who had had the sun without the breeze ; whom no storm had shaken ; on whom no rain had pattered ; on whom the dews of Heaven had not fallen ; — whose whole track had been as curveless as the motion of a fascinated reptile." How otherwise could a man like Cromwell have overlooked the consequences of such actions as he now 1 165L] COMMITTEE OF THE ADMIRALTY OR NAA^. 267 meditated ? The army and navy had sworn to the terms of the Covenant, which bound them equally to the King and to the Parliament. If therefore the Parliament, to which they had pledged obedience, should be destroyed, there still remained the royal party to that engagement, which party would then have no rival claimant on their duty ; for Cromwell was neither of the two parties specified in it. The state of the controversy would thereby be totally changed, as Whitelock very fairly told Cromwell ; though without effect, as might be expected, on a man who was infatuated — whose mind was, as I have said, fascinated — by one idea, which had obtained uncontrollable dominion over him. On Monday the 1st of December 1651 the members of the Council of State present were the following. I tran- scribe the list in the form and order given in the Order Book : — y Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw Sir Peter Wentworth Colonel Stapeley Mr. Masham Colonel Downes General Blake ^ Sir Henry Yane / Mr. Scott Colonel Morley Mr. Holland Earl of Pembroke Lord Viscount Lisle Mr. Martyn Mr. Challoner Mr. Bond Sir Gilbert Pickering Mr. Carew .y Mr. Burrell Mr. Herbert Mr. Salwey Mr. Hay Mr. Gurdon Colonel Wauton Colonel Purefoy Mr. NeviU Mr. Dixwell Sir William Masham Sir William Constable Lord-General Cromwell y (In all twenty-nine.) 268 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. The following were their first proceedings :— " That there shall be now chosen a President of the Council." " That a President shall now be chosen, to continue until this day month." " That Mr. Ser geant^ Bradshaw be Pr esident of the Council for the time expressed in the former vote" — L e,, " un^l this day month." " That Mr. Scott do acquaint Colonel Blake^ with the intelligence which he hath received, concerning the sending of some ammunition from Holland to the rebels in Ireland, to the end he may appoint some ships to prevent it, if possibly they can." " Memorandum. — All the members of the Council who were here present this day did take the oath of secrecy."^ On the following day, the 2nd of December 1651, the number present was twenty-eight. The business on that day consisted chiefly of the appointment of the various Committees, and settling the " Orders for regulating the Council, made 2nd December 1651," some of which were the same as those before given. Those which were new I will give in a subsequent page. On Thursday, the 4th of December, the Committee for carrying on the Affairs of the Admiralty was appointed. As this Committee may be considered the governing body which laid the foundation of the naval power o? England, so great was the importance of the actions of the English \ > This word is written sometimes only " Colonel," although he was " Ge- with a g, sometimes with a ;. neral-at-sea." '^ It will be observed that Blake is ^ Order Book of the Council of State, sometimes styled "Colonel," sometimes Monday, December 1, 1651, MS. State " General ; " his rank in the army being Paper Office. 1651.] AN ASSISTANT TO MILTON APPOINTED. navy during the ensuing year, I will transcribe the minute of the Order of the Council of State appointing the Com- mittee, and containing the names of the members com- posing it : — " That Sir Henry Vane, Mr. Chaloner, Mr. Bond, Lord- Commissioner Wliitlocke, Lord-Commissioner Lisle, Colonel Wauton, Colonel Purefoy, Lord-General [Crom- well], Colonel Blake, Colonel Martin, Mr. Nevill, Colonel Morley, Mr. Masham, Mr. Burrell, and Colonel Stapley, or any three or more of them, be a Committee for carrying on the Affairs of the Admiralty, according to the powers formerly given to that Committee." ^ - -^^ The following names are added in the margin of the Order Book: " Sir William Masham, added 17th August; Sir Peter Wentworth, Mr. Scott, added 19th August." On the following day (Friday, the 5th of December, 1651), the Council of State made the following order, which I transcribe, as an example of their unremitting vigilance in the performance of their duties, and their attention to minute details : — • " " That CEree small vessels, not exceeding 120 tons each vessel, be built to ply among the sands and the flats, for the securing those parts from pirates and sea-rovers, which do much infest and annoy the merchant-ships there trading." ^ On Thursday the 11th of March 165|, the Council of State ordered, " That Mr. Weckerlyn be appointed Secre- tary Assistant for the business of Foreign Aflairs, and shall have the sum of £200 per annum allowed unto him."^ There are various minutes expressive of the Council of 1 j ' Order Book of the Council of State, * /7^?W. December 5, 1651. Tuesday, Decemher 4, 1651, MS. State =» Bid. Thursday, March 11, 16oi. Paper Office. V COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. i / .State's sense of the services of Milton, to whom an assist- ant was here appointed, though the designation is usually " Secretary for Foreign Languages," not (as in the minute given above) "for the Fusmess^oTToreign Affairs." Thus, on the 18th of June 1651, tlie'Councffiha<5^ the following minute : — " The Council, taking notice of the many good services performed by Mr. John Mylton [s^c] , their Secretary for Foreign Languages to this State and Commonwealth, particularly of his Book in vindication of the Parliament and people of England against the calumnies and inven- tions of Salmasius, have thought fit to declare their re- sentment [sense] and good acceptance of the same ;'and U that the thanks of the Council be returned to Mr. Mylton, il and their sense represented in that behalf."^ In the beginning of the year 1652, John Lilburne again makes his appearance for a moment. Lilburne havino- joined in a petition with Josiah Prymate to the House, against Sir Arthur Haselrig— complaining of Haselrig's great oppression and tyranny, in seizing on certain col- lieries in the county of Durham, and overawing and directing the Commissioners to whom he had applied for relief— the said petition was, on the 16th of January 165^, voted false, malicious, and scandalous, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. Prymate and Lilburne were fined each £3,000, for the use of the Commonwealth ; £2,000 to Sir A. Haselrig, for damages ; and £500 apiece to the Commissioners before whom the cause had been heard. Prymate was also committed to the Fleet till pay- ment should be made ; and Lilburne was ordered to be banished out of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the terri- tories thereto belonging, and to suffer death in case of his • Order Book of the Council of State, June 18, 1651, MS. State Paper Office. ^ 1652.] JOHN LILBURNE. 271 return.^ The Parliament had thus got rid of their formid- able enemy Lilburne for the present, or, as they perhaps thought, for ever. But in that point they found themselves mistaken. For the unconquerable Lilburne returned, in defiance of their penalty of death, was again tried, and again acquitted. But, notwithstanding his acquittal, he was sent a prisoner by Cromwell to Elizabeth Castle, in the Isle of Jersey ; from which, being far gone in a con- sumption, he was finally liberated, but only to die. He died in August 1657, at the age of 39 — a memorable exam- ple of integrity, ability, and courage^ which, from the want of certain other qualities, may almost appear to have been bestowed in vain. In March 1652 the Island of Barbadoes, which had adhered ta-^'-fche royal cause, and hadf also protested against and determined to resist the Navigation Act, was reduced to the obedience of the Parliament by Sir George Ayscue. The fleet under Sir George Ayscue, appointed for this purpose, was for a short time diverted from its original destination, and ordered to make a part of the force under Blake for the reduction of the Scilly Islands. The words of the Order Book of the Council of State thus set forth the proceeding : — " That it be reported to the Parliament, that this Council, in pursuance of the Act of Parliament for the reducing of the Barbadoes, did cause to be prepared a fleet of ships for that service, consisting of seven sail, under the command of Sir George Ayscue." " That when the flefet aforesaid was ready to set sail, in prosecution of the said voyage, there being an 023por- tunity offered for the reduction of Scillies, the Council 1 Pari. Hist. voL iii. p. 1377. / d' i^ \ 272 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XII. ^ 1 r I thought fit to make use of that fleet for the said service J at Scillies. And were instrumental for effecting the *• same." "That there are aboard the said fleet many persons that were banished thence, and who had suffered much for their fidelity and good affection to this Commonwealth, who expect their passage thither in the said fleet. "^ The character which Clarendon has given of this Sir George Ayscue (or Ascue, as he writes it) may be taken as an example of that vrriter's maiiher of drawing cha- racters. " Ascue," he says, " was a gentleman, but had kept iU company too long, which had blunted his under- standing, if it had been ever sharp ; he wari5f few words, yet spake to the purpose, and to BreasiTy understood. ' ' ^ ObseiTe the contradiction here. Lord ClarencTon doubts if Ayscue's understanding had been ever sharp ; yet he describes him as a man of few words, who spoke to the purpose. And he was, on the whole, a very suc- cessful commander. The inference then is, that he was a very able man, whose understanding was not blunted by the '^ ill company " he kept; as if the company of Blake, and Vane, and Cromwell would have been more likely to blunt a man's understanding than the company of King Charles, James Duke of Tork, and Prince Eupert !— which were surely a strange conclusion. • Order Book of the Council of State, June 12, 1651, MS. State Paper Oince. ^ Continuation, vol. ii. p. 354, 8to. Oxford. CHAPTER XIII. It has been shown, in a preceding chapter, • that the Council of State of the Commonwealth of England, in their selection of Oliver St. John as their Ambassador Extraordinary to the United Provinces, were as much aware of the importance of that part of their duty which was (to use the words of Blake) " to keep foreigners from fooling us," as they showed themselves awake, in the selection of Blake as their Admiral, to that other and still more important branch of their duty, which was " to keep foreigners from thrashing us." The con- summate falsehood of the Italian and Spanish politicians of the 16th century was by no means extinct in the 17tli century. The power of that Spanish monarchy, indeed, which had formed the design of becoming master of the whole world, by the systematic use of disciplined brigands, colossal falsehoods, and sacerdotal cruelty, had fallen, as it would seem, to rise no more. A part of its power, and a part also of its ambition, had passed to those tenants of the Netherland swamps, who had fought so long and so bravely against its tyranny, and now formed the Dutch Republic. Some sixty years before, when Elizabeth Tudor was Queen of England, and was engaged in a war against the Spanish oyrant, "English sol- diers and negotiators " — to borrow the apt words of a modern historian, whose laborious researches have laid open many mysteries of iniquity — "went naked into a VOL. II. ' Chapter IX, T 274 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. Xni. 1651.] THE DUTCH AMBASSADORS. 275 ^ contest with enemies armed in a panoply of lies."* I do not believe that the 17th century differed much from the 16th, generally, as regards the matter of falsehood. A considerable resemblance might, indeed, probably be shown to exist between the character of Louis XIV. of France and that of PhiKp 11. of Spain. But during those years of the 1 7th century in which England was under that Government called the Commonwealth, neither Dutchman, nor Frenchman, nor Spaniard, nor Italian could gain any advantage, either in diplomacy or war, against those states- men, so skilful '- to unfold, Tlie drift of hollow States, hard to be spell'd, Then to advise how war may best upheld Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold.^ i The statesmen who composed the English Council of State were men far too clearsighted to be deceived by the expedient resorted to by the Dutch, of sending over to England ambassadors-extraordinary under the pretence of treating about peace. The Dutch writers themselves admit that this measure of sending ambas- sadors-extraordinary was but an expedient to gain time, in order to make better preparation for war. " But," says the author of the " Life of Cornelius Yan Tromp," son of the great Dutch Admiral, Martin Harpertz Tromp, " in regard the late long war they had had with Spain, had not yet given them time enough to recover their > Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vol. ii. p. 356. ^ Milton's Sonnet to Sir Henry Vane.— The Wh'fertif " The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt." (printed in the year 1662, small 4to), who was a personal friend of Sir Henry Vane, at p. 93 of his work, mentions this sonnet as having been sent to Vane, "July 3, 1652." And the words he uses are curious, as showing that Milton was at that time really a "mute inglorious Milton." He speaks of the sonnet as " a paper of verses, composed by a learned gen- tleman, and sent him, July 3, 1652." strength, they chose rather to temporise awhile with England, than to embroil themselves hastily in a new war. They, therefore, employed all sorts of means ima- ginable to divert that storm, by hastening to send ambas- sadors into England. Accordingly, Heers Cats, Schaap, and Vanderperre were despatched to London in that quality, who were received there with great honours, but yet in such a manner as gave no promise of a happy issue of their negotiation."' The admission on the part of the Dutch, that " their ambassadors were received with great honours, but yet in such a manner as gave no promise of a* happy issue of their negotiation," proves that, in the punctilious courtesy with which the English Council of State treated the Dutch Ambassadors, there was no thought of imitating the Spanish falsehood of Philip II. of Spain, or the Italian falsehood of his general, Alexander Farnese. Not that such an imitation was by any means impossible for men born in England's *' cold and cloudy clime," as the feats of two individuals, by name George Monk and Oliver Crom- well, fully proved. These two men — like those members of Charles II. 's Pension Parliament, who, according to Andrew Marvell, " never lied more than when they pro- fessed to speak the sincerity of their hearts"^ — while wearing the demeanour of plain blunt soldiers, could, and habitually did, use as much dissimulation as the greatest Italian or Spanish masters of the art. Both Cromwell and Monk have had unqualified ad- mirers; and we need not wonder if they had, since tyranny, maintained by ability and courage, has never > The Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, to petition for a New Parliament." — p. 12: London, 1697. MarveWs Works, vol. ii. p. 555: 4to, ' " A Seasonable Argument to per- London, 1776, suade all the Grand Juries in England t2 276 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIIL wanted panegyrists ; and the writers who applaud strong energetic tyrants may, like the Greek sophist who wrote a panegyric on Busiris, indulge the ambition of soaring *bove vulgar prejudices. But, after all, truth is truth, and honour is honour ; and it will not be ten thousand treacherous tyrants, nor ten million apologists of their crimes, who will be able to make falsehood pass for truth, villany and baseness for integrity and honour. Monk, indeed, has no pretensions to the dignity of the great gamesters who play for empire with loaded dice. He i^an soar no higher than the sale of a nation for a dukedom and a large sum of money ; and the honour of having inscribed on his monument, " Vendidit Uc auro patriam:' It would be a waste of time to argue with such a man's panegyrists— as much as to argue the question of selling one's country, with that profound and unprejudiced poli- tician, who, when charged with selling his country, replied by thanking God that he had a country to sell ! The English Parliament having, as we have seen, soon after the Battle of Worcester, passed an Act known as the Navigation Act,i forbidding the importation of merchan- dise in other than English ships, the Dutch— who, as being at that time the great carriers of Europe, saw that they would be thereby losers to a great amount— resolved to send ambassadors to the English Parliament, to endeavour 1651.] RECEIVED WITH PUNCTILIOUS COURTESY. 277 ' It may be mentioned, as one ex- ample, amid innumerable others, of the ignorance generally prevalent respect- ing this period of English History, that the Navigation Act is cited by modern writers, generally well informed, as having been passed under the Govern- ment of tlie Protector Cromwell. The writer of the " Life of Cornelius Van Tromp" (London, 1G97)— which work, though that is not stated either in the preface or on the titlepage, appears to be a loose translation of the Dutch "Leven Van Tromp," cited by Mr. Granville Penn (vol. i. p. 499)_speaks of the Government of England as if it had passed at once from the tyranny of the Stuarts to that of the Protector Cromwell.— i?/e of. Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 11. to obtain their former advantages, and to desire that alliance with the English Commonwealth which, before the Battle of Worcester, they had haughtily refused. Their object in sending these ambassadors was, however, chiefly to gain time to complete their preparations for war, and, according to a cotemporary writer, " partly also to inform themselves what naval forces the English had ready, and how the people here were contented with the Government."^ The proceedings of the Council of State contain some indications ominous of what was to follow. The Dutch Ambassadors were, however, received with punctilious courtesy.^ On the 16th of December 1651 the Council of State made an order, " That Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, do repair unto Gravesend, to the Lords Am- bassadors from the high and mighty Lords the States- General of the United Provinces, and bring them up to-morrow to Sir Abraham Williams's house. And he is to give notice of their coming to the Members of the Council who are appointed to meet them, that they may accordingly do it."^ On Tuesday the 30th of December 1651, the Council of State ordered, " That audience shall be given to the Lords Ambassadors from the States-General of the United ' Hobbes's Behemoth, p. 286 : Lon- don, 1682. 2 This account is confirmed by the Dutch author of the "Life of Cornelius Van Tromp," p. 12, in a passage which I will quote presently. ^ Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, December 16, 1651. MS. State Paper Office. — On January 8, 165i, there is an order — "That the sum of £235 2,3. 9 Order Book of the Council of State, Wednesday, January 14, 165^, MS. State Paper Office. " That foras- much as it is not thought fit that the Lord-President Whitelock should act during the time of his Presidency, that there should be a sixth person added, and that Colonel Purefoy be that person." — 3id. same day. 2 3id. Friday, February 20, 165^.— About six weeks before, they had passed an order, " That Mr. Milton be continued secretarie for foreign lan- guages to the Council for the year to come." — Ibid. Monday, December 29, 1651. '«Mr. Milton's" office was asc suredly no sinecure. The minutes show that a very great number of papers was sent from the Council of State to the Dutch Ambassadors, all of which had to be translated into Latin by " Mr. Milton." ' Ibid. Monday, February 2, 165^. 1651.] THE BUSINESS OF AlVIBOYNA." 285 Again, on Thursday the 5th of February, there is the following order respecting the ominous business of Am- boyna : — " That the business concerning Amboyna, and also the debate of what shall be insisted upon by the Council in the treaty with the Dutch, be taken up on Wednesday next in the afternoon."^ The " business of Amboyna," here referred to, and gene- rally known in English History as " the Amboyna Mas- sacre," may serve well to mark the difference^etween the Government of James I. and the Government which now managed the affairs of England. The English, under a Government which was at once bad and cowardly, had long complained of oppression on the part of the Dutch in their East India trade. At last an event occurred which made a deep and lasting impression on the minds of Englishmen. In February 1623, Captain Towerson and nine Englishmen, nine Japanese, and one Portuguese sailor, were seized at Amboyna, under the accusation of a conspiracy to surprise the garrison, and to expel the Dutch ; and having been tried and subjected to the tor- ture — which, under the civil law, was a regular part of a judicial enquiry, and a common method of extorting evi- dence from alleged criminals in all the kingdoms of Con- tinental Europe, and Holland among the rest — were pro- nounced guilty and executed.^ " The accusation," says the historian of British India, " was treated by the Eng- lish as a mere pretext to cover a plan for their extermi- nation. But the facts of an event, which roused extreme » Order Book of the Council of Paper OiEce ; Bruce's Ai\nals of the State, Thursday, Februarys, 165^, MS. East India Company, vol. i. p. 256; State Paper Office. Mill's History of British India, vol. i. 2 East India Papers in the State pp. 46-50 : 3rd edition, London, 1826. 286 C0M3I0NWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIII. indignation in England, have never been exactly as- certained."^ Be that as it may, we may safely pronounce that it was an event which could not have occurred, except at a time when all the world knew that England was under the government of a profligate coward, who from his child- hood to his latest hour had never felt one throb of gene- rous feeling or of manly indignation ; and who reserved all his favour for miscreants such as Somerset and Bucking- ham, and all his indignation for those who, like the Euth- vens, refused to become the victims and accomplices of his own monstrous vices and crimes. It followed, as a matter of course, that the application made to this King, to obtain signal reparation from the Dutch Government for so great a national insult and outrage, was totally fruitless. What cared the Whitehall Solomon for the tortures and the death of nine or ten Englishmen, who in his estimation were but gutterbloods, not having in their veins one drop of the blood of Stuart ? But since that dark and evil time a change had come over the English Council Board, at which one Eobert Blake now sat, instead of George Yilliers Duke of Buckingham, as representative of the Admiralty and of the naval honour of England among the nations of the earth. On Tuesday the 10th of February 165^, the Council of State made the following order : — " That the Commissioners of this Council, appointed to treat with the Lords Ambassadors from the high and mighty Lords the States-General of the United Provinces, do meet with their said Lordships to-morrow morning, being Wednesday, at the hour of 9, at the usual place in Whitehall. And Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, is to have notice hereof, that he may attend * Mill's History of British India, vol. i. p. 46: 3rd edition, London, 1826. 1651.] WOEK OF THE COUNCIL AT THIS TIME. 287 upon the said Lords Ambassadors to the place appointed accordingly."^ On Thursday the 12th of February the Council made the following order : — " That Wednesday next be appointed for the Committee for Foreign Affairs to bring into the Council a paper of demands to be made to the Dutch Ambassadors by the Council on the behalf of this Commonwealth."^ And on the 25th of February the Council of State made the following ominous orders, at a meeting at which Blake was present, but neither Cromwell nor Yane : — " That the paper now read, of demands to be made to the Dutch Ambassadors, be translated." "That the English copy of "the said demands be signed by the Lord President." "That it be referred to the Committee for Foreisrn Affairs to prepare and bring in on Friday next a demand to he made concerning affronts done to this Commonwealth, now debated at the CounciU'^ At this time the Council of State had work enough on their hands ;'* for while they presented this undaunted front to the Dutch Eepublic, they showed an aspect equally stern and inflexible to the King of Spain. About a year before an ambassador from the King of Spain had arrived in London, and had been admitted to an audience by the Parliament ; to which he had been conducted through streets lined with that L*onside cavalry — a strong body * Order Book of the Council of missioner Whitelock be desired, in State, Tuesday, February 10, 165^, MS. respect of the man^ weighty affairs State Paper Office. now in hand, to attend the public * iZ>/^. Thursday, February 12, 165^. service at the Council, notwithstand- ^ Ibid. Wednesday, February 25, ing his other employment." — Order 1 65|-. Book of the Council of State, Thursday, * This is manifested in the follow- February 26, 165^, MS. State Paper ing minute: — " That the Lord-Com- Office. 288 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIII. of them being drawn up " at the Broad Place at Whitehall"^ — whose unequalled military qualities threw into the shade the best troops of his master's ancestor Philip II. — even " the famous Terzio of Naples, the most splendid regi- ment ever known in the history of war." 2 The Council of State on that occasion ordered " a guard of the horse that are in town, mounted in their defensive arms, and that such part of them as shall be thought fit, stand in a body at the Broad Place at Whitehall— Major-General Harrison to see the order put in execution." ^ The Council were willing that the Spanish ambassador should see some of that magnificent cavalry, to whom might have been fitly ap- plied the term employed to describe the invincibility of that Republican horse regiment called " the Brazen Wall " from its never having been broken. At that audience he had declared the substance of his embassy to be to express the King of Spain's great desire of establishing a peace and good correspondence with the Commonwealth of England.'' There was a condition pre- cedent, however, on which the Parliament insisted, but which the King of Spain appeared either unable or un- willing to fulfil. For, more than a year after the Ambas- sadors' audience, we find the following minutes, which show the high and determined tone taken by the Council of State : — " That it be referred to Mr. Martin and Mr. Nevill to draw up answer to the first paper of the Spanish Ambas- sador concerning the murder of Mr. Ascham, and present the same to the Council."^ '-*' » Order Book of the Council of State, December 24, 1650, MS. State State, December 24, 1650, MS. State Paper Office. Paper Office. 4 p^^.^ jj^^^ ^^j j.j ^ ^3^^ 2 Motley's History of the United » Order Book of the Council of Netherlands, vol. ii. p. 456. State, Thursday, January 8, 165^, MS • Order Book of the Council of State Paper Office. 1651.] RAPID RISE OF THE DUTCH NAVAL POWER. 289 " That Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, do carry to the Spanish Ambassador a copy of the Order of Parliament, whereby it is referred to the Council to demand a sight of the powers of the said Ambassador of the King of Spain, and report the same to the Par- liament." ^ " That the paper that was given to the Spanish Ambas- sador, to insist upon justice to he done ujpon the murtherers of Mr. Ascham, be reported to the Parliament. And the Lord-Commissioner Whitelock is desired to make the report." ^ And again, on the 10th of November, 1652, the Council directed a paper to be delivered to the Spanish Ambassador, " wherein it is to be insisted that satisfaction be given con- cerning the murther of Mr. Ascham in Spain, by doing justice upon the mui-therers of him." ^ It has been remarked by Lord Macaulay, that the reigns of princes, such as Augustus and Philip II. of Spain, who have established absolute monarchy on the ruins of popular forms of government, often shine in history with a peculiar lustre ; and that the valour, the intelligence, and the energy, which a good Constitution has generated, being directed by one despotic chief, seem, at least during the first years of tyranny, able to conquer all the world. But there is another process, directly the reverse of this, which seems to inspire an all but resistless energy into a nation. This process is exemplified in the case of a nation that has been long oppressed, and has at last, by a fierce and desperate struggle, shaken off its oppressors, and recovered that liberty which it had not known for ages. The French ' Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, January 8, 165|, MS. State Paper Office. VOL. II, U 2 3id. Tuesday, February 17, 165^. ' Ibid. "Wednesday, November 10, 1662. 290 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIII. 165L] ADVANTAGES OF THE DUTCH. 201 Revolution affords one memorable example. Another is afforded by the rise and process of the Dutch Eepublic. The Dutch, after a long and desperate struggle, having succeeded in shaking off the grinding oppression of Spain, sprang up with marvellous rapidity into the greatest naval Power, not only at that time in the world, but the greatest that the world down to that time had ever seen. The Dutch enterprise, energy, and valour seemed to promise an indefinite expansion to their colonial empire, which abeady, in half a century of liberty, had grown to be only inferior in extent to that of Spain. And while their fleets of war were the most powerful in the world, and their admirals the best the world had ever seen, their merchant-ships were the great carriers of the world, not only carrying on the interchange of commodi- ties between all parts of Europe, but bringing to Europe the products of the most distant parts of the globe, from the fish of Newfoundland to the spices and silks of India.* In estimating the value, or at least the magnitude, of a victory, the genius of the commanders of the vanquished fleets or armies is an essential element in the question. One of the greatest generals of any time commanded the French at Waterloo. But surely the French admirals who were defeated at the Nile and Trafalgar cannot for a moment be compared to Tromp and Euyter, whose ' The Journal kept by Admiral Sir William Penn, when cruising in search of Prince Rupert, published by his great-grandson, Mr. Granville Penn, in his "Memorials of Sir William Penn," furnishes abundant evidence of the great amount of the Dutch merchant-shipping. I give the following extract as curious in the matter of the flag : " October 26 (1651), Sabbath day. — Presently after noon here (New Gibraltar Eoad) ar- rived thirteen sail of Hollanders, all from Malaga, bound (as they say) home under the convoy of young Tromp, who came in with his flag in the maintop, which I said nothing to, being in the King of Spain his port."— Memorials of Sir William Penn, vol. i. pp. 378, 379. conqueror's bones lie in an ignominious pit somewhere near the bottom of the street at the top of which towers Nelson's column of victory. At the commencement of this great struggle, the advan- tages appeared to be on the side of the Dutch. The whole of the herring and cod-fisheries, together with the commerce of almost aU the world, had rendered the Dutch the most powerful nation at sea that "^ the world at that time had ever seen ; for they were probably a greater "ft naval power than the Spaniards when they fitted out the Great Armada. They had also greater admirals than the Spaniards ever had — greater, indeed, than at that time had ever appeared in the world. The number of their trad- ing and fishing vessels probably exceeded that of all the other European nations put together. The TJtrtnh also were naturally elated by their suc- cesses against the Spaniards, who before them had been the greatest naval power in the world ; and they had a very great number of well-trained seamen. The vast confluence of seafaring men from all the Northern nations of Europe, drawn by the fame of their commerce, furnished them, without pressing, with such numbers of able seamen, that to wage war with them was — particularly when it is con- sidered that the Kings of Europe more favoured the Dutch than the English — to wage war against a great part of Europe. In fact, in the course of this war, their High Mightinesses (as the title of the Dutch Republic ran) had the audacity to issue a proclamation, like Napoleon's Berlin Decree, against English manufactures, and inter- dicted all correspondence and communication with the British Islands, taking upon them selves to place those islands in a state of naval blockade. Besides the great number of ships of war which they possessed at the beginning of u 2 I 292 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [CHA.P. XIII. I60L] REGULATIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 293 o the war, sncli were the riches of the United Provinces at that time, when Amsterdam and Rotterdam were the great exchanges of Europe, that even during this war, which was finished in less than two years, they built sixty ships of uncommon size and force. The Dutch ships were built flatter-bottomed, and therefore drew less water, than the English, and were thus more capable of sailing among the shallows, where they often found a secure retreat when chased by the enemy. The English ships being built of tougher wood, and with sharper keels, were less subject to splinters, and fitter to dispute the weather- gauge, " which," says an old writer, " they seldom failed to gain, though not always to their advantage." ^ While for the last fifty years the Dutch had been thus rising into the greatest naval Power that the world down to that time had ever seen, the English, under the mis- government of the Stuarts, had been sinking into a con- dition of decrepitude such as England had not known for a thousand years ; and it was only since the death of Charles I., in January 1649, that the able and energetic men who then took upon themselves the English Government had full leisure and opportunity to turn their attention to naval affairs. The success which had attended their armies, and the promise afforded by the first exploits of their navy, when they had placed Blake in command of it, afforded them good grounds for believing that, by due attention to the administrative details of their naval affairs, they might now be able to assume a very different tone * Columna Eostrata, or a Critical the three Dutch wars) are proved, History of the English Sea Affairs ; either from original pieces, or from wherein all the remarkable actions of the testimonies of the best foreign the English nation at sea are de- historians. By Samuel Calliber : Lon- scribed, and tlie most considerable don, 1727, p. 93, 1 vol. 8vo. events (especially in the account of towards the pretensions of the Dutch from that of the Governments that had preceded them. I have shown, in the preceding volume,^ the peculiar advantages arising from the composition of the Council of State. I have shown that the chances of having the Government administered with ability and vigour were much greater when the power was placed, as in the case of the English Council of State, in a really deliberative Council, in which the President had no more weight than any other member, and which consisted of such a number (the number actually present sometimes amounted to nearly forty) ^ as would give a good chance of their being some men amongst them of ability for government, whose arguments and opinions would determine the deliberations of the whole body, than when the power is placed in what is called a Cabinet Council, consisting of a small number ; and of that small number many are mere cyphers, and domineered over by a man called the Prime Minister, who may be a man who owes his position to qualities very dif- ferent from the qualities of a great statesman. It is im- portant to adduce proofs that the conclusions of this Council of State were adopted after the most careful deliberation, and the most ample discussion. The orders made by the Council for regulating their proceedings furnish ample proof of this. One of their orders is, "^hat whenever any matter or business is propounded and in debate, no man shall interrupt it by^ofeing^any new business till that shall be finished, unless such as cannot « tJ . « » ■ — 1 Vol. I. p. 119. of this Council who are about the 2 Thus on February 27, 165f, the town to come to the Council to-morrow number present was 38. The day be- in the afternoon." — Order Book of the fore an order had been made, " That a Council of State, February' 26 and 27, summons be sent to all the members IGof, MS. Stat^ Paper Office. 294 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIII. bear delay." ^ Another is, " That while any business is in debate, ho members of the Couricil BhaH eiltertain any private discourse one with another, at the Board, but attend the matter in debate, that they may give their counsel and opinion in it as they shall judge fit for the Commonwealth ; and in case any shall so discourse or speak to one another, the President for the time shall put them in mind of their breach of order. And ilie persons speaking to the business sliaitiforbea^ to speak till those private discourses cease and all the members attend." * It will be observed what cafeful' precautions are taken, — particularly in that order given before, and requiring that every matter propounded shall not only be seconded, but thirded,^ — against a great nation's being driven into mea- sures that might involve consequences of the most tremen- dous nature by the will or the passions of any one man. If England had possessed such a Government as this Council of State in 1853, it is not too much to say that she could not have been driven or " drifted," as she was, into the Crimean war. Mr. Kinglake says, in his " History of the Invasion of the Crimea," that " upon the papers as they stand, it seems clear that, by remaining upon the ground occupied by the four Powers, England would have obtained the de- liverance of the Principalities without resorting to war ; "^ but that she was driven into a war, which cost her a hun- dred million sterling, by the passions and the interests of one man in France and another man in England,^ who domineered over the feebler members of the Council called the English Cabinet, somewhat in the way Carteret had • Order Book of the Council of orders, ante, p. 78 of this volume. State, December 2, 1651, MS. State » Ante, p, 78. Paper Office. * Kinglake's Invasion of the ' Ibid, same day. — These orders Crimea, vol. i. p. 455. were not given before. See the other ^ Ibid. pp. 446, 447. 1651.] CONTRAST BETWEEN 165§ AND 1853. 295 done about a century before ; for that man may perhaps be said to have borne, in some respects, a certain resemblance to Carteret, whose head was always fall of Continental politics, of schemes for humbling the House of Bourbon ; and who, says Macaulay, " encountered the opposition of his colleagues, not with the fierce haughtiness of the first Pitt, or the cold imbending arrogance of the second, but with a gay vehemence, a good-humoured imperious- ness, that bore everything down before it." It is melancholy to think how small an advance man has yet made in the art of government when he can be driven to have his blood shed and his pockets picked with impu- nity by such means as these. Who can wonder at the success of great conquerors like Caesar and Cromwell in imposing their yoke upon the necks of mankind, when he sees such things done by men without the splendour of their genius or the magic of their great achievements ? Nevertheless the will of one man, even of the most power- ful despot on the earth, like a Eussian Emperor Nicholas, or of the most able despot, like an Oliver Cromwell or a Napoleon Bonaparte, has proved itself but a blind guide compared to a resolution struck out from the grave debate and conflicting arguments of the band of masculine and powerful intellects composing the Council of State of the Commonwealth of England. In order to obtain all the instruction from the proceed- ings of this Council of State which they are calculated to give to after-ages, it is important to attempt to discover whether their anxious care to ensure every safeguard against any important resolution's not receiving the due attention would extend to such a case as that of most of the members of the Council being asleep when any impor- tant business was propounded to them. The order which 29G COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIII. 1651.] BLAKE'S COMMISSION. 297 4 I have transcribed above, that " in ease any of the members shall speak to one another, the President for the time shall put them in mind of the breach of order, and the persons speaking to the business shall forbear to speak till those private discourses cease, and all the members attend,'' par- ticularly the last four words of it, appears to meet even such a case as this. And the other two orders, " That whatever is propounded, seconded, and thirded be put to the question if none of the members speak against it ; and when a business is resolved by the question, the secretary shall enter the vote into the book," appear likely to render it almost impossible that any business of importance should pass the Council while " all the members of the Council except a small minority were ov^come with sleep,"* or were even " careless and torpid." ' How otherwise, in- deed, can it have happened that this Council of State so seldom made a false step ; that, except in the case of their trial of John Lilburne, in their administration of domestic affairs, as well as in their wars, and the management of their fleets and armies, they displayed such undeviating good sense and sagacity, and attained such signal success ? History may indeed be pronounced to be nothing better than an old almanack, if such lessons as are given to man- kind by the construction, the regulation, and the mode of action, of this great English Council of State of the 1 7th century have been given in vain. On the 4th of March, in pursuance of an order of Par- liament of the 25th of February, the Council of State granted a commission to Robert Blake to command the fleet for nine months, in the following terms : — " By virtue of the power to this Council committed by the present Parliament, we do hereby commissionate you ' Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea, vol. ii. p. 94. 2 jf^^ i to hold and execute the place of Admiral and General of the said fleet or fleets, and you are hereby authorised and required, &c. &c. . . . And this power to continue for the space of nine months. Given under the seal of the Council the fourth day of March 1651 [165^. " Signed, &c. "Philip Lisle, President."^ On the 15th of March, the Victuallers of the Navy were ordered " to make provisions for 2,500 men more than the 7,500 abeady declared for ; and the provision was to be made at Jjondon and Chatham."^ The Order Book contains a great number of orders during this month of March relating to the details of the navy— orders which manifest the unremitting vigilance of the Council of State at this important crisis;- Letters are ordered to be written to all parts of Britain, respecting the providing of iron ordnance for the defence of Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, and other places exposed to attack by sea ; " to take speedy care to send all the serviceable and unserviceable brass ordnance to the Tower of London ; " ^ for the march of companies of foot, and troops of horse, to the parts where they are required ; * for the transmission of stores of powder, and great and small shot and " match proportionable;" "for such repairs and erecting such forts as shall be found necessary— the soldiers to be put to work on this— and also the country people to be caUed in and set to work,^ Lieutenant-Colonel Roseworme to be » Order Book of the Council of President for the month following, State, Thursday, March 4, 165^, MS. signs his name thus— " John Lisle, State' Paper Office.— Philip, Lord President." Viscount Lisle, eldest son of the Earl » Ibid, Monday, March 15, 165i. of Leicester, who was Lord President » Ibid. Wednesday, March 10, 1Q5^. of the Council of State for this month, * Ibid, same day. always signs his name thus. The Lord * Ibid, same day. Commissioner Lisle, who was Lord 298 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIIL immediately sent down as Engineer to view the places which are defective ; ' for the sending np to London " all the loose iron gnns that lie along the coast of Scotland in places of no security ; and all the loose iron ordnance that are to be spared upon all the coast of Scotland ; for 500 carriages for guns to supply emergencies." ^ The Council's mode of proceeding is further shown by the foUowing orders ; which, in regard to the care to ascer- tain the fitness of those ships which had been already so long at sea " to be continued out two or three months longer," exhibit a striking contrast to the neglect of such a precaution in the case of Blake's fleet, when Cromwell had superseded the Council of State, and was more intent upon the intrigues for his own further aggrandisement than upon the welfare of the great admiral and his sea- men, and the efficient condition of his fleet :— " That it be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty to prepare an account, to be given to the Council, of what ships are already appointed for this summer's guard, and the several stations to which they are appointed, and the tmie when they wiU be ready; and likewise to take into consideration what ships more may be necessary to be set forth, and what other officers for the commanding of the fleet may be thought fit to be made choice of; and also what general instructions are to be given to the comman- ders of the fleet for the direction of them in their employ- ments ; and to report their opinions to the Council upon the several matters referred to with all possible speed • and they are to send for the Commissioners of the Trinity House, or any other persons whom they shaU think fit, to c./.^lT/^''!' ""^ ^^' ^°"°^^^ «^ MS. state Paper Office. State, Wednesday, March 10, 1651 ^ y^,-^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ j^,.. 1652.] APPOINTMENT OF JOHN THURLOE. advise with from time to time upon any of those matters." ^ " That all the members of the Council he added, for the matters above referred, to the Committee of the Admiralty ; and that they do sit every afternoon in the Council Chamber at 2 of the clock:' ^ " That the Council do proceed to the nomination of a Yice-Admiral and Eear-Admiral of the fleet to be for this summer's service." ^ " That a letter be written to General Blake, to cause a survey to be made of the four ships now with Captain Penn, which ar^'commgln— -viz. the Fairfax, Centurion, Adventure, and Assurance— of their fitness to be continued out two or three months longer, if there be occasion, and to certify the same to the Council.^ ^ Abotit this time Walter Frost died, and was succeeded as secretary to the Council of State by John Thurloe, who was to have " after the rate of £600 per annum."^ " Walter Frost, the son of Walter Frost, the elder, was continued in his place of assistant secretary to the Council of State." It wiU be perceived that this was rather less than Walter iVost had had, his salary having been forty shHlings per diem.6 But as Thurloe was to have lodgings in WhitehaU, that would fuUy make up the difference ; that is, provided Frost had not lodgings rent-free, a fact which I have not ascertained. However, on the 1st of December foUowing, the Council of State ordered " That Mr. Thurloe have after the allowance of £800 for the year to come, for and in con- 1 Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, March 23, 1651. MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid, same day. » Ihid. Wednesday, March 24, 165^. * Ibid, same day. * Ibid. Thursday, April 1, 1652. « See Vol. I. p. 117 of his History 300 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIII. sideration of his attending as Clerk to the Council and the Committee for Foreign Affairs." * " That convenient lodgings be provided for Mr. Thurloe in Whitehall, for the better enabling him to execute his place." 2 " That it be declared to Mr. Thurloe as the pleasure of this Council, that no fees are to be demanded or taken of any persons for any orders or despatches of the Council." ^ On the 2nd of April it was ordered, " that Sir Henry Yane and Sir WiUiam Masham be added to the committee which meets with the Dutch ambassadors;" and also " that Sir H. Vane and Mr. NeviUe be added to the Com- mittee for French Affairs." ^ The Council of State saw that it was now time to put an end to the solemn farce of the negotiation which the Dutch carried on. On Monday, the 5th of April, it is ordered " That in the conference with the Dutch ambassa- dors it he insisted upon that an answer be given by the said ambassadors to the paper of demands." ^ The demands, moreover, went on increasing in number, and that grim subject of Amboyna was never lost sight of. Thus on Monday, the 12th of April, the Council of State ordered, " That the several petitions this day brought into the Council concerning the sufferers at Amboyna, and other depredations done upon the English in the East Indies by the Dutch, be referred to the Committee for Foreign Affairs, who are to take the same into consideration, and thereupon prepare a paper of further demands to be made of the Dutch ambassadors, if there shall be occasion, and to bring the same into the Council." « On the same day also an order was made " to press an answer to the paper of demands, ' Order Book of the Council of ^ Ibid, same day. State, December 1, 1C52, MS. State < Ibid. Friday, April 2, 1652. Paper Office. 5 jbid. Monday, April 5, 1652. ■' Ibid. Thursday, April 1, 1652. « Ibid. Monday, April 12, 1652. 1652.] "THE PROLOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY." 301 and the 36 articles." ' And on Thursday, the 15th of April, it is referred to the Committee for Foreign Affairs to consider of what /mother proposals and demands are fit to be prepared to be given to the Dutch ambassadors.^ And again on the following Thursday, the 22nd of April, the Council ordered, " That it be referred to the Committee for Foreign Affairs to prepare a paper in answer to the Dutch ambassadors' paper this day read to the Council ; in which paper it is to be insisted upon that answer be given by the said ambassadors to the paper of demands formerly given unto them from the Council ; and to certify the mis- takes which were contained in their paper this day read ; and further to signify unto them that the Council will ap- point a conference to be had with them upon the 36 articles, to the end there may be no delay on their part in the carrying on of the Treaty." ^ A fortnight after, namely on Thursday, the 6th of May, there occurs the fol- lowing minute, which affords corroboration to the evidence already given that the negotiation was likely to terminate not in peace but in war : — " That the petition of divers sea-commanders, mariners, and orphans, suffering in the East Indies by the Dutch, be referred to the consideration of the Committee for Foreign Affairs." * It will be needless to give any further attention to the negotiation with the Dutch ambassadors ; while they were still going on, an event occurred, on the 19th of May 1652, in the English Channel off Dover, which, says the author of the " Columna Rostrata," " was the prologue to the tragedy that was afterwards acted by the mightiest enemies that ever sailed upon the sea." On that 19 til of May, the Council of State, who had on the 15th of April ordered men not tb be pressed off ships • Order Book of the Council of 2 //„-^. Thursday, April 15, 1652. State, Monday, April 12, 1652, MS. » Ibid. Thursday, April 22, 1652. State Paper Office. * Ibid. Thursday, May 6, 1652. \ 302 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIIL outward bound, made the following order as to pressing : " That warrants be immediately issued out to the several captains of ships yet in the river that they forthwith hasten into the Downs, with power to press men out of any merchants' ships as well outward hound as inward, so that they take but a fourth part of the men in each ship ; and none of the officers in such ship are to be meddled with upon this occasion."^ This order had not been made without the careful deliberation that marked all their pro- ceedings. In the afternoon meeting of the Council on the preceding day an order had been made, " That it be re- ferred to the Committee of the Admiralty to consider how men may be furnished to the State's ships, notwithstanding the prohibition of taking men off merchants' ships which are outward bound." ^ " That Sir Henry Vane be President of the Council imtil this day month." ^ On Wednesday, the 19th of May, the Council of State ordered : — "That Captain Penn shall be Vice- Admiral, and that Captain Bourne shall be Bear- Admiral, for the summer's service." * " That it be recommended to the Lord-General Cromwell to give order to such foot officers in Kent as are with their forces near the shore, that they be in such a posture that, if order come from the General of the Fleet or Vice-Admiral to that purpose, they may be ready to go on board and observe such orders as they shall receive from the said General or Vice-Admiral. And also that such other foot as are farther off the coast may be drawn nearer in order to the aforesaid service." * ' Order Book of the Council of 1652. State, Wednesday morning, May 19, « /i/^. Monday, May 1 7 1652 ^^f'J^'r^^^'l ^'""P'" ^^''- * ^^'''^' Wednesday, May 19, 1652. Ibid. Tuesday afternoon, May 18, » Ibid, same day. CHAPTER XIV. There is no part of the history of that English Govern- ment, called the Commonwealth, which has been so unfairly dealt with as its naval administration* It would seem as if the memory of it had been cast with the body igf^lake into that pit in Westminster Abbey yard ; and as if those who were not ashamed to do such a deed thought that they might appropriate to themselves all the honour due to the wisdom and valour of the great Admiral to whose mortal remains they had done so mean and cowardly an insult.— -^^,— ________>« — -^ 'Btrtr though the dust of Blake, to whom no writer, to borrow the words of Samuel Johnson, " has dared to deny the praise of intrepidity, honesty, contempt of wealth, and love of his country," sleeps not within the venerable pre- cincts of Westminster Abbey l"and though the country he served so well has ffiven him no monument with effigy graven by a cuimmg hand; though it has refused him even a tomb, as if it made itself a party to the "mean revenge*' which insulted" Mg body, by dragging it from the place where it had been entombed, as Johnson says, " with all the funeral solemnity due to the remains of a man so famed for his bravery, and so spotless in his integrity ; " yet it may be said of Blake, when his deeds and his claims to honourable remembrance are compared with those of the many great men entombed within that renowned cemetery preefulgebat, eo ipso quod effigies ejus non visebatur." t i £C I I 304 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. So likewise the attempts of the men of the Eestoration to consign to eternal oblivion the great naval achievements of the Commonwealth, will but recoH upon themselves For they wiU force ns to ask why so many writers have passed over, as a total blank, this by far the most impor- tant period in England's naval annals ; and what are the claims of those to whom has been given the credit of all tlie great naval achievements of the admirals of the Com- monwealth ? Let the reader first look on the picture of the Council of State of the Commonwealth given in the preceding pao-es • that Council in which "the persons speaking to^he business in debate shall forbear to speak till those private discourses cease, and all the members attend." ^ And then let him look on this picture of the Cabinet Council of Charles 11. "Lord!" says Pepys, "how they [the Council] meet l-nerer sit down-one comes-another goes-then comes another; one complaining that nothing IS done, another swearing that he hath been here these two hours, and nobody come ; " or the King playing with his dog all the while, and not minding the business, or saying something " mighty weak ;" or the Duke of Buck mgham, for the amusement of His Majesty, making mouths at the Chancellor-or "my Lord ChanceUor or my Lord General sleeping and snoring " the greater part of the time at the Council table. Such being the Council, what were the men employed by them? " The more of the cava- hers are put in, the less of discipline hath followed in the fleet ; and, whenever there comes occasion, it must be the old ones that must do any good. . . . In the sea-service It IS impossible to do anything without them, there not bemg more than three men of the whole King's side, that Offic?.''" """' "' ''"'''"""' '' ''^^'^' ^^^^-^- 2. 1651. MS. State Paper 1652.] 1652, THE GREAT NAVAL EPOCH OF ENGLAND. 305 are fit to command [ships] almost."^ Soon after the above comes a passage in Pepys, on a subject on which the Restoration might be greater than the Commonwealth — namely, the matter of new periwigs, gold buttons, and "silk tops for my legs, being resolved," says Pepys, " henceforth to go like myself."^ The year 1652 was, in truth, the great naval epoch from which the naval history of England dates its origin. Nevertheless, while some writers have given to Cromwell all the credit of all that was then done, other writers Iiave passed over this momentous period as a total blank ; and have given all the honour that belonged to those great statesmen and their great Admiral, to that reign, never to be remembered by Englishmen without mdig- nation and^^shame, Trhen u King of England, while crowds of unpaid and starving seamen swarmed in the streets of the seaports, and clamorously beset the gate of the Navy Ofiice in London, could still si)are money from his harlots, not to pay the starving seamen, to whom it belonged, but to corrupt the members of the House of Cbinmons ; to that reign when the English people saw a Dutch fleet sail up the Medway, and burn their ships in their very har- bours, and when the Dutch cannon startled the effeminate tyrant in his palace. Those Englishmen whose nature had not'1)een thoroughly corrupted by debauchery and falsehood^ might, in that dark and evil time, reflect with bitterness of spirit on the contrast between that Council of State, whose fleets and armies had made England famous and terrible over the world, and that Cabinet Council of Charles II. whose proceedings resembled those of a pack of mischievous baboons. » Pepys^s i^iary, JuiTe 2 and 24, ' " The year Sixty [1660], the jp^iid 1663. epoch of falsehood as well as de- - Ibid. OctoLerSO, 1663. hixnchcryy^ South. "■'^'"^ VOL. II. X"*"^ ) r II 11 306 COMMONWEALTn OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. 1652.] BllEAKING THE ENEMY'S LINE. 307 \ While some writers have passed over entirely this period of our naval annals, Clerk, in the Introduction to his " Naval Tactics," and Charnock, in the Preface to his " Marine Architecture," have given altogether erroneous accounts of the great sea-fights of 1652-3. They have stated, having no accurate records of the operations to guide them, that in those sea-fights of 1652-3, the English did not fight in line, but '' promiscuously, and all out of order." Whereas we have the distinct alid express testi- mony of Admiral Sir William Penn, that the English fought in line whenever they beat the Dutch. ^ And not only was the principle of fighting in line, but also that of breaking the line, known and acted upon in that famous Dutch war of 1652 3. It appears, from the authorities cited below,^ that so far from the English fleet engaging in line for the first tim.e in June 1665, and breaking through the enemy's fleet for the first time in April 1782, the English fleet performed both those operations in June 1653. Indeed, it is ridiculous to suppose that a man of such intelligence as Blake should have fiiiled to perceive what Lord Eodney has so well described in his note, printed in the third edition of Mr. Clerk's book ; Mr. Clerk's friends having erroneously claimed for him the idea of breaking the enemy's line as a new discovery. " It is well known," says Lord Eodney, • Popys's Diary, July 4, 166G; white. This shows that the fleet Granville Penn, vol. i. p. 40L was regularly formed in line, or (as in * See Sir Joseph Jordan's " Journal this case) in column. Ludlow says, on the Vanguard, 1653," copied from |* Lawson, who commanded the blue tlio original MS. of Vice-Admiral (af- squadron, charged through the Dutch terwards Sir Joseph) Jordan, found fleet with forty shiipH."— Memoirs, vol. among the papers of Sir William Penn, ii. p. 466 : 2nd edition, London, 1721. and printed in Granville Penn's "Me- Again, in Monk's report of the action morials of Sir William Penn " ( vol. i. of July 31, 1653, he says : "The Bcso- pp. 622-540). Sir Joseph Jordan's hitio77, with the Worcester frigate, led Journal states that on Juno 2, 1653, the English fleet in a desperate and the blue or rear-admiral's squadron gallant charge through the whole Dutch fli-st came into action, then the general's fleet." Mi- ikd, and then the viee-admirul's or " that attempting to bring to action the enemy, ship to ship, is contrary to common sense, and a proof that that admiral is not an officer, whose duty it is to take every ad- vantage of an enemy, and to bring, if possible, the whole fleet under his command to attack half or part of the enemy, by which he will be sure of defeating the enemy, and taking the ]3art attacked ; and likewise defeating the other part by detail,' unless they make a timely retreat. During all the commands Lord Eodney has been entrusted with, he made it a rule to bring his whole force against part of the enemy's, and never was so absurd as to bring ship against ship when the enemy gave him an opportunity of acting otherwise." " » Mr. Granville Penn (vol. ii. p. 358) by way Of slill ful-ther proof that the idea of dividing an enemy's lino and defeating the divided parts does not owe its origin to Mr. Clerk, but was familiar long before, quotes these words : " Le due pouvait aisement se- jmrer une partie de la Jiotte de r autre et la battre separtment.''^ — Basnage, Annales des Provinces Unies, torn. i. p. 741: published in 1726. ^ I quote this note of Lord Rodney, which explains the whole subfecl both of outflanking and of breaking the line with admirable clearness and brevity, from Mr. Granville Penn's "Memorials of Admiral Sir William Penn," vol. ii. p. 354: London, 1833. "Here Lord Eodney," observes Mr. Granville Penn, " has placed the manoeuvre upon its true ground of sound common sense acting in a mind moulded to practical seamanship. AVhat has given so disproportioned a character of sagacity to this operation has been the manner in which it was presented to the world by Clerk, who, profess- be no seaman, nor ing himself to ever to have been at sea, but fond of scientiflcally contemplating naval evo- lutions in the abstract, was forcilJy struck with the ingenuity and sound- ness of the idea which had suggested itself to his mind in his closet, and proclaimed it in a tone of exultation, from which he would have abstained had he been a seaman — a proceiding not uncommon with persons of inge- nuity, who hit upon a point in a science foreign to their vocation, and who are induced to think that they have struck out something quite new, because they are not aware that others have already thought of it. * * * * That it was original in Clerk is reasonably to be inferred, because he had no ex- ample to guide or instruct him ; but that Sir Charles Douglas (Rodney's flag-captain), or Lord Rodney, de- rived the idea from Clerk, cannot with any reason bo insisted on, now that we have discovered that conmiauders placed in similar circumstances with those disti\iguished officers, conceived and used the idea more than a century before Clerk appeared." This last X 2 I 808 COMMONWKILTII OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. I have not the least doubt that Blake acted on this princple throughout his career. To do so only required that amount of sagacity and courage which Blake pos- sessed, and which in their highest degree may be called genius. It may be almost superfluous to add, that the above-mentioned operation in n^val affairs is equivalent to what IS ca led the " flank movement " in military affairs. One of the best examples of the operation and effect of this flank movement in naval affairs, of which what is called breaking the enemy's line " is only one form, is Nel- son s mode of attacking the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, by placing a part of the French fleet between two parts of his own fleet, and thus defeating the enemy's whole fleet. At the Battle of Trafalgar Nelson's fleet accomplished the same object by breaking through the enemy s fleet in two places. Tliough the real cause of the war on the part of the Dutch was, to use the words of Hobbes, " their greediness to en^gro^traffic". yet, as this was an argument which they could not very well put forward, they chose to be<.in the war by refusing to strike the flag, or acknowledge The Enghsh dominion of the seas. The Dutch showed good policy m making the question of the flag the pretext for the war ; since this pretext had the colour of resisting a t,.anny which all the great maritime nations were equally With them concerned to oppose. statement is made to meet the follow- he om^U r^,,f v • ing obsen-atlon, which naturally sug- m^be add /whip"''"- f "'^ " gested itself, and which Mr. Granvilte hylZ '''^*''^''' ^''='' ^pammondas did Penn quotes in a note- "ThToMv ^ '•""^' """•"*"■' 2.000 years before wonder," says the Qulrterly Review ^^f^'^'" -^^^om. Steam and gun- operation should not have been dh- !"i " ^"T" ""^^ ''? *"*■'"» covered, and practi.sed ceneranv a T ^"'^^^''' ">e intellectual su- oontury before Either Kod^;::';^;.,.,^ "ZL" ^ ri^LT" '"-- was bom. It ,s only acting l,y sea ■ II„bbes's I^ emoth ^S7 T .ha. Bonaparte d,d by land, wherever don,. 1682 ; an.f:;: ^.J I'lM' 1652.] ENGLAND'S CLAIM TO THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG. 309 Sir William Temple carries back the claim of Eno-land to the dommion of the seas surrounding Great Britain as far as the year 960.^ What was implied by ITiis dominion of the'^^a-fe j ^^"f^garded the honour of the flag, is explained by the 13th article of the Treaty of Westminster (5th April, 1654), which article is this : "That the ships and vessels of the said United Provinces, as well those of war as others, which shall meet any of the men-of-war of this Commonwealth in the British seas, sliall strike their fla there is an admission in the Dutch " Life of Cornelius Van Tromp," which is greatly in favour, if not absolutely conclusive, of the view that Tromp was the aggressor. It is stated, as a reason for laying aside Tromp for a time, that his having not been so fortunate in his last undertakings as was ex- pected was " looked upon as a judgment u;pon him, for being the cause of that great warJ"^ I will now allow Blake to tell his story in his own clear, plain, and simple language, as he told it in his letter to • See partici^lurly Dixon's " Eobert ^ Life of Cornelius Van Tromn, Elake, pp. 192, 193 :— new edition, p. 72. pp. 158, 159. 1652.] FIRST FIGHT BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH- 317 the Council of State, dated "From aboard the James, / three leagues off the Hyde, the 20th of May, 1652." ' ^ Tromp having, as stated, stood away, as if his intention was to avoid, as Blake thought, the dispute of the flag ; and having two hours after altered his course, so as to bear directly down upon Blake's fleet, and to come, as Blake asserts, within musket-shot without strikinof his flag", the legitimate conclusion was that Tromp did this in direct bravado and defiance of the fleet of the English Common- wealth ; and, consequently, no other course was left for Blake, in the strict execution of his duty, than that which he pursued, as thus described by himself. It is important to observe that the words " being come within musket - shot " mean that Tromp came within musket-shot ; for Blake had said, just before, " We lay by, and put ourselves into a fighting posture " : — " Being come within musket-shot, I gave order to fire at his flag, which was done thrice : after the third shot he let fly a broadside at us. Major Bourne, with those shi2:>s that came from the Downs, being eight, ^ was then making towards us. We continued fighting till night ; then our ship [his own ship, the James~\ being unable to sail, by reason that all our rigging and sails were extremely shat- tered, our mizenmast shot ofi; we came, with advice of the captains, to an anchor about three or four leagues off the Ness,^ to refit our ship, at which we laboured all the night. This morning we espied the Dutch fleet, about four leagues distance from ours, towards the coast of France ; and, by advice of a council of war, it was resolved to ply to windward to keep the weather-gage ; and we are now ready ' Tromp, in his letter to the States with Blake was fifteen. — Life of the Netherlands, calls the number Corndim Van Tromp, p. 17. of Bourne's ships twelve. Ho admits, ^ Dungeness. however, that the nnmber of ships of 318 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. 1G52.] THE DUTCH WAR BEGUN. 319 to let fall our anclior this tide. What course the Dutch fleet steers we do not well know, nor can we tell what harm we have done them ; but we suppose one of them to be sunk, and another of thirty guns we have taken, with the cap- tains of both : the mainmast of the first being shot bj the board, and much water in the hold, made Captain Lawson's men to forsake her. We have six men of ours slain, and nine or ten desperately wounded, and twenty-five more not without danger; amongst them our master, and one of his mates, and other officers. We have received about seventy great shot in our ^ hull and masts, in our sails and rigging without number, being engaged with the whole body of the fleet for the space of four hours ; being the mark at which they aimed. We must needs acknowledge it a great mercy that we had no more harm, and our hope is the righteous God will continue the same unto us, if there do arise a war between us ; they being the first in the breach, and seeking an occasion to quaiTel, and watch- ing, as it seems, an advantage to brave us upon our coast. " Your most humble servant, " Egbert Ulake."* A V It may be mentioned, as a proof of the difficulty of ob- taining accurate and thoroughly trustworthy accounts of the numbers engaged on such occasions, that Algernon Sydney, who was not only a cotemporary, but a member ./ ' By " we " and " onr " Blake means his own ship, \\m Jariu'»—\\\^ Admiral's flag- ship on this occasion. '^ Blake to the Council of State, "from aboard the Janus, three leagues off the Hyde, May 20, lGo2." " That Mr. Thurloo do prepare an extract of the several letters which have come to the Council, giving an account of the fight between the Dutch fleet and the English fleet in the Downs, as also of that made by Captain Young off Ply- mouth; and bring the same to the Com- mittee of Foreign Affairs to-morrow morning, who are to sit for that pur- pose." — Order Bonk of the Council of State, Monday, May 24, 1G52, MS. State Paper Office. / of the Parliament at this very time, says — " When Van Tromp set upon Blake in Folkestone Bay, the Parliament had not above thirteen ships against threescore."^ Where- as the Parliament had fifteen ships with Blake, which, with the eight brought up by Bourne, made twenty-three against forty, the number of the Dutch, stated in Blake's letter to the Council of State. Also, the English ships were gene- rally larger than the Dutch, carrying more guns and more men. But there is truth in the further remark of Sydney, which only does justice to the obstinate valour of Blake and his seamen, that the Parliament at this time " had not a man that had ever seen any other fight at sea than between a merchant-ship and a pirate, to oppose the best captain in the world, attended with many others in valour and experience not much inferior to him."^ A nation that could at once produce such an admiral as Blake out of an Oxford student, and such a supply of naval fighting-men out of her merchant -seamen, assuredly may laugh at the menaces of the world in arms agairist her. On Thursday the 20th of May, 1652, in the Council of State, an order to make stay of all Dutch ships in all the ports throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, was nega- tived when put to the vote. But in the afternoon of the following day, an order passed, " That the letters prepared to be sent to the several ports, concerning the stay of what ' Discourse concerning Government, chap. ii. sect. 28. 2 Algernon Sydney, ibid. — Algernon Sydney's father, the Earl of Leicester, has also stated the numbers inaccu- rately in his Journal: "Wednesday, May 19, 1652.— There was a fight at sea, betwixt Dover and Folkstone, be- tween Van Tromp, Admiral of the Hollanders' fleet, consisting of forty- two men-of-war; and Robert Blake, Admiral of the English fleot, consi.^^t- ing then only of about 14 sail. This was the first fight between the nations, and lasted from 4 o'clock in the even- ing till after 8, when the Dutch went away with loss of two ships." — Journal of the Earl of Leicester, in Bleucowe's Sydney Vapirs,-^.lZb: London, 1820. 320 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. Dutcli ships are in tlie several ports of this nation, be sent "1 away On the 20th of May, the Council of State made the following" orders : — " That the Commissioners of the Navy, some of the Ti-inity House, and the officers of the Ordnance, be sent unto to come to the Council to-morrow morning, at 7 of the clock."* " That Lieutenant-Colonel Kelsey be despatched down to Dover Castle, and be authorised, if there be occasion, to reinforce himself, and to entertain 200 or 300 soldiers, over and above what he hath in garrison, for a month, which the Council will pay ; and he is to give frequent in- telligence to the Council of what shall pass in the Downs, between the fleet of the Commonwealth and the Hollanders ; and he is likewise to take care that the town of Sandwich may be encouraged to stand up in their own defence, against any attempts which shall be made upon them."^ " The Council of State being certified of a fight at sea, occasioned by a fleet of ships of war belonging to the States of the United Provinces against the ships of this Commonwealth, by which action, especially during the time of the treaty begun and continued by the Lords Ambassadors of the said States with the Parliament, when the same could be least suspected or justified ; the Council, doubting that many people, being thereby highly incensed, might make attempts of violence upon the said persons of the Lords Ambassadors, or any belonging to them, have thought fit, for the prevention thereof, to order that some troops of horse be aj^pointed to quarter near the house of » Order Book of tlie Council of Paper Office. State, Thursday, May 20, and Friday '- Ihid. May 20, 1652. afternoon, May 21, 1052, MS. Slate « Ibid, same day. ■«iHBi»^iiiri.aaffi^ifi)r« 1652.] BLAKE THANKED BY PARLLVMENT AND COUNCIL. 321 the said Ambassadors, and to keep strict guard about the Bame, for their Lordships' preservation and secure residence there." * And on the afternoon of the following day, the Council ordered that four files of musketeers of the guards about the town, and also twenty horse, be appointed, under the command of some civil ofiicer, to repair to Chelsea for the guard of the Dutch Ambassadors.^ But in appointing this guard the Council had no intention of imposing any restraint on the personal liberty of the Dutch Ambassadors, as appears from the following minute : — " That it be signified to Commissary-General Wlialley that, the instruction of the Council in appointing a guard at the house of the Extraordinary Ambassadors of the United Provinces being only for the safety of their persons against injury and violence, that he manage the said guard in such manner that it may appear to be honour- able, and no restraint at all upon them or any of their retinue ; but that it be at their liberty, and the liberty of their attendants and servants, and others amongst them, to go and come as their occasion shall require, and leaving it wholly to them, when they go abroad, whether they will have any guard to attend them."^ In the afternoon of Friday the 21st of May, the Council ordered : — "That a letter be written to General Blake, to take notice to him of the receipt of his letter, and to inclose to him the copy of the Order of Parliament, approving of what he relates in his letter ; to let him know the Council will take all possible care for the supplying him with ' Order Book of the Council of Memoires deMontccuculi,^.ZO -.Vhtis, State, May 20, 1652, MS. State Paper 17GO. <^ffice. 8 oixler Book of the Council of 2 Ibid. Friday afternoon, May 21, State, Friday, May 28, 1652, MS. State 1652. "Six hommcs font uuo file." — Paper Office. VOL. II. Y 322 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. victuals and ammunition, and for the hastening out of the rest of the ships now in the river, which are to come to him ; to return him the thanks of the Council for what he hath done." * I At the same sitting this order was made : " That the Council do sit to-morrow morning at 8 of the clock, as also on Monday morning, and the members of the Council be sent unto to that purpose ; and that the Council do sit also on Lord's Day in the afternoon, if there shall be occasion, which isTeft to t£e Judgmentntjf^iie-Lord-G^^eneral.'' ^ On the same day there was issued a great number of warrants to the captains of the State's ships, to make speedy repair to the Downs, or wheresoever they shall be informed General Blake is, atid observe the orders he shall give them. Messengers were also despatched to Harwich, Yarmouth, and elsewhere, to carry orders to the State's ships there, and the merchant-ships in the State's service, to make all the speed they could to join General Blake's fleet. On Saturday the 22nd of May, the Council ordered, " That the members of the Council be sent unto, to come to the Council on Monday morning next, by 9 o'clock, in order to give audience to the Dutch Ambassadors at the Council." 3 The Council of State met on the following day (Sunday, the 23rd of May 1652), and made the following orders : " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Navy, and the officers of the Ordnance, to desire them to send to General ^lake all the boatswains' and gunners' stores for wKiclThe hath written." ^ • Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, in the afternoon, May Ul, 1652, MS. State Paper Office ^ Ibid, same time. " Ibid. Saturday, May 22, 1652. * Ibid. Sunday, May 23, 1652. 1652.] EXERTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 323 " That a messenger be despatched, to go down the River of Thames, to take an account of the going out of the ships which are ready, of which he is to have a list ; and is to give an account to the Council of what ships are gone, and how far the rest are on the way." ^ " That the warrant yesterday signed by the Lord Presi- dent, in the name of the Council, for the impresting of men for the service of the fleet, be approved of as the warrant of the Council."* " That the Committee of the Admiralty do sit to-morrow morning, at 7 of the clock, in the Council Chamber, and confer with the victuallers of the navy, concerning the making of further provisions of victual for the navy ; and also with such of the Commissioners of the Navy, and of the Trinity House, as have subscribed the letter to the Council concerning the furnishing out of more ships; to which purpose a summons is to be given unto them, to come to the Committee to-morrow morning." ^ On the following day (Monday), the Council evinced their opinion of the conduct of the Dutch by the following order : — " That the Council doth declare, that it is the pleasure of this Council, that none of the members thereof do speak with the Heer Newport, lately come from Holland, or hold any correspondence with him."* On the same day the Council ordered : " That it be humbly represented to the Parliament, that the Council • Order Book of the Council of sadors concerning the negotiation, as State, Sunday, May 23, 1652, MS. to tell them several things by word of State Paper Office. mouth that were entrusted to him by 2 3id. same day. the States, ran great danger of his ^ 76ic?. same day. life," says the Dutch writer of the "Life * Ibid. Monday, May 24, 1652. — of Cornelius A^an Tromp," " because he Nicuport, who had been sent over " as was taken for a spy." — Life of Come- well to Ciirry some papers to the ambas- lius Van Tromp, p. 32. t2 324 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. finds it necessary, upon consideration of the present state of affairs, that forty sail of ships more should be taken on, and have already given order to that purpose. That the Parliament be humbly moved, thereupon, to take it into consideration, where money may be had for the paying of the said ships." * The following, also made the same day, is an instruc- tive minute, as showing how easily the merchant-ships of that time, being all armed and manned by seamen, who, as being always ready to defend their ships against pirates, were to a certain extent fighting seamen, could be con- vei-ted into ships of war : — " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Trinity House, to let them know that they are to give directions to the ten ships bound for the Newfoundland fishery, to fall down forthwith into the Downs, and there to remain with the fleet till further orders ; and to let them know that if the State shall have occasion to make use of them, they will take care that they shall receive reasonable satisfaction and allowance for the time they shall be em- ployed, and that they shall have Jacks provided for them." ^ The business of completing the equipment of the mer- chant-ships for ships of war, is further set forth in the following "memorandum" of 29th June, 1652: — "Sir Arthur Haselrig reports from the Committee for the Ordnance, that all the merchants' ships, which have been taken on to be an addition to the fleet, are all of them fitted with guns and gunners' stores." ^ On the 24th of May, the Council of State also issued an order and commission to the Yice-Admiral of Essex, and ' Ordor Book of the Council of Stato, Monday, May 24, 16o2, MS. Stato Paper Office. Vnd. same day. Ihid. Tuesday. June 29, 1652. 1652.] COMMISSIONS TO PRESS SEAMEN. 325 the like to the Vice-Admirals of Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Sussex, and Hants, " to summon before them all the seamen and mariners from fifteen to fifty years of age, and to ac- quaint them with the State's emergency of service, and the want of seamen, to man a fleet of ships now in preparation in the Eiver of Thames, for the seas ; and withal to press for that service so many able seamen as they can possibly get, giving unto each man xii^. prest-money, and Id. a mile conduct, from the place where they shall be so im- pressed, to the place of their appearance at Deptford, in Kent, within two miles of London, where they shall be en- tered on board the respective ships, by the State's Clerk of the Cheque, &c.;" " and you are to cause a note to be written by the clerks, and delivered to each seaman, speci- fying his name, age, stature, complexion, where prested, when he shall appear before the Clerk of the Cheque afore- said, which must be with all expedition." ^ On Wednesday the 26th of May, "A letter from the Commissioners of the Navy was read, whereby they desire directions as to the 'pressing of five ships already laden for merchant voyages : ordered, that a letter be written to the said Commissioners to proceed with the pressing the said five ships, and to give orders for their speedy setting forth." ^ " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Navy, to let them know that the General of the Fleet hath signified his desire to the Council to have a further number of fireships provided for the fleet ; and, therefore, that they do look out for six ships fit for fireships, and provide all materials requisite to the fitting of them out, and to certify their proceedings to the Council."^ ' Order Book of the Council of State, Monday, May 24, 1652, MS. State Paper Office, 2 Ihid. Wednesday, May 26, 1652. 3 Ihid. same day. 326 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. On Thursday the 27th of May, the Council ordered, " That Mr. Bond be desired to acquaint the Parliament with the Dover seamen's voluntary and cheerful going aboard the fleet before the engagement ; " and " that a sum of money be provided for repair of Dover Pier." ' On Saturday the 29th of May, the Council ordered, " That a letter be written to General Blake, to enclose unto him the letter from the Mayor of Weymouth, giving notice of the coming by of sixty sail of Dutch ships toward the Downs ; to desire him to make stay of them, or any other ships belonging to the Dutch, and send them into port, or secure them otherwise as he shall think fit, without embezzlement, or taking anything from them, provided it be not to divert from prosecuting his former instructions." ^ " That it be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty to consider how the charge of keeping of the Dutch pri- soners at Dover may be satisfied, and report their opinions to the Council."|3 On Monday the 31st of May, the Council ordered, ^' That a warrant be issued to the victuallers of the fleet, t J victual the whole fleet, except Sir George Ayscue's squadron, and the ships that came lately home from the southward, under the command of Captain Penn, till the 1st of October next."^ On Tuesday the 1st of June, the Council received a letter from General Blake, concerning his want of men. At this time the CouncH were in constant communication with Blake. Several letters were written to him every or almost every day, many of them concerning the disposal of the numerous prizes taken by him from the Dutch. Thus, on the 2nd of June, " That a letter be written to General ' Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, May 27, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. Saturday, May 29, 1652. ' Ibid, same day. . * Ibid. Monday, May 31, 1652. 1652.] GKEAT LOSS OF SHIPS AND GOODS BY THE DUTCH. 327 Blake, to take notice of the receipt of his letter of the 1st of June ; to let him know he is to send the Dutch ships taken by him into the Eiver of Thames, and to send all the common seamen, if they be not English, into Holland by the first opportunity, and cause the captains and com- manders of the said ships to be secured." ^ By the 14th of June, however, the Council had changed their mind about the disposal of the Dutch common sea- men : — " That a letter be writ::en to General Blake, to take notice of the receipt of his letter, and the enclosed list of Dutch ships taken ; to desire him to send such ships as are already taken, and such as shall hereafter be taken, into the River of Thames, and to give notice of the sending of them to the Commissioners of the Customs, to whose care the Council have committed the managing of that business, both as to the securing of the ships, as also goods, without embezzlement ; to let him know that, not- withstanding the former Order of the Council, whereby he was directed to send home the common seamen, he is now to permit them to remain aboard their ships till further order, provided the ships (notwithstanding their remain- ing aboard) be secured ; to desire him to give directions to all officers of the Customs, when there shall be occasion to put in any Dutch ships, to secure the ships and take a strict account of the goods, and preserve them from em- bezzlement, and to send them to London with the first opportunity of a safe convoy, to be disposed of by the Commissioners of the Customs."^ The effect of these proceedings on the part of the English Commonwealth, carried out with a vigour and » Order Book of the Council of ^ Ibid. Monday morning, June 14, State, Wednesday, June 2, 1652, MS. 1652. State Paper Office. 328 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. energy of which Europe had seen no example for ages, was such as somewhat to disturb the schemes of the Dutch, who, confident in the strength of their navy and the ability of their admirals, had reckoned on an easy conquest of the navy of the Commonwealth of England. Cotemporary Dutch wi'iters inform us that the Dutch merchants " were almost out of their wits, by reason of the great loss they daily sustained, both of their ships and goods, which became a prey to the English privateers." ' It is probable that the Dutch were about as sincere in their professions of treating about peace, as PhHip II. and Alexander Famese had been, sixty-four years before, while they were preparing the Spanish Armada. It is probable that the Dutch Government of 1652 were as much determined on the destruction of the English Commonwealth of 1652, as Philip II. was determined on the destruction of the English Monarchy of 1588. But the Dutch of 1652 were destined to discover, somewhat late, that the English Government of 1652 was a far more able and energetic Government than the English Government of 1588; that Blake was an enemy far more formidable than Drake ; and that the English navy of 1652 was a navy able to contest the dominion of the seas with them, the greatest naval Power that, down to that time, had ever appeared in the world. If, before the fight that has been described between Blake and Tromp, the English Parliament and Council of ^ State gave a cold reception to the pacific professions of the Dutch Ambassadors, still more coldly and unfavourably n ' '^^\f .^''?'^^" J^l ^'""'P' '"^^"^ ^^^^^^ 29, are estimated a^ p. 37.-Of the losses of the Dutch being - most richly laden (one of merchants, some idea may be formed them of 30 guns), worth above from the fact that six Dutch " Straits- £200,000."- (?.aLi Zn vol T men," taken by Captain Penn, as no- p. 438. - tified to the Council in his letters, re- 1652.] THE PAELIAMENT AND THE DUTCH AMBASSADORS. 329 did they receive the further professions of those ambassa- dors, made after that event. The temper of mind of the Council of State is shown by the following order, made by them on Friday the 4th of June : — " That a Committee be appointed, to prepare an answer as to the Dutch papers, in pursuance of the Order of Parliament of the 4th of June instant, as well upon the grounds expressed in a paper now read, as the gi'ounds now debated in the Council ; and that, by way of aggrava- tion, mention be made in the said answer, that the late act of hostility committed by the Dutch fleet upon the English was during the treaty ; and that Sir Henry Vane, Lord-President, Lord-Commissioner Lisle, the Lord- General, Lord Bradshaw, Mr. Scott, &c., or any three of them, be a Committee for the purpose."* The answer referred to above, as well as the answer made a week or two later to Adrian Pauw, Pensionary of Holland, sent as another ambassador-extraordinary, par- ticularly insisted upon the point indicated in the above minute of the Council of State : that the Dutch had made, during the negotiation of a treaty, an unexpected attempt upon the English fleet— an attempt " hy surjyrise,'' which, imder the circumstances, amounted to treachery and false- hood, to " destroy our fleet, which is our harrier and our securest rampart, and hy that means to expose this Common- wealth to an invasion:' ^ The answer further set forth, " that if the attempts made by the Holland fleet, as much hy surprise as it was, had succeeded according to their hopes, the Commonwealth of England would have been itself plunged into the greatest disasters imaginable, and 1 Order Book of the- Council of ^ Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, State, Friday, June 4, 1652, MS. State p. 37. Paper Office. 330 C0MM0NWK4LTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. that, therefore, it was not reasonable, after thej had been so miraculously preserved, that they should expose them- selves again to the like disgraces for the future. That they could not suffer themselves to be any longer amused under the specious pretence of an examen, or by examples not pertinent to their case, of what other States may have done ; but that rather they were resolved to employ those means which necessity and the nature of the fact require to be used; that, besides, they could not consent to the con- clusion of a treaty of aUiance, till they had received satisfaction about the point in question." * The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, as they style themselves, in these answers to the Dutch Ambassadors, also declare that, " after a mature delibera- tion, and examination of the writings which their Excel- lencies the Ambassadors of the United Provinces have put into their hands, although the Parliament were inclined to receive favourably the expressions contained in the aforesaid writings, tending to represent the late fight between the two fleets as a thing that happened without the knowledge and against the wiU of their High Mighti- nesses ; yet upon due reflection made thereon, it appears that the resolutions of the States and the conduct of their admirals do noways agree with all those protestations, especially at a time whilst a treaty of alliance was managing, which they themselves had sought for, and which had been negotiated by their own ambassadors. Besides, what could be the scope of so formidable an arming of 150 ships of war, made by them without any occasion for it, but to wrest from England by force of arms her ancient prerogatives, and the rights she has over the seas ; and that, further, they aim at nothing else ' Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, pp. 49, 50. 1652. ANOTHER AMBASSADOR FROM HOLLAND. 331 but the destruction of our fleet, which is our barrier and our securest rampart, and by these means to expose this Commonwealth to an invasion, as they intended to do by the late attempt. Upon which the Parliament think themselves indispensably engaged, with the assistance of Heaven, to exact speedy satisfaction for the outrages done to the nation, and to put themselves in such a condition that the like may happen no more for the future." ^ The words " after they had been so miraculously pre- served," are to be particularly noted, in connection with a remark before made in this history, with reference to the conduct of the Government of Queen Elizabeth in its preparations to meet the Spanish Armada, that the Govern- ment which has to trust to miracles for its preservation must be a bad Government. It is indeed true, that Tromp's sudden attack upon Blake, with a force the over- whelming superiority of which, commanded by a veteran admiral the most renowned at that time in the world, might well have led to the conclusion, that nothing short of a miracle could have saved the English fleet from destruction and, by consequence, England from invasion, not merely by the Dutch, but by half the despots of Europe — partly for the purpose of the plunder of London and the other wealthy towns, and partly for that of bringing back the Stuarts, with all their oppressions and vices. But the Commonwealth statesmen were not men to trust to the working of miracles for the preserva- tion of their country. They had placed in command of their fleet a man whom they had already often tried and never found wanting. The miracle which at that time saved England from such a fate, was the fertile and rapid genius and the indomitable courage of Blake. ' Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, pp. 36, 37. 332 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. By a list sent by Blake to the Council of State, it appears that the number of the fleet now with him in the Downs amounted to fifty-five ships or thereabouts. On Tuesday the 8th of June, the Council ordered, "That the Here of Hempstead [Pauw], having signified to the Council that he is arrived at Gravesend, being sent from the Lords the States-General of the United Pro- vinces in the quality of an Extraordinary Ambassador to the Parliament of the Commonwealth ; that the letter of the said Here Hempstead be humbly represented to the Parliament for their direction to his reception, and that my Lord President [Sir Henry Yane was President during that month] do represent the same." ^ " That all ships belonging to this nation that trade to the Baltic Sea, and are homewards bound, do come to a rendezvous at Elsinore Castle, and not set sail out of the Sound until such time as a convoy from General Blake shall be there ready to receive them ; with which they are to sail to their designed port." ^ " That a letter be written to General Blake, to acquaint him with the increase of the enemy's fleet ; to desire him to lose no opportunity to put his instructions in execution ; and to enclose to him the Order of Parliament, whereby the Extraordinary Ambassador from the United Provinces is referred to the Council, and notwithstanding to desire him to pursue his instructions,'' ^ " That a letter be written to General Blake, to desire him to dismiss the ships which are now in the Downs bound for Newfoundland ; and to let him know that they are to go together in company, for their better security." ^ • Order Book ofthe Council of State, 1652. Tuesday, June 8, 1652, MS. State "^ Ibid, same tune. . Paper Office. 4 /^^ Tuesday, June 15, 1652. * Ibid. Monday afternoon, June 14, 1652.] CONTINUED PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. 333 " That a letter be written to Sir George Ayscue, to hasten him with the ships with him into the Downs." ^ " That the Council do approve of what hath been done by General Blake, in the fitting oiit to sea of the three Dutch men-of-war." ^ " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Navy, to certify unto them what hath been done by General Blake in the ordering the setting forth of three Dutch men-of-war ; to let them know the Council do approve thereof; to desire them to hold correspondence with General Blake, concerning the fitting out of the said ships ; and to take care that they may be furnished with men and victuals, which are to be supplied from hence and not from the fleet, as also with all other things necessary for them." 3 " That a letter be written to the Committee ^ of the Navy, to let them know that the Council finds it necessary for the service of the public that, besides the five ketches abeady taken up, that five more should be taken on ; to desire them, therefore, to order that they may be paid according to contract." * " That a warrant be issued to the officers of the Ordnance, to provide and send down to the fleet a good proportion of hammered iron shot, which may be pro- portionable to the fleet now in the Downs, to be distributed amongst them by order of the General of the fleet." ^ On Friday the 25th of June, the Council of State ordered, " That it be referred to the Committee for Law > Order Book of the Council of State, Navy and the Commissioners of the Tuesday, June 15, 1652, MS. State Navy, see Vol. I. p. 49, note 1. Paper Office. * Order Book of the Council of State, 2 Ibid. Thursday, June 17, 1652. Thursday, June 17, 1652, MS. State 3 Ibid, same day. Paper Office. * For an explanation of the dis- «* Ibid, same day. tinction between the Committee of the ^^"^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. and Examinations to prepare a Declaration, in pursuance of the Order of Parliament, referring it to the Council to prepare a Declaration for asserting the right of this nation to the sovereignty of the sea and the fishery, and to bring it into the Council with all convenient speed ; and the Lord Bradshaw is desired to take care of this business." ^ " That the Commissioners for treating with the Lord Pauw, do desire his Excellency to give a speedy and positive answer to the propositions of the Parliament, to be delivered unto him by the said Commissioners, at a conference to be held at 6 of the clock this night." ^ On the following day the Council ordered, " That Mr. Frost do pay for the printing of a book printed in justifi- cation of the engagement [with the Dutch fleet] out of the incident moneys belonging to this Council." ^ "That it be referred to the Committee for Foreign Affairs, to take order for the printing of the book called Mare Clausum ; and that Mr. Du Guard be commanded to print the same." * The Council of State met on the following day, Sunday, the 27th of June, and ordered: "That, the Lord Pauw having, by a paper this day delivered into the Council, desired audience this afternoon, the Commissioners ap- pointed to treat with his Lordship do give him a meeting at the house of the said Lord Ambassador, to hear what he hath to offer, and make report thereof to the Comicil." ^ The following minute shows the watchftd care of the Council of State over all the public interests, and it also shows the extensive commerce carried on at that time by England with all parts of the world :— " That a letter be written to the Mayor of Plymouth, to let him know that ' Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, June 25, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. * I^)id. same day. Ibid. Saturday, June 26, 1652. Ibid, same day. Ibid. Sunday, June 27, 1652. 1652.] THE DUTCH AMBASSADORS DEPART. 335 the Council is informed that the East Lidia ships, the Barbadoes fleet, and several other ships from Turkey, the Streights [the Straits of Gibraltar], and Spanish coasts, and also some Guinea ships, are expected into the Channel daily; which, being ignorant of the present affairs in reference to the Dutch, may be in danger of being sur- prised by them, ten Dutch men-of-war being, as the Council is informed, upon those coasts ; and, therefore, desire him to give order to the two small vessels that were formerly sent out, to ply up and down off the Land's End, to give notice to any English ships that they meet, to go into the next convenient port, and there to stay until con- voys can be appointed for them." ^ On the same day an order was made, that " by reason of the troubles between this Commonwealth and the Dutch, Danish ships be saved harmless from the penalty of the Navigation Act, in order to import into England Eiga hemp from Riga." ^ On the following day the Council ordered : " That the business of letters of marque and reprisal against the French and Dutch be taken into consideration on Friday next, in the afternoon ; and the members of the Council who are in town are to be sent unto, to come to the Council at that time." ' " That it be referred to the Committee who were for- merly appointed to consider of the manner of the en- tertainment to be given to the Dutch Ambassadors at their coming, to consider of what civilities are fit to be shown to them at their departure." * " That orders, passes, and safe-conducts, in pursuance of the Order of Parliament in that behalf, be given to the Lord ^ Order Book of the Council of State, Monday, June 28, 1652, MS, State Paper Office. * Ibid, same day. » Ibid. Tuesday, June 29, 1652. * Ibid, same day. ^^^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGI>AND. [Cha.p. XIV. Pauw and the three Extraordinary Ambassadors, for their safe passage into the Low Countries." ^ I have, in a note in a former page of this chapter, quoted a statement from a Dutch writer, that when Nieuport arrived in London from Holland, with papers and verbal messages for the Dutch Ambassadors, he ran great danger of his life, because he was taken for a spy. How far those who took him for a spy, and more, how far those who took all the Dutch Ambassadors for spies, were right in so doing, maybe partly determined by the following statement, made not by an English but by a Dutch writer :— " On the 11th of July,2 that is to say, four days after the English fleet set sail for the North Sea, to go and destroy the Dutch fleet of herring busses, and to watch for their ships coming from the Indies, the Dutch Ambassadors departed from London, and on the 13th met with Admiral Tromp, to whom Mr. de Heemsted [Pauw] gave a memorial con- taining an account of the forces of England. He like- wise informed Tromp that Admiral Ayscew was then in the Downs, with a squadron of twenty-one men-of-war, where he might be easily attacked and beaten,'" ^ Upon this information, Tromp resolved to go and attack Ayscue, with a force more than treble that of Ayscue. But there hap- pening a calm, and after that a contrary wind, it was im- possible for him to execute this design. He therefore directed his course northward in search of Blake, with a fleet of seventy-nine ships of war, consisting of a squadron of twenty-one ships, forming the van under Yice-Admiral Evertsz, of the main body of thirty ships under his own ' Order Book of the Council of State last given, and dated June 29, State, Tuesday, June 29, 1652, MS. was the " Old Style." State Paper Office. » Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, 2 The Dutch writer uses the " New p. 60. Style ; " the minute of the Council of 1652.] BLAKE'S NOETHEKN EXPEDITION. 337 immediate command, and of twenty-eight ships, forming the rear under Rear- Admiral Florisz.^ By this time Blake, who some days before, with a fleet of sixty sail, had left the Downs, was sailing northward, with a view of intercepting the great Dutch herring-fleet. The anxiety of the Council of State to keep up, as far as possible, an uninterrupted communication with their great Admiral, is strikingly evinced by such minutes as the fol- lowing, bearing date Wednesday, the 30th of June (O. S.) :— " That a letter be written to the Mayor of Newcastle, as also to the Bailiff's of Yarmouth, to desire them that, in case none of the State's ships shall be found there upon the receipt of the Council's letters, that they will then cause a ketch to be hired to carry the messenger of the Council to the fleet:' ^ Whitelock's Journal marks the progress of Blake's ad- vance northward : " July 3. — Letters, that General Blake, with a gallant fleet, went northwards, and left Sir George Ascue to com- mand the rest of the fleet in the Downs, who took five Dutch merchantmen, and General Blake took two men-of- war and two merchantmen : — 500 soldiers sent on board" Sir George Ascue." ^ " July 9. — Letters, that General Blake, with a fleet of sixty sail, passed in sight of Dunbar towards the north, to attend the Holland busses, and sent for the frigates and Parliament's vessels in those parts, who went to him." * "July 12. — Letters from Yarmouth, that the Hol- • Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, State Paper Office, p. 61. 3 Whitelock's Memorials, July 3, 2 Order Book of the Council of 1652: London, folio, 1732. State, Wednesday, June 30, 1652, MS. * Ibid. July 9, 1652. VOL. II. Z 338 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. landers have 180 busses at sea, and sixty men-of-war for their guard ; that General Blake was near them. That Van Tromp was seen in the Downs, with about one hundred sail of ships, nearer to Sir George Ascue." ^ ''July 17.— Letters, that the fleet could get no farther than Aberdeen by reason of the contrary winds. That General Blake had taken three or four of the Dutch busses and one man-of-war, and sent them up." ^ " July 24. — Letters, that General Blake took one hundred of the Holland busses, and in them 1,500 men ; the rest secured themselves in Bressie's Bay [sic] in Scotland." ^ "July 2?.— That the Holland fleet were still off about Newcastle, about 105 ships. That the Dutch took several English vessels, and made their men serve under them." ^ "July 31. — That no intelligence could come from General Blake, being so far to the northward, and the Dutch fleet between him and home." ^ On Sunday, the 11th of July, the Council of State ordered : — " That a letter be written to General Blake, to give him notice of the appearance of the Dutch fleet, being 102 men- of-war and 10 fireships, and are every day in sight of the » Whitelock's Memorials, July 12, they had sustained from the Dutch; 1652. and that by detaining their mariners 2 Ibid. July 17, 1652. we might have weakened and destroyed ' 3id. July 24, 1652. — On the toll of them considerably, they wanting men every tenth herring b«ing paid, Blake for the management of their ship- sent the vessels with the men back to ping." — Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. Holland, under a charge of fishing there p. 420. But, as Mr. Dixon observes, no more without English leave. — Gran- "The only fault ever advanced by ville Penn, vol. i. p. 434, note. " This friend or foe against Blake, was an action," says Ludlow, "was blamed by excess of generosity towards his van- some, who thought by the help of quished enemies."— Dixow's Bobcft those ships we might have been en- Blake, p. 204. abled to erect a fishery, and thereby * Wliitelock's Memorials, July 27, have made some reparation to the 1652. English nation for the damages which ^ Ihid. July 31, 1652. 1652.] bl.ik:e and tro:mp. 339 fleet of Sir George Ayscue ; that they are divided into three squadrons ; that Sir G. Ayscue intends to put his fleet, being fourteen or sixteen sail, under the protection of the Castle [Dover] ; that the ships under Captain Harrison are in Lee Road, stayed for the completing of their men, that they may the better make their conjunction with Sir G. Ayscue." ^ We have seen in the preceding volume ^ that the summer of 1650, in which the Battle of Dunbar was fought, was a rainy summer in Scotland. It would appear that the summer of 1652 was a hot summer in Scotland, and also in the Orkney and Shetland Islands and the surrounding seas. Those who have experienced, when grouse -shooting in the North of Scotland, the great heat about the middle of August, in the mountain hollows — heat which I have heard men say they thought as intense as they had ever felt in India — and have also seen the tops of the same mountains covered with snow about the end of August, will readily recognise the truth of the following passage of Whitelock, under date July 23, 1652 i—" Of the difiiculties passed by the English forces in the Highlands, the ex- tremities there both of heat and cold at this time, scorch- ing of the sun, and yet snow upon the mountains to cool them ; that the inhabitants faced them continually ; that venison is plenty there, though mutton be dear ; and the springs better than sack at Leith."^ The great heat in the North of Scotland in those months of July and August 1652, may partly account for the description given by • Order Book of the Council of Whitelock adds, " That the horsemen State, Sunday, July 11, 1652, MS. State are apt to ride over the tops of their Paper Office. houses ; that the army had 400 baggage 2 Vol. I. pp. 3 16 and 356. horses, led by the countrymen, loaden 2 Whitelock's Memorials, p. 539, with bread and cheese, that they guard- July 23, 1652. — Under the same date, ed their horses from the corn." — Rfid. z2 340 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAJ^D. [Chap. XIV. cotemporary writers of a tempest which, when the fleets of Blake and Tronip were about to ensraofe on the evenino- of the 5th of August, about halfway between the Orkney and the Shetland Islands, gathered, and burst with the sudden- ness and fury of a tropical tornado. The wind, the rain, and the darkness rendered all manoeuvring, almost all communication by signal between the ships, impossible. Tromp, as has been related, directed his course north- ward with a fleet of about eighty sail, according to the Dutch accounts, of about one hundred sail, according to the English accounts. There was now, in addition to the bitter enmity between the two nations, a feeling of strono- personal hostility raised between Tromp and Blake. It was not merely mortifying but exasperating to Tromp, to see the laurels of a life of successful naval warfare torn from his brow by a man who but two or three years before had never set foot on a ship's deck as a commander, or even as a seaman. Blake, on the other side, was exasperated at what he considered dishonourable conduct on the part of Tromp, in attempting to destroy his fleet by a sudden surprise, while a treaty was pending between the two na- tions, and Dutch ambassadors were in London. It is stated in the " Life of Cornelius Yan Tromp" that, after the fight near Dover, Tromp wrote a letter to Blake, in which he entreated Blake to release the two Dutch captains he had made prisoners, and also to order the restitution of the Dutch ship taken in that fight. Blake — not only surprised but indignant, that Tromp should presume to write to him, upon such a subject, after what had passed— made him, according to the same authority, the following answer : " Sir, — Nothing ever surprised me more than yours of the 2nd of June last, in that, though you afibct with so much vanity to pass for a man of honour, yet 'tis no way visible 1652.] AMONG THE SHETLAND ISLES. 341 that you maintain that character by any of your actions. The cruel attempt you lately made against the Parliament of England's fleet, whose ruin you had conspired, is an evident proof of this .... That act of hostility you have so lately committed is so much the more criminal, since you were pleased to do it in a tune when your am- bassadors were flattering our Commonwealth with new hopes of peace and union, and pretended to solicit with much earnestness a speedy conclusion of a treaty of mutual alliance and confederation. That is the brave exploit upon which at present you found your glory, and for which you frame an unjust apology, as pretending you did nothing else but defend yourself. But God, in whom we put our greatest hopes, having made your designs serve to your own destruction, we have taken some of your ships, which you now are pleased to redemand with as much confidence as if the action lately committed had been no act of hos- tility, as it appears in your writings, by your affecting to give it another name. In fine, I thought not fit to give you any other answer but this, that I am persuaded you will find the Parliament of England very ill-satisfied with your conduct ; because they cannot but regard with horror the innocent blood of their subjects that has been spilt ; and, on the other side, that after all you will find yourself constrained always to give them the marks of an entire submission." ^ I see no reason to doubt the authenticity of this letter ; and, whether authentic or not, it may be taken as a fair exponent of the state of feeling existing at that time between Blake and Tromp, who looked upon each other pretty much with the feelings of two bulldogs who had a quarrel of some standing to fight out. ' Life of Corneliufi Van Tromp, pp. 25, 26. / 342 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV Towards evening, on the 5tli of August (N. S.), the Dutch and English fleets came in sight of each other between Foula and Fair-Isle, the two most detached of the Shetland group of islands. Foula is computed to be twenty miles to the west of the largest of the Shet- land Isles, called Mainland of Shetland, and Fair-Isle to be twenty-five miles south-south-west of the nearest headland of the Mainland. Foula is distinguished from the other islands called the Shetland Isles — the general appearance of which, as seen from the sea, is an unvarying line of abrupt coast— by a cluster of ^Ye lofty hills, termi- nating in pointed cones, the highest of which rises to the height of nearly 1,400 feet. The two hostile admirals were eagerly preparing for immediate action, when, as the sun declined, dark masses of clouds began gradually to spread themselves over the sky, the sea grew black, distant thunder was heard, and that ominous sound, well known to mariners (which the English word soh does not so well express as the Scotch word sough) of an approaching tempest, became distinctly audible. As the sun disappeared, and the twilight deepened, the sky assumed an aspect of pitchy darkness, very unusual at that season of the year in that latitude, where the sun sinks so little below the horizon that a certain degree of light continues throughout the night. Every appearance betokened the near approach of a violent tempest. At length it burst. For the wind, which had long been shifting about, turned at last suddenly to the north- north-west, and blew with such fury that, says the writer of the "Life of Cornelius Yan Tromp" — who gives so minute a description of this terrible tempest, that it seems probable he was either on board the Dutch fleet at that time, or received his information direct from some of those 1652.] SEPARATED BY A TEMPEST. 343 who were — " our sails were all rent and torn in pieces, and the waves roUed through them, and so went and spent themselves against the rocks of Hitland [Shetland?], throwing their foam up to the very heaven. Thus the fleet, being, as it were, buried by the violence of the sea in most horrible abysses, rose out of them only to be tossed up to the very clouds. Here the masts were beaten down into the sea, there the deck was overflown by the prevailing waves ; here the tempest was so much mis- tress of the ships that they could be no longer governed, and, on another side, appeared aU the doleful forerunners of a dismal wreck. And the darkness increasing the danger, and the confused cries of the mariners redoubling the common fear, both together made the saddest and most frightful spectacle that was ever seen." ' The storm lasted all night with unabated violence. When the day broke, the effects of the tempest appeared. The Dutch fleet had suffered considerably, some ships being lost and many disabled. But of sixty of Tromp's ships that were missing, forty-two were ascertained to be safe among the Shetland Isles, and also two East India ships supposed to be lost. Blake had suffered less than Tromp. He had been able to keep his fleet together. Tromp discovered him after the storm in the latitude of Scotland, with sixty-two great ships much less damaged than his own; the tempest having driven him to the northward of Shetland, on which side he found more shelter.^ On the 10th of August, letters reached the Council of State that General Blake was off at sea near Scarborough ; and that forty Dutch ships were near Rye, in Sussex. * Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 62. « Ufid. p. 63. 344 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. There is some confusion in the accounts we have of the relative movements of Tromp and Blake after the storm above described. The writer of the " Life of Cornelius Van Tromp " says that, after the storm, when Tromp, with a fleet of thirty-nine sail, discovered Blake with sixty-two ijrreat ships, he offered Blake battle, which the latter declined. This story is not credible to me, though it may be credible to Dutchmen. On the 14th of August, the Council of State received intelligence from General Blake, that he was safely arrived with his fleet from the northward. ^ And on the 15th of August Whitelock reports, " Letters to the CouncH of State of General Blake's standing off to the coast of Holland to look after the Dutch fleet, who were gone off from the coast of Sussex." ^ g^on after, Blake returned to the English coast with his prizes, and 900 prisoners.^ ' Whitelock's Memorials, p. 54 L— " That a letter be written to Gene- ral Blake, to let him know what in- telligence the Council have received ' this day concerning the motion of the Dutch fleet westward; and that he make all possible speed with the fleet into the Channel to find out the Dutch fleet." " That a letter be written to the Mayor of Ipswich, to send away two nimble ketches with two de- spatches to General Blake "-Order Book of the Council of State, Sunday, August 15, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. * Whitelock's Memorials, p. 541. ' Hobbes's Behemoth, p. 293 ; Lon- don, 1682.—" That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Navy, to view the five prizes lately sent in by General Blake, and give an account to the Council how soon they may be fitted out as men-of-war, and at what charger— Order Book of the Council of State, Monday morning, August 30 1652, MS. State Paper Office. The following minute, made in the after- noon of the same day, shows the vigi- lance of the Council of State : " That a letter be written to the Commis- sioners of the NaA7 to desire them to give a speedy account to the Council why the ships Swiftsure and the new frigate at Woolwich are in no better forwardness."— 7&/f/. Monday after- noon, August 30, 1652. About the same time the number of minutes re- specting private men-of-war shows that the number of those privateers must have been very great. Thus on August 26 and 27, 1652, orders were made by the Council, - That warrants be issued to the Judges of the Ad- miralty to give letters for private men-of-war to Captain Isaac Phillips commander of the ship Assistant ; to 1652.] DE WITT SUBSTITUTED FOR TROMP. 345 On the 6th of September Whitelock has this entry : " That Van Tromp desired to be excused from going to sea, and that De Witt was appointed by the State to command- in-chief their navy ; that they had not half men enough to man their fleet." ^ The De Witt here mentioned was a Vice- Admiral, Cornelius De Witt, but not, as some writers appear to suppose, Cornelius, the elder of the two celebrated brothers, Cornelius and John De Witt. That Cornelius De Witt, the brother of John De Witt, is said, indeed, to have served several years in the fleet of the United Provinces in his early youth. But his later career was altogether that of a civilian. In 1650 he was elected burgomaster of Dordrecht, his native town, and deputy to the States of Holland and West Friesland; and during his brother John De Witt's administration, he held the office of Inspector of Dykes in the district of Putten. The De Witt here mentioned as appointed to command-in- chief in the place of Martin Tromp is probably the same person who, under the name of Cornelius Van Witt, acted as Yice-Admiral under Tromp in the engagement with the combined fleets of Spain and Portugal in 1639. As Cornelius, the brother of John De Witt, was born in 1623, it is impossible that he should have commanded as Vice- Admiral in the action of 1639 ; and as he was but 29 years of age in 1652, it is, if not impossible, to the last degree improbable that he should have been appointed commander-in-chief of the Dutch fleet in 1652. The Lieutenant-Colonel Hazard, to W. Dale, to Colonel Tizon, to Lieutenant- Colonel Yeomans, to John and Ed- ward Mole, merchants." — Ibid. August 26 and 27, 1652. The Council of State committed a serious error in granting so many of these letters to private men-of-war. We shall see that Blake, in his letter to the Council of State after the fight with the Dutch fleet, on November 30, 1652, attributes the want of seamen to " the great number of private men-of-war, especially out of the River Thames." ' Whitelock's Memorials, p. 543. 346 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. ^ d commander-in-cliief was clearly another Cornelius Van Witt, or Comelins De Witt, and most probably the same person who acted as Yice-Admiral nnder Tromp in 1639. The reasons that moved the States to appoint Vice-Admiral De Witt admiral instead of Martin Tromp are stated to have been their hopes that De Witt would perhaps have better luck than Tromp had in his last expedition, and the murmurs of the people, who began to look upon Tromp's late ill-success as a judgment upon him for being the cause of that great war ;^ the last circumstance amounting, as I have before observed, to an admission that Tromp was the aggressor in the first fight near Dover. I But besides this De Witt, the States of Holland ap- I pointed to the command of a fleet a man of far greater naval name. This was the celebrated Michael Ruyter, afterwards De Euyter; for in 1659, as a reward for defeat- ing the Swedish fleet, he received from the King of Den- mark a title of nobility, with a pension. Michael Ruyter was bom at Fleissingen in 1607, went to sea at eleven years as a cabin-boy, and rose successively, through the various grades of service, to the rank of admiral.^ It is said that Euyter had resolved to pass the rest of his days in peace and repose, and was prevailed on with some difficulty to accept the command offered to him.^ ^V^ In the course of the month of August there was fought j a battle between Euyter and Sir George Ayscue near I Plymouth, wherein, according to the English accounts. Sir I George Ayscue had the better ; but amid the conflicting ■ ' Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, life (Amsterdam, 1690), which was p. 72. translated into French (Amstehiam, j 2 The Dutch raised a splendid 1698). --- ^^ monument to De Ruyter at Amster- " Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, dam ; and Gerard Brandt wrote his p. 64. 1652.] BLAKE DEFEATS A FRENCH FLEET. 347 1 authorities it is difficult, if not impossible, to state either the exact numbers engag5T5^~Dn"ea;eh sMepor the exact result. "^^Whatsoever was the matter," says Hobbes, " the Eump, though they rewarded Sir George Ayscue, never more employed him in their service at sea." ^ There are various minutes in the Order Book of the Council of State about this time, indicating that the Prince of Conde^ wished to obtain some assistance from the English Parliament in the contest in which he was then engaged with Cardinal Mazarin, who at that time, when Louis XIY. was about fourteen years of age, governed France. Dunkirk was besieged by the Spanish forces under the Archduke Leopold. As France then leaned to the Dutch, the Parliament of England considered it better that Dunkirk should fall into the hands of Spain, and Blake had received instructions accordingly. While cruising in the Channel in the beginning of September, Blake fell in with a French fleet under the Duke of Yendome, who had just defeated the Spanish Admiral, Count D' Oiofnon. This French fleet was about to relieve • Hobbes's Behem oth ^ p. 293.— "That a im^T ^fiVntten to General Blake, to let him know that the en- gagement of Sir George Ayscue's fleet with the Dutch is over for the present; to desire him that he will, out of the fleet now with him, despatch to Sir George Ayscue six or eight good fri- gates, whereby he may be enabled by himself to rencounter that fleet, in case he can find it out ; to let him know that Tromp's [sic] fleet is in preparation to come forth again ; to desire him, therefore, to come back again towards the coast of Holland to attend his coming out, and to let him know that the Sovereign and the rest of the ships which are to come out of the River of Thames are to join with his fleet.'' — Order Book of the Coinicil of State, Sunday morning, August 22, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. The Council of State held three meetings on this Sunday, August 22, 1652. The first is headed " Sunday, morning; " the second, "Sunday, 1 o'clock, afternoon ; " the third, •' Sunday afternoon, at 4 of the clock." ' Letffers from the Prince of Conde, referred to in a minute of April 1, 1652, and other subsequent minutes. — Order Book of the Council of State, MS. State Paper Office. I i 348 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. Dunkirk, by throwing into that piratical town men, arms, stores, and fresh provisions. Blake, in the Resolution, followed by about twenty other ships, attacked the French fleet. ^ There had been no formal declaration of war between France and England ; but the privateers of Brest and Dunkirk had long carried on a course of depredations on English merchantmen, and many English ships bore letters of marque and reprisal against the French. ^ " The Sovereign, then the largest as well as swiftest vessel in the English navy — carrying 1,100 men and 88 guns, of which 20 were 44 -pounders — led the way, and was the first to engage the enemy. Its fire was terrible — the second broad- side sinking one of the French frigates, and its key-shot ^ cutting off the mainmasts of five others. As the frigate was going down, Blake bore into action, and, immediately singling out the Donadieu, commanded by one of the Knights of Malta, he ran alongside, and boarded her. The rapidity of the attack, and the instantaneous -advan- tages gained, disconcerted the French : some struck their colours — some fled, fiercely pursued by the Sovereign and the lighter vessels towards Dunkirk ; and in a few hours the whole body of the French squadron, ships of war, fireships, and transports, were either gone down or safely harboured under the guns of Dover Castle. Dunkirk immediately surrendered to the Archduke Leopold." ^ It is most important to call attention to the policy of the Parliament and Council of State in this matter, as compared with the policy afterwards pursued by Cromwell, when he had destroyed the Parliament and Council of ' Dixon's Robert Blake, p. 173, new Council of State. edition ; London, 1858 ; Hobbes's ^ Chain-shot. Behemoth, p. 293. " Dixon's Robert Blake, p. 173, new ^ There are very many orders to edition, London, 1858. this effect in the Order Book of the 1652.] DE WITT AND DE RUYTER. 349 State. France was at this time a Power rising into a condition that was to make her dangerous not only to the peace but to the liberty of Europe. Spain, on the contrary, had long been and was still sinking. It was, therefore, the part of sagacious statesmen to throw the weight of the power of England into that scale where it would be likely to produce good, and not evil. The statesmen of the Parliament of England, of whom Blake may be reckoned one, consequently sought to weaken France rather than further to depress and weaken Spain. Cromwell pursued an opposite course, and threw the power of England into the wrong scale ; though he discovered his mistake before he died, and when it was too late to remedy it. This was one of the evils which Cromwell's usurpation inflicted upon England. We shall have to note many more in the sequel ; and if there appear — On History's fruitless page Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage, History's page may nevertheless b? not altogether fruitless, if it hold up as a warning to after-ages some of the terrible calamities which ignoble ambition brings upon mankind. A very few days after Blake's encounter with the French fleet under the Duke of Yendome, the Dutch fleet of sixty sail, under the command of De Witt and De Ruyter, appeared off the South Foreland. The intelligence reached the Council of State on Saturday, the lltli of September, 1652. The Council met on the following day, Sunday, the 12th of September, and proceeded, with their usual promptitude, energy, and ability, to take the steps which the emergency called for. The mode in which the Coun- cil of State did its business on such an occasion will best appear from the following minutes, all made on that Sunday : — 350 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. " That a letter be written to General Blake, to enclose to him the intelligence received from Deal and Dover of a Dutch fleet appearing on the back side of the South Sand Head."* „_ " That the Governor of Dover take care that all the Dutch and French prizes be secured, lest the Dutch fleet should any way attempt to seize them." ^ " That a letter be written to the Bailiffs of Yarmouth, to let them know of the intelligence the Council have received of a Dutch fleet appearing on the South Sand Head ; to desire them to give order to the masters and commanders of such ships as are or shall come into Yarmouth Roads, to be careful how they put forth to sea, but to stay for some time till they receive further order from the Council ; and to desire them to send to Hull, Lynn, Boston, Scar- borough, and Newcastle, to the same effect." ^ On Friday, the 1 7th of September, the Council of State made the following order : — " That a letter be written to Captain Moulton to take notice of the receipt of his ; to desire him to send out a small boat to take notice of the motions of the Dutch fleet off the Beachie [Beachy Head] ; and to give notice of their being there to as many English merchants as they can meet with, to the end they may avoid them." '* About noon on the 28th of September, " we got sight of the Dutch fleet," says Blake, " standing to the west- ward. Between three and f^5ur in the afternoon, they got their fleet together, being sixty sail,^ and, haulmg their • Order Book of the Council of State, Sunday, September 12, 1652, MS. State Paper OflSce. ^ Ihid. same day. ' Ihid. same day. 17, 1652. * The Dutch statement is: "The Dutch fleet, commanded by Vice- Ad- miral De Witt, after the departure of the ten ships that were detached from it. * Ibid. Friday morning, September consisted of sixty -four men-of-war, and 1652.] THE DUTCH ADMIRALS DEFEATED BY BLAKE. 35I foresails upon their masts, made ready to fight." * During the interval between the fleets' first coming in sight of each other and the commencement of the action, De Witt, who commanded the Dutch fleet, left his o^vn ship of forty guns, and went on board the largest of the India ships of fifty- six guns, where he " wore the flag, his own ship taking it in." ^ Tromp's flag-ship, the Brederode, was in the fleet ; but the men' in her would not receive De Witt.^ This proceeding may be considered as attributable partly to the intractable charat!ter of the Dutch seamen, partly to their opinion of the professional superiority of Tromp to De Witt, and partly to the personal characters of the two com- manders ; for, says the Dutch writer already quoted, " Martin Tromp was as much beloved by the seamen for his mild: temper, as De Witt was hated by them for his cruelty." * It is impossible to make a narrative, which is obscure from its brevity, clearer by conjectural interpolations. I therefore give the few words in which Blake describes the fight: "There were then by me the Vice-Admiral [Penn,] and some others; but a great part of the fleet was that of the English, under the conduct of Admiral Blake, was composed of sixty-eight. But the English ships were much better furnished for the war than the Dutch." — Life of Cor- nelius Van Tromp, p. 77. The writer adds that De Witt resolved to fight the English fleet in opposition to De Ruyter's advice. * Blake to the Council of State, from aboard th^ 'Resolution, off the North Foreland, October 2, 1652 ; from a MS. copy of the despatch, among Sir W. Penn's Papers, published by Mr. Granville Penn in his Memorials of Admiral Sir William Penn, London, 1833, vol. i. pp. 4o0-4o3. ■^ Blake says, " De Witt and Ruyter commanded the Dutch fleet, each of them "wearing a flag on the maintop." — Blake to the Council of State, same date. ' Admiral Sir William Penn to George Bishop, Esq., Whitehall — James, in Margate Roads, October 2, 1652 ; from the original in Sir W. Penn's handwriting, published in Mr. Gran- ville Penn's Memorials of Admiral Sir William Penn, vol. i. pp. 446-450. * Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 83. 352 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. «. • astern, by reason of their late weighing in the Downs, which I suppose was occasioned bj the late storm we had there. As soon as a considerable part was come np to us, the Dutch then tacking, we bore in right with them, their Admiral in the head. I commanded no guns to be fired till we came very near them; and, by means of their tacking, the greatest part of our fleet came suddenly to be engaged, and the dispute was very hot for a short time, continuing till it was dark night." ^ The statement that the greatest part of the English fleet came suddenly to be engaged by means of the Dutch fleet's tacking is somewhat explained by the report of Sir W. Penn. "About four," he says, " most of our fleet being come near, our General bore in amongst them. We presently filled to bear after him; but it pleased God to disappoint us, being aground upon a sand, supposed the Kentish-Knock.^ It was reasonably smooth, and for my part I did not feel her strike ; the master and others said they did ; but the man that hove the lead overboard said we had not three fathoms water, by which account it was too true. The Sovereign was near musket- shot without us, and struck several times. The goodness of God was eminent to us in this particular, for hereby we were forced to tack our ship to clear ourselves of the sand ; and, indeed, it fell out better for doing execution upon the enemy than we could have cast it ourselves ; for, as the Dutch fleet cleared themselves of our general, he standing to the northward, and they to the southward, we fell patt to receive them, and so stayed by them till the night caused our separation." ^ ' Blake to the Council of State, the mouth of the Thames."— Note in October 2, 1652. Granville Penn, vol. i. p. 447. * " A small sand, about S. by W., ' Admiral Sir "W. Penn to George from the east end of the Long Sand, at Bishop, Esq., October 2, 1652. 1662.] BATTLE OF THE NORTH FORELAND. 853 The Dutch account of the battle is this : — " De Kuyter had the vanguard, De Witt the main body of the fleet, and De Wilde commanded the rear. And Evertz attended besides with a body of reserve, to be ready to give assistance to those that should have need. The two fleets, piercing one into the other, plied one another hotly with their cannon. De Eu^i;er and De Witt did wonders, but for all they could do, in a little time they were so roughly handled that they had much ado to turn themselves. De Ru}d:er had a great many killed and wounded; he had received four shots between wind and water. The main- yard of his ship was overturned to the left side, and his main and mizen sails, as well as his rigging, were all torn to pieces." ^ Comparing these three accounts, we are led to the con- clusion that Blake, on this occasion, broke the Butch line, and, to use the words of Lord Rodney (already quoted in this chapter), " defeated the broken j)arts by detail." The operation must have appeared to Blake so much a matter of course, and any other proceeding so " contrary to com- mon sense," as Lord Eodney says, that he considered it quite needless and a waste of words to dilate upon it. That night the two fleets lay in sight of each other ; " we," says Blake, " refitting our ships, which were much torn." ^ " All night," writes Penn, " we could see their lights plain, a small distance to leeward of us ; which made us believe they wished to engage us the next morning. As the day broke, we saw the Dutch fleet N.E. more than two leagues from us. . . . Now I shall tell you what damage, visibly, we did them in the engagement. One of my squadron. Captain John Mildmay, in the Nonsuch, • ' Lifeof Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 78. ber 2, 165*ii in Granville Penn, vol. i. 2 Blake to the Council of State, Octo- p. 451. VOL. II. A A 354 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. took a fly-boat of near 500 tons, with thirty pieces of ordnance *; and, presently after, took possession of another frigate of thirty guns, twelve whereof brass, who had all her masts shot by the board, and lay like a wreck in the sea. This he was forced to quit again about midnight, being driven to leeward near the Holland's fleet. He took the Hollanders out of her, and suffered her to sink, she being very leaky. On board the fly-boat he had De Witt's rear-admiral, who quitted his frigate, that had in her two brass guns, but also in the other's condition, without masts. On Tuesday, before we engaged, we told fifty-nine sail, besides small vessels, and the next morning could not tell above fifty-two, two whereof without bolt-sprits. In the morning betimes, we saw one ship without masts in the midst of their fleet, which was presently after sunk." ' " The next morning " (29th September), continues Blake, *' being little wind and variable, we bore with them as fast as we could, they seeming awhile to stay for us,^ till after noon, when the wind coming northerly, they made all sail they could, and stood away to the eastward, towards their own coast. We followed them as much as possibly we could, they then having the wind of us. Many shots passed between some of our headmost ships and their stern fleet ; but nothing could engage them. Then, it beginning to grow dark, we tacked to get our fleet together ; and, if we might, get to the weather-gage. And being then half Channel over, it was advised by the captain, master, and ' Sir W. Penn to George Bishop, the plans of the Dutch commander. Esq., October 2, 1652, in Gran\'ille It is stated that the desire of De Witt Penn, vol. i. p. 449. to risk another engagement was over- 2 This and the expression used by ruled in a council of war by De Penn, as quoted above, would seem to Ruyter and Evertz. — Life of Cornelius indicate that a change took place in J^cm Tro)nj>, p. 79. 1652.] EETREAT OF THE DUTCH. 355 mates, the pilot and others, to lie close upon that tack till ten of the clock, that so we might have length enough to spend that night, presuming likewise that they would tack before the morning, which would again have brought us together if the wind had stood ; but it pleased God that it proved but little wind that night, which was westerly. The next morning (30th) the wind came at S.W. ; and from the topmast-head, we discovered their fleet, and stood away after them ; many of our frigates ahead of us, some so far that they saw West Gable. Then, perceiving that they fled from us as fast as they could, and bent their course for Goree, it growing less wind, I sent for the vice and rear-admiral ; and also a great part of the captains being then come aboard for a supply of some necessaries, we advised together what was fittest to be done; and, it appearing that the merchant-ships were almost, the most part altogether, out of victuals, and ours not able to supply them, it was resolved that we should return to our coast. " What harm we have received by loss of men, or other- wise, I cannot yet give your Honours a just account. In our ship we have only three that we know slain, whereof our lieutenant. Captain Purvis, is one ; about twenty Imrt ; which is a great mercy of God, considermg the multitudes of shot flying among us, and our nearness each to other in the fight. We are also bound, with much thankfulness, to acknowledge God's goodness towards us, in affording ns such fair weather and smooth water at our engage- ment ; otherwise, many of our great ships might have perished without a stroke from the enemy ; for both this ship [the Resolution] and the James touched once or twice, and the great ship ISovereigti] had three or four rubs upon the Kentish Knock. What loss the enemy hath sustained we A A 2 356 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. Imow not. Three of their ships were wholly disabled at the first brunt, having lost all their masts ; and another, as he was towing off the rear-admiral, was taken by Captain Mildmay; and the second day they were many less in number than the first. The rear-admiral and two other captains are prisoners, who say that they conceive by the striking of De Witt's antient, and the putting forth another of a blue colour, that he is slain." * On the 4th of October the Council of State ordered a letter to be written to the Lord Mayor, directing him to prepare reception in the several hospitals and in the Savoy for the wounded in the late engagement between General Blake and the Dutch. They also ordered the Governors of Deal and Sandown Castles to draw into their respective castles the guns placed in works for defence of the fleet commanded by Sir George Ayscue. At the same time thirty frigates were ordered to be built. ^ The following minute, which I transcribe from a- rough draft in Secretary Thurloe's handwriting, affords very im- portant evidence respecting the difference between the ' Blake to the Council of State, England. The length of her keel is October 2, 1652. in Granville Penn, vol. 128 foot, her main breadth 48 foot, 1. pp. 4ol, 452. De Witt was not slain, her length 232 foot, her height, from 2 Order Bookof the Council of State, the bottom of the keel to the top of October 4, 1652,MS. State Paper Office, her lanthorn, 76 foot. She carries 144 -Thefollowing minute shows the size great guns of several sorts, and 11 of some of their frigates: "That anchors ; one weighing 4 400 lb« "— Captain Pett be directed to build the Strafford's Letters and Dispatchs, vol frigate which he IS now going in hand ii. p. ne. This shows that some with 115 foot [sic] by the keel."-76/^. portion, though not a large portion, of July 2, 1652. It would appear from the " ship-money" was applied to the this that the Parliament were building purpose of shipbuilding. This un- larger frigates than those formerly usually large ship was intended to built. The Sovereign, before men- make a show of the use of the ship- tioned, was much above the average, money. It was but a show, for the A correspondent of Strafford, writing utter inefficiency of the nav^, at the in October 1637, thus describes the time when Charles I. levied ship-money Sovereign: "She is 1,637 tons, the is notorious, goodliest ship that was ever built in 1652.] PETITION OF SIR OLIVER FLEMING. 357 Government of the Long Parliament and the Government of the Stuarts : — " The Council, having considered of a petition of Sir Oliver Fleming, Knight, find that by an Ordinance of Par- liament, made the 2nd November, 1643, Sir Oliver Fleming vras appointed Master of the Ceremonies. That the Coun- cil is informed that the profits and incidents of the said office were in the king's time worth about £1,000 per an- num ; but now there is only the antient £200 per amium, payable out of the Exchequer, gratuities from foreign j^uhlic Tninisters and other profits being laid down as dishonourable to the Commonwealth, That the said sum of £200 per annum is not wages sufficient for the support of the said Sir Oliver Fleming in the quality the said employment doth necessi- tate him to live in ; the slenderness whereof for the time past having (as is set forth in his petition) reduced him to wants, and constrained him to contract great debts. Upon consideration of all which, it is the opinion of the Council that the case and condition of the said Sir Oliver Fleming be humbly represented to the Parliament, to the end they may be pleased to settle a fit and competent salary upon the said office, that neither the said Sir Oliver Fleming, nor others that shall enjoy it after him, may be under the temptation of doing things dishonourable to the Common- wealth. And in res]3ect he hath served for many years past for so small an allowance as £200 per annum in which time his services have been very many, wherein he hath demeaned himself faithfully to the Commonwealth, and very diligently, having under him no Marshal of the Cere- monies, as formerly — to confer upon him such reward as the Parliament shall think fit; which may in some measure help him out of his present debt, and remain upon him and his family as a mark of their boimty. And the 358 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XIV. Lord-General and Mr. Neville, or either of them, are de- sired humbly to represent this to the Parliament." ^ The following minute also presents important evidence of the exemption of the Council of State from all corrupt favouritism, as well as of their conscientious care in their choice of those employed in their service — evidence emi- nently corroborative of the testimony even of their enemies, that " they were a race of men most indefatigable and in- dustrious in business, always seeking for men fit for it, and never preferring any for favour, nor hy importunity^' ^ — " That the petition of Andrew Brograve, Christopher Pett, and Mr. Taylor, desiring the place and employment of Mr. Peter Pett [Master- Shipwright, corresponding to Surveyor of the Navy], deceased, be referred to the con- sideration of the Committee for the Admiralty, who are to inform themselves of the fitness of the petitioners, or any other persons, for that employment, and report what they find concerning them to the Council."^ I have in a former page noticed some errors of the Coun- cil of State in political economy ; and I may therefore give here, as the more remarkable, the following minute on the subject of Free Trade with France : — " That it be humbly represented to the Parliament as the opinion of this Council, that it is of great advantage to this State in many respects to have a free trade and com- merce between this Commonwealth and many ports and places in France ; and therefore that the Parliament be humbly moved to give liberty and licence, by such means and under such restrictions as they shall think fit, for such ^ OrderBookof the Council of State, and State of England, vol, ii. p. 30. Thursday, July 15, 1652, MS. State ^ Order Book of the Council of State, Paper Office. Monday, August 2, 1652, MS. State ^ Roger Coke, Detection of the Court Paper Office. 1652.] AMBASSADORS FROM THE KING OF DENMARK. 359 trade and commerce as aforesaid, notwithstanding an Act, intituled An Act prohibiting the importing of any Wines, Wool, or Silk, from the Kingdom of France into the Com- monwealth of England or Ireland, or any of the Dominions thereunto belonging." ^ On the 18th of May, two ambassadors-extraordinary had arrived in London from the King of Denmark.^ The mode of their reception will be seen by the foUowing minutes of that date : — " That thirty coaches be provided, to accompany the Danish ambassadors from Tower Hill." ^ " That the same proportion of diet as to the Dutch viz., foi% dishes for first and second courses, and twenty dishes of fruit and sweetmeats for each meal— be allowed, and a convenient allowance for other tables for their at- tendants." * " That the ambassadors be entertained nine meals, and that sewers, butlers, and such other officers as shaU be requisite be provided; and that £300 be immediately paid to Mr. Bond, to make provisions against their arrival, to be paid out of the Council's contingencies." * " That some members be appointed to dine with them, and sup with them." ° " That plate be delivered out for their service." ^ » Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, July 29, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. Tuesday morning. May 18, 1652. » Ihkl. Tuesday afternoon, May 18, 1652. * Ibid, same time. * Ibid, same time. ^ Ibid, same time. ' Ibid, same time. CHAPTEE XV. The two ^eat naval Powers of the world were now at open war with each other. The Dutch Government sought to strengthen themselves by engaging other nations in their quarrel with the English Parliament. They sent ambas- sadors to Denmark, to Poland, and to other Powers in the North of Europe, to engage them in a league against England. The English Council of State showed that they were fuUy aware of the importance of this step, by their manner of treating the ambassadors of the King of Denmark. The following minutes furnish very signi- ficant evidence on this point : — " That letters be written to the Lord Grey and Mr. Th' mas Chaloner, to desire them to permit the Lords Ambassadors Extraordinary from the King of Denmark to take their pleasure in the parks imder their command, and to kill in them what venison they shall think fit."* " That Sir OHver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, do acquaint the Lords Ambassadors Extraordinary from the King of Denmark that the Council have given order to the keepers of Hide [sic] Park, and of Hampton-Court Park, to permit their ExceUencies to take their pleasure in those parks as oft as they shall think fit, and in them to kill what venison they please." ^ There were reasons stronger than those arising from ' Order Book of the Council of State, Paper Office. Wednesday, July 28, 1652, MS. State 2 /^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 1652.] SHIPS SEIZED BY THE KING OF DENMARK. 361 any fear of the naval power of Denmark — which, in truth, was never at any time great, except in the form of pirates or sea-robbers — to induce the sagacious statesmen who then governed England to ofPer such civilities to the Danish ambassadors. There was at that very time in the harbour of Copenhagen a fleet of English merchantmen, laden with naval stores, which were urgently needed in the English dockyards, and which the Council of State were most anxious to secure. But when Frederick III., then King of Denmark, had succeeded to the crown, four years before this time, the kingdom of Denmark had been brouo-ht to a very low condition by the wars of the last reign; and it appeared to Frederick III. that the best mode of replenishing his exliausted exchequer was to seize the fleet of English merchantmen laden with naval stores in the harbour of Copenhagen.^ By this act of piracy (for such I think it may be fairly considered), this Danish King obtained at once a large supply to his exchequer. ' " That the paper concerning the detaining of the English ships at Copenhagen by the King of Denmark, which was now sworn at the Council, be part of the report which is to be made to the Parliament concerning that affair." — Order Book of tJie Coun- cil of State, Thursday morning, Oc- tober 21, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. " That it be referred to the Committee for Foreign Affiiirs to confer with some from New England, concerning the fur- nishing from them of the commodities usually had from the Eastlands for the accommodating of the shipping of this nation." — Rid. Monday, November 1, 1652. " That a letter be written to General Blake, to desire him to give orders to all the ships in the service of the Commonwealth, to make stay of all ships and vessels which they .^hall meet with belonging to the King of Denmark, and to send them into the first convenient port free from all em- bezzlement, to be there kept till fur- ther orders shall be given concerning them, by the Parliament or Council." — Ihid. same day. The following minute also shows the care of the Council to make provision for the great naval war they were now en- gjiged in : " That a letter be written to the wardens of the several forests throughout this nation, to require them to suflPer no timber to be felled in their respective forests, upon any pretext whatsoever, without special ordf^r from the Parliament or Council of State." —Ibid. Friday, October 29, 1652. 362 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. and an alliance with Holland. The alliance with Holland was probably more nseful to him than an alliance with England would have been ; for Holland was much nearer to him, and therefore more able either to injure or assist him. But if Blake, in requital for the wrong and insult done to England, had destroyed his fleet and battered down his capital about his ears, he would not have had* much cause to congratulate himself on the wisdom of his policy. And something of that kind Blake would have probably done had not Cromwell, for his own purposes, preferred to keep Blake at as great a distance from himself as he could. As the naval stores thus seized by the King of Denmark consisted chiefly of hemp and tar, the Council of State, with their usual vigilant activity, looked about to supply the wants of the navy by other means, as appears by the foUowinor minute : — " That it be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty to confer with a certain person, who pro- pounds the making of pitch and tar out of the fir-timber in Scotland " [a proof that Scotland was not then bare of timber, as Dr. Johnson affirmed it to be a century after this time] ; " and to report to the Council their opinions concerning the business, after they have had conference with him." ^ As the Dutch lied enormously in their statements re- specting their transactions with the English at this time, and in none more than with regard to the English treat- ment of the Dutch prisoners, it will be proper, in vindi- cation of the English Government, to give one or two mi- nutes on this point from the Order Book. A report was spread abroad in Holland, no doubt for the purpose of » Order Book of the Council of State, Friday, July 30, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. 1652.] TREATMENT OF THE DUTCH PRISONEES. 363 exasperating the Dutch people against such " supposed barbarity," ^ that the Dutch prisoners in England were most of them shut up in the then unfinished and uncovered College of Chelsey, between four bare walls, laid upon straw without anything to cover them, exposed to the open sky, and to all the rigours of the season ; so that many of them died of their ill-treatment. It was further affirmed that the hard-heartedness of the English went so far as to forbid those of the Dutch nation that lived in London to assist them ; so that many of them died of starvation, and others, attempting to escape from such sufferings, were mercilessly shot or put to the sword by the soldiers.^ In answer to this statement, I will give some minutes of the Council of State respecting the treatment of the Dutch prisoners, reminding the reader that 6d, a day was at that time equivalent to about 2s, a day at present, and that it was the rate of pay the English Parliament allowed to their own soldiers of the infantry regiments : — "That 6d. per diem be allowed for the keeping of such Dutch prisoners as have been taken and are secured at Falmouth." » " That orders be given to the Commissioners for sale of Dutch prizes, to allow 6d, per diem a man for the main- tenance of such Dutchmen as are prisoners in this Common- wealth." ' * The Dutch writers themselves use this guarded expression. '■* Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, pp. 162, 163: London, 1697. 3 Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, August 24, 1652, MS. State Paper Ofl&ce. Ibid. Tuesday, September 7, 1652. " That a letter be written to the Mayor of Dover, to desire him, out of the last £500 assigned to him for the charge of wounded men and prisoners, to pay unto Mr. William Whiting, of Canter- bury, the sum of £8 9s. 6d., being for so much disbursed by him at Canter- bury for the maintenance of the Dutch." —Ibid. Monday, October 18, 1652. 364 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. " That the Dutch prisoners at Hull be discharged, and 5s. a man given them to carry them home." ^ The following minutes respecting the treatment of the French prisoners taken in the engagement with the Duke of Yendome's fleet afford further evidence of the humane treatment exercised by the Council of State towards their prisoners of war, even while they complained, as the minutes show, that such prisoners were " a very great charge to the Commonwealth " ; — " That order be given to the collectors for prize-goods to allow 6d, per diem a man for the maintenance of such French as are prisoners in this Commonwealth." ^ " That a letter be written to the Mayor of Dover and Governor of Dover Castle, to let them know that they are to send away into France the Frenchmen which were lately taken prisoners, and landed there, reserving only the masters of the ships taken, and so many of the mariners as maybe sufficient to give testimony in the Court of Admiralty, when they shall proceed to the adjudication of the ships, in which they were taken ; to let them know that 6cl per diem is ordered for the maintenance of the private men ; and for the officers they are to take care " Order Book of the Council of Dutch, and dismissed in order to repair State, Friday afternoon, September to England."— /6jW. same day. ** That 17, 1652, MS. State Paper Office.— a letter be written to General Blake, to There was, at least at this time, let him know that he is to discharge the a discharge of prisoners on both Dutch captains with him, and to permit sides, as appears from the following them to return home, unless he knows minutes : " That such of the Dutch tliat the Dutch detain any Englishmen prisoners as are now at Dover and Can- of that quality prisoners, which, if he terbury be released, and permitted to do, he is to detain them, or such of repair to their own country."— Ihid. them as he shall think fit, for the Wednesday, October 6, 16o2. " That making of exchange for such of the the Mayor of Dover do pay the sum English of that quality as shall be de- of £20 to the master of the vessel who tained by the Butch"— Ibid. Monday, brought over from Ostend 120 English October 11, 1652. seamen, who had been taken by the « Ibid. Tuesday, September 7, 1652. 1652.] DISPOSAL OF DUTCH PEIZE-GOODS. 365 that they be civilly treated ; and for the charge thereof, the Council will take care to order the payment of it ; and they are to be desired to take care likewise of the sick me^i." ^ The following minutes show what Blake's energy and success did towards the support of the Government : — " That a letter be written to the Committee for the Navy, to desire them that such moneys as shall arise upon the sale of Dutch prizes may be reserved towards the pay- ing of seamen.'^ ^ '' That order be given to the Commissioners for sale of Dutch prizes, to pay unto the Treasurer for the Navy such money as they have made by the sale of Dutch prizes, it being for the paying off of the ships in the State's service, as they come in from sea." ^ "That the Commissioners for Prize-goods do deliver unto the Corporation for the Poor the three busses taken from the Dutch, now in the Eiver of Thames, together with the nets and other fishing utensils which were taken ^ with them, to be employed by the said Corporation." ^ " That order be given to the Commissioners for Dutch Prize-goods, to give direction to one of their deputies at Plymouth to bring up the chests of gold taken and brought in by Captain Stoakes, and to be very careful in the bringing"of them up, that they be not violated and the gold embezzled ; and that it be signified unto them that order is given to Major-General Desborowe to appoint a fit guard of horse to come along with the gold ; as also that they are to take especial care that a strict search be made after such writings and papers as were found aboard the ships in which the gold was at their taking, that none may be lost which may be of use in the adjudication of ' Order Book of tlie Council of State, Wednesday, September 8, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. Monday, September 6, 1652. 3 nml. Thursday, September 9, 1652. Ibid, same day. 366 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. 1652.] CASE OF CAPTAIN WARREN. 367 the said ships, which they are in this case, and in all others of this nature, to deliver to Doctor Walker to be made use of by him." ^ " That a letter be written to Major-General Desborowe, to acquaint him with the taking of the gold chests from Guinea ; to desire him to afford a competent guard of horse for the bringing of them up in safety to London." ^ In their great need of money at this time, the Council entertained some propositions for the discovery of gold nearer home than Guinea : — " That all the members of the Council, or any three of them, be appointed a Committee, to consider of such pro- positions as shall be made unto them, for the discovery of mines of gold and silver in any of the territories of this Commonwealth, and to report the same to the Council, with their opinions thereupon." ^ " That the proposition delivered in to the Council by . Mr. Scot, concerning the discovery of gold in Scotland, be referred to the consideration of the Committee for Mines." * The all-pervading vigilance and prompt and energetic action of this Council of State were equal to those of the most energetic single ruler. If such an affair as a sea- man's being killed by his captain had occurred under the Government of the Stuarts, it would most probably never have attracted the attention of the Government. It cer- tainly never would, if the captain had been a Prince Eu- pert, or anyone favoured by him. The Council of State proceeded in a different fashion. One of their captains had killed one of his seamen. The following minutes show what followed : — " That three of the deputies of the Serjeant-at-Arms do go down to Eye, and take into their custody the late * Order Book of the Council of ^ Ibid, same day. State, Friday, September 24, 1652, MS. » Ibid. Monday, September 20, 1652. State Paper Office. * Ibid- same day. captain of the Merlin frigate, and bring him up to the Council." ' " That a letter be written to the master of the Merlin frigate, to desire him to send up three such persons, along with the late captain, as can testify concerning the action of his killing a man aboard the frigp^te." ^ " That a warrant be drawn for the committal of Captain Warren to Newgate for murther, in order to be tried for the same." ^ By the 21st of October, that is, just three weeks later. Captain Warren had been tried, found guilty of murder, and executed, as appears from the following minute, relating to a petition to the Council of State from his widow : — " That the petition of Elenor Wan-en, widow, be referred to the Committee of the Admiralty, who are to consider what may be done thereupon, and report their opinion thereupon to the Council." * The vigilance of the Council of State is further mani- fested by the following minute : — " That it be referred to the Committee for Examinations, to examine the complaint made by some prisoners, of great fees exacted from them by certain persons who have solicited their release ; and to send for such persons before them, as can give testimony herein, and likewise for such persons as have exacted such fees ; and examine and report the state of the whole busi- ness to the Council." ^ And their attention to details is shown by the following order : — "That the Dutch prize taken by Captain Peacocke, called the Morning Star, be now named the Plover.^^ ^ » Order Book of the Council of * j/,ij Monday, October 25, 1652. State, Friday, September 24, 1652, « Ibid. Saturday morning, October MS. State Paper Office. 30, 1652. At tlie same meeting, there '^ Pjid. same day, is made in the Order Book tlie fol- ' 77>i6?.Thursday, September 30, 1652. lowing memorandum: "Look out * Ibid. Thursday, October 21, 1652. General Blake's commission." \ 368 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. " That an extract of the intelligence, now read in the Council, from Holland, be sent unto General Blake." ' The following minute, of 12th November, has reference to a resolution of the Council, to send twenty ships at this time to the Mediterranean. The Council here committed a great blunder. Bj sending off those twenty ships, they so weakened Blake that he was not a match for Tromp, and thus met with the only disaster that befel him in the whole course of his career. The intelligence they had received, respecting the plans of the Dutch, render their proceeding the more inexcusable : — " That a letter be written to General Blake, to acquaint him with the resolution of the Council, for the sending of twenty ships to the Streights ; to give him 9. list of the names of the ships, to let him know that it is not the in- tention of the Council to disable him " [of course it was not their intention, but the result was to disable him effectually] " (by the taking of these ships) from waiting upon the service in these parts, which the Council doubt not but will be supplied by the coming out of others appointed for the winter guard. However they thought fit, before they came to any positive resolution concerning this business, to acquaint him therewith, to the end that if he had anything to offer concerning it, it might be taken into consideration."^ ' Order Book of the Council of State, AVednesday, November 10, 1652, MS. State i'.-ipei- Office : " That a letter be written to the Mayor of Dover, to desire him to speak to the master of the pac- quet-boat which passeth between that place and Flanders ; that it is the Coun- cil's pleasure that he do take aboard him in Flanders all such English seamen as do come thither to pass into England, as well those who have left the service of the Dutch, in obedience to an Act of Parliament, as also those who haA'e been taken prisoners by the Dutch, and have been released, and do and shall repair to Dunquerque for passing into England; and to let him know that he is to re- lieve each of them as shall want it upon their landing, and place it to ac- count. And further, to signify to him that the master of the pacquet-boat shall have, for eveiy person which he shall so bring over, according to the rate he usually hath of other pas- sengers."— 7i/(/. same day. 2 Ibid. Friday, November 12, 1652. 1652.] NEW COUNCIL OF STATE FOR 1652 369 The sending of a fleet of twenty ships to the Streights, at that particular time, was one blunder of the Council of State ; the granting of so great a number of letters of marque to privateers or private men-of-war was another. In regard to the latter, Blake complains in his letter after the fight with Tromp ; and it would appear, from the following minute, that he had remonstrated on the subject of the want of men before the fight : — " That the letter from General Blake, dated the 21st instant, for so much of it as refers to men and victuals, be referred to the consideration of the Committee of the Admiralty." ^ In November 1652 the House proceeded, for the fifth and last time, to the election of a new Council of State for the ensuing year. The Serjeant-at-Arms was ordered to go out with his mace, and summon all the members in West- minster Hall, and the parts adjacent, to attend the House. The doors were then ordered to be shut,, when the nimiber of members present appeared to be 122. ) The twenty-one members of the Council of State tQj>e continued for the year ensuing were the Lord-General Cromwell, Lord- Commissioner Whitelock, Lord Chief Justice St. John, Lord Chief Justice Eolle, Sir Henry Yane, jun.. Sir Arthur Haselrig ; Thomas Scott, Herbert Morley, and Dennis Bond, Esquires; Colonel Pm^efoy, John Bradshaw, Serjeant-at-law, John Gurdon, Esq., Lord-Commissioner Lisle, Colonel Wanton, Sir James Harrington, Sir William Masham, Thomas Chaloner, and Robert Wallop, Esquires ; Sir Gilbert Pickering, Sir Peter Wentworth, and Nicholas Love, Esq. The twenty new members now elected were Robert Good- win, Esq., Alderman Allen, Colonel Thompson, Walter 1 Order Book of the Council of State, Monday, November 22, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. VOL. II. B B 1 ( I 370 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. ! \ \ Strickland, Esq., Sir Henry Mildmay, Major-General Skip- pon. Lord Grey, Colonel Sydney (Algernon Sydney), Edmund Prideanx, Esq. (Attorney-General), Sir John Trevor, Colo- nel Norton, Thomas Lister, Esq., Colonel Ingoldsby, Sir John Bourchier, William Earl of Salisbury, William Cawley, Esq., Sir William Brereton, John Fielder and William Say, Esquires, and Major-General Harrison.^ It will be observed that Blake was not one of the twenty- one members of the Council^^f^ate for the preceding year who were re-elected. He was ndt, therefore, for more than one year a member of the Council of State. It will also be observed that Algernon Sydney, who had never before been a member, was one of the twenty new members who were now elected members of the Council, to fill up the places of the twenty members IJT the last year's Council who now went out. As Blake was at, this time constantly with the fleet, he could not, even if he had been re-elected, have been present at the deliberations of the Council. ' On Thursday, the 25th of November 1652, the Council of State ordered, "Thatthe two letters of the 24th instant, from General Blake to the Council, be humbly presented to the Parliament ; and the Parliament put in mind that General Blake's commission determines upon the 4th of December next, to the end they may be pleased to declare their pleasure touching the same." ^ Blake requested that two colleagues should be joined with him in the command, as had been the case in the first year of his naval service. Accordingly, Colonel Deane (his former colleague) and General Monk were appointed his colleagues in the ' Commons' Jouraals, November, State, Thursday, November 25, 1652, 1652, Pari. Hist., vol. iii. p 1379. MS. State Paper Office. =^. Order Book of the Council of 1652.] CRIPPLING OF THE CHANNEL FLEET. 371 command of the fleet. Both these officers, being then em- ployed in Scotland, could not for some time take any active part in the naval war. I at one time thought that, notwithstanding the inces- sant care of the Council of State, and the large sums paid by them for intelligence, their information was defective about this time in regard to the movements of the Dutch ; and that they made a distribution of their fleet for the winter, as if the Dutch preparations for renewing the con- test would not be completed till the spring. But a careful examination of their Order Books shows that they were by no means uninformed of the state of the Dutch fleet and the great preparations of the Dutch Government. Evi- dence of this has already been given. And further, on Thurs- day, the 25th of November 1652, there is a minute, "That the Lord-General be desired to give order to some foot forces of the army to march to Dover, Sand own, and Deal, to be there in readiness to go aboard the ships of this Com- monwealth, when they shall receive orders from the same from General Blake." ^ And on the following day there is a minute, " That so much of the Dutch letters as gives the state of the Dutch fleet be signified to General Blake." ^ Notwithstanding all these warnings, however, the Council of State had, as we have seen, despatched twenty ships of war to the Mediterranean. Moreover, twenty ships of the English fleet had been sent to Elsinore, under Captain Ball.^ Penn sailed northward with an equal number of vessels, * Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, November 25, 1652, JVIS. State Paper Office. 2 Ibid. Friday, November 26, 1652. ^ " Instructions to Captain Ball upon his repair to the Sound: — 1. You are forthwith to go to the Sound, with the squadron of ships ordered for that purpose by the letter you shall here- with receive, and there take into your charge sucli English ships as are home- ward bound from thence, and use voiir best endeavours to convoy them safely home to their several ports." The 6th instruction is " to observe such orders as you shall receive from the B 2 I 372 COMMOJSWKAXTH 01' ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. to convoy a fleet of colliers from Newcastle to London. Twelve ships were stationed in Plymouth Sound, and fifteen of the sMps^ that had been most damaged were ordered into the river for repair. Towards the end of November the Council of State began to perceive, whfen it was too late, the blunder they had committed in crippling their Channel fleet. On Saturday, the 27th of November, the Council ordered, " That a letter be written to General Blake, to ac- knowledge the receipt of his of the 26th, anS of his intention to go to sea, wherewithal the Council is satisfied ; and that the Council have written to Portsmouth, for the State's ships there to repair to him immediately." ^ And on the same day they order, " That a letter be written to Mr. Willoughby at Portsmouth, to hasten out the Spenlcer and other ships of the State there to General Blake ; and to enclose to him a warrant to all captains of ships, to re- pair forthwith with their ships to General Blake." ^ But these orders would, manifestly, not be in time to furnish any eff*ectual reinforcement to Blake by the 29th of No- vember. Accordingly, on the 29th of November, Blake rode in the Channel, between Dover and Calais, with a fleet, consisting of 37 men-of-war and frigates, the fire- ships, and a few hoys. After the defeat of De Witt, related in the preceding chapter, the States of the United Provinces again cast their eyes upon Martin Tromp, who, as has been before stated, " was as much beloved by the seamen for his mild temper, as De Witt was hated by them for his cruelty." ^ Parliament, the Council of State, or hagen. General Blake." — Order Book of the ' Ibid. Saturday, November 27, Council of State, Monday, August 30, 1652. 1652, MS. State Paper Office. How- ^ Ibid, same day. ever, as has been said, the King of ' Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, Denmark seized the fleet of English p. 83. merchantmen in the harbour of Copen- 1652.] MEETING OF THE HOSTILE FLEETS. 373 Accordingly, at the beginning of November, the States re- solved to give him the command of the fleet they were then fitting out. Yice-Admirals Evertz and De Witt, and Kear- Admiral Floritz, were appointed to command under him. But De Witt falling sick was put ashore, and De Euyter was substituted in his place. ^ The Dutch accounts say that this Dutch fleet was composed of 73 men-of-war, be- sides fireships and other smaller vessels, and tenders.* Blake's own statement is that the Dutch fleet " consisted of 95 sail, most of them great ships." ^ On Monday, the 29th4 of November 1652, the hostile fleets found themselves in presence of each other, between Dover and Calais. Blake called a council of war on board the Triumph, his flag-ship ; but it was rather to apprise his captains of what he had resolved to do, than to ask their opinion of what ought to be done. He spoke of the situa- tion of the two nations at that moment, of the superior force of the enemy, of the distance of his own squadrons ; and ended by declaring his resolution to fight, if it were necessary, but on no account to fall down the Channel, leaving the coast towns to be insulted, and perhaps de- stroyed, by that powerful armament. The captains, as a matter of course, when the Admiral was a man of Blake's commanding character, accepted his decision — though, as the result proved, they could hardly have all of them ac- cepted it with alacrity — and returned to their several ships. All that day the two admirals watched each other's movements, with a view to gain the weather-gage. Blake's • Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 83. the original letter to the Council, with « Ibid. Blake's signature, among Sir W. Penn's • Blake's letter to the Council of papers. State, from aboard the Triumjph, in the ♦ This was Old Style, by which tho Downs, December 1, 1652; printed in English th»!n reckoned. The Dutch, Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir who reckoned by the " New Style," Wm. Penn (vol. i. pp. 458-460), from make it December 9. 374 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. own account is, that the wind, " which was awhile some- what variable, after blew strongly at north-west, so that we could not that day engage. The wind increased at night, we riding in Dover Eoad, and the enemy about two leagues to leeward of us at anchor. "^ Next morning, the wind having somewhat abated, the two fleets weighed and stood away to Dungeness, the English keeping the wind. " About the pitch of the Nesse," ^ says Blake, " the head- most of our fleet met and engaged the enemy's fleet, con- sisting of 95 sail, most of them great ships — three ad- mirals,3 two vice-admirals, and two rear-admirals. They passed many broadsides upon us ^ very near, and yet we had but six men slain and ten wounded. About the same time, the Vidmy was engaged with divers of the enemy, but was relieved by the Vanguard and some others. The Gar- land sped not so well ; but being boarded by two of their flags and others, and seconded only by Captain Hoxton, was, after a hot fight board-and-board, carried by them. ' Blake to the Council of State, December 1, 1652.— Granville Penns Memorials of Sir Wm. Penn, vol. i. pp. 4.58-460. ' Some writers have supposed that hy " Nesse " here Blake meant the Naze, a headland in Essex near the border of Suffolk. The minutes of the Coun- cil of State place the matter beyond a doubt. There is a minute of January 26, 165|, relating to the petition of "Kachel Hoxon, relict of Captain Hoxon, commanderof the ship Anthony Bona venture, who was slain in the late fight with the Dutch oif Dungey Nesse." — Order Book of the Coun- cil of State, Wednesday, January 26 165?, MS. State Paper Office. Also in a minute of January 12, 165|, relating to the trial of Captains Young and Taylor, "the late fight with the Dutch " is stated to have been " off Dunginesse." — Ihid. Wednesday, January 12, 165|. The name of the opposite French headland, " Cap Gris Nez," has a close resemblance to the name of the English, if the latter means " dun nose." * There seems to be some confusion here. There was Tromp, the admiral ; De Ruyter and Evertz, vice-admirals ; and there were also, probably, two rear-admirals. * By " us " he means his own ship, the Triumph. " Out of 200 men on board the Garland, at the beginning of the action, the Captain and 60 officers and men were killed, and a still greater number severely wounded. The Bon- aventure had suflfered to an equal extent."— 7)wY)w'5 Hohirt BlaJce,^. 223, London, 1852: p. 185, new edition, London, 1858. 1652.] BATTLE OF DUNGENESS. and his second with him. It was late before I took notice of it, whereupon I gave order to bear up to them ; but im- mediately our foretopmast was shot away, our mainstay being shot off before, and our rigging much torn, so that we could not work our ship to go to their relief. And by occasion thereof, and night coming on, we were saved our- selves, who were then left almost alone. As soon as it was nio-ht, we made sail towards Dover Eoad, and came to anchor. This morning, the weather growing thick, and fearing a south wind, we stood away to the Downs, where (by God's providence) we now are." ^ Few are the men who can or will acknowledge a defeat. It may indeed be assumed, as a maxim of strategic science, that it is one of the duties of a commander to turn a defeat into a victory, at least in his narrative of it. But there can be no doubt that the Dutch had on this occa- sion gained a victory, and were, for the time, masters cf the Channel. The common story that Tromp, after this affair, carried a broom in his maintop, thereby intimating that he would sweep the narrow seas of all English shipping, seems unworthy of the general character of Tromp, who might have been supposed too great a com- mander, and too brave a man, to be a braggart. But there is no occasion on which the manly truthfulness and genuine modesty of Blake's nature shine forth more con- spicuously than they do on this. His letter to the Council of State begins thus : " Eight Honourable, I presume your Honours do long for an account of what hath passed between us and the Dutch fleet; and I hope you have hearts prepared to receive evil, as well as good, from the hands of God." * • Blake to the Council of State, pp. 458, 459. December 1, 1652, in Granville Penn's ' Ihid. vol. i. p. 458. Memorials of Sir Wm. Penn, vol. i. 376 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. 1652.] BLAKE'S FLEET IS REINFORCED. After a short account (already cited) of the battle, Blake thus proceeds :— " In this account, I am bound to let your Honours know in general, that there was much baseness of spirit, not among the merchantmen only, but many of the State's ships ; and, therefore, I make it my earnest request, that your Honours would be pleased to send down some gentlemen, to take an impartial and strict exami- nation of the deportment of several commanders, that you may know who are to be confided in, and who are not. It will then be time to take into consideration the grounds of some other errors and defects, especially the discourage- ment and want of seamen. I shall be bold at present to name one, 7iot the least — which is, the great number of private men-of'War, especially out of the River of Thames. And I hope it will not be unreasonable for me, in behalf of myself, to desire your Honours, that you would think of giving me, your unworthy servant, a discharge from this employ- ment, so far too great for me; especially, since your Honours have added two such able gentlemen^ for the undertaking of that charge: that so L may spend the remainder of my days in private retirement, and in prayers to the Lord for a blessing upon you and the nation At the close of this, I received your Honours' of the 30th of November, together with yqur commission, which I shall endeavour to put in execution with all the power and faithfulness I can, until it shall please your Honours to receive it back again, which I trust will be very speedily ; that so I may be freed from that trouble of spirit which lies upon me, arising from the sense of my own insuffi- ciency, and the usual effects thereof— reproach and con- tempt of men, and disservice of the Commonwealth, which may be the consequent of both. ' Deane and Monk. " Into what capacity or condition soever it shall please the Lord to cast me, I shall labour still to approve myself a faithful patriot, and " Your Honours' most humble servant, Robert Blake. " Triumph, in the Downs, this 1st December, 1652." ^ On Wednesday, the 1st of December, 1652, the number present in the Council of State was twenty-eight,^ being eight or ten above the average number. Colonel Sydney (Algernon Sydney) was one of those present. The Lord- General (Cromwell) was not present. . The energy and ability with which the Council of State immediately set about repairing the error they had committed, in crippling their Channel fleet, are well worthy of the most careful attention, and are very interesting as well as very in- structive. On that day, the 1st of December, 1652, they made an order : — "That a letter be written to the three frigates at Plymouth, to acquaint them with what is come to the Coun^ concerning the engagement with the Dutch ; to desire them, therefore, to sail towards General Blake, now in the Downs, and to send a ketch before them to the General, to acquaint him with the orders they have received from the Council ; and to desire his directions, unless they have already received orders from him in reference to this service." ^ On the following day, Thursday, 2nd December, the Council of State made the following orders : — > Blake to the Council of State, ^ Order Book of the Council of from the original among Sir W. State, Wednesday, December 1, 1652, Penn's papers.— Granville Penn's MS. State Paper Office. Memorials of Sir W. Penn, vol. i. ' Ibid, same day. pp. 458-460. if 378 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. " That a warrant be drawn, to give power to the captains of the private men-of-war now in the River of Thames (for the enabling of them, npon the present occasion, to join with the fleet with General Blake), to imprest [sic] seamen for their respective ships ; and that this warrant be con- tinued in force for the space of one month, and no longer ; and the captains of the several ships are to bring in the numbers of men which thev desire." ^ " That three members of the Council — Colonel Wauton,^ Colonel Morley, and Mr. Chaloner — be sent as Commis- sioners to the fleet with General Blake, to pursue such measures as the Council shall give unto them." ^ These Commissioners are empowered to take up money not ex- ceeding £500, to be disposed by them as they shall see occasion."* " That Mr. Smyth and Major Thompson do repair aboard the several ships in the State's service now in the river, and use all possible endeavours for hastening them out to General Blake." ^ "That a letter be written to General Blake, to take notice to him of the receipt of his, giving an account of the late engagement with the Dutch ; to take notice to him ' Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, December 2, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. * This name is sometimes spelt "Walton," and sometimes " Wauton;" it is on this occasion spelt " Wauton." ' Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, December 2, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. — The following are among the instructions to these Com- missioners : " 6. You, with the Gene- ral, are hereby authorised to examine the deportment of several captains and commanders, as well of the State's ships as merchantmen, in the late fight with the Dutch fleet ; and to re- move from the command such of the captains and other commanders as you, upon examination, shall find not to have performed their duty in the said action, and to supply their places with other fit persons, until the Council shall take further order. — 7. You are, during your residence there, to be present at councils of war, and advise in all things that may emerge or fall into consideration upon the place relating to the premises." — Ibid. same day. * Ibid, same day. ^ Ibid, same day. 1652.] SHIPS ENGAGED FOE THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 379 of his good deportment in that action, and to give him thanks for the same ; and also to acquaint him that the CouncH have despatched some Commissioners to him, to visit him from them, and to consult with him concerning the carrying on of the public service." ^ " That the Lord-General be desired to give order to such foot forces of the army as he shaU find necessary, to march down towards Dover and the seaside in those parts, and to be there in readiness for further service." * On the following day, Friday, the 3rd of December, 1652, the Council of State ordered :— " That waiTants be issued to the Yice-Admirals of the adjacent counties, and, where there are no Yice-Admirals, to the Mayors or Bailiffs and other officers of the port towns, to imprest seamen for the service of the Common- wealth." 3 " That it be referred to the Commissioners of the Navy, to treat with Mr. Marston concerning the setting out of his ships into the public service ; and to offer unto him protection for the freeing of his men from being pressed into the State's ships, he undertaking to carry the said ships to the General [Blake] by a certain day, as they can agree, and wind and weather shall serve ; and to remain there for some time, which the said Commissioners are like- wise to ascertain with him as they shall be able." ' On Saturday the 4th of December they made the foUow- ing orders : — " That a letter be written to the commanders of the State's ships of war at Harwich and Yarmouth, to requke » Order Book of the Council of minute, made the same day, has re- State Thursday, December 2, 1652, ference to Blake's remonstrance re- MS State Paper Office. . spccting the number of private men- ^■i/>i^. same day. of-war: "That all petitions for pn- 3 lidd Friday, December 3, 1652. vate men-of-war be read publicly at * Ibid same day.— The following the Council."— /6iV7. same day. r V ( \ 380 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. them to make haste to General Blake, now in the Downs, and to go in consort together ; and to take especial care,' in their passage thither, that they be not surprised or unawares set upon by the enemy." » " That the like letters which were sent to the western ports last night, for the giving notice to them of what hath happened between the English and Dutch fleets, be de- spatched thither again, and the same also to the northern ports." 2 " That a warrant be directed to Mr. WiUoughby and Mr. Coytmore, to repair down the Eiver of Thames to all ships of war, whether the State's or private men-of-war, and require them from the Council to hasten to General Blake, now in the Downs, wild all possible expedition ; and all Justices of the Peace are required to permit the said Mr. WiUoughby and Mr. Coytmore to ^ass u^pon the Lord's Day, it being for a special service,"^ " That a letter be written to General Blake, to acquaint him with what the Council hath done for the giving him an addition of strength; to let him know that (in regard the state of affairs is before him, and he hath a perfect understanding of them), the Council do leave it to him, upon the place, to do what he may for his own defence and the service of the Commonwealth. ".^ " That General Monk be sent unto, and desired to be in readiness, at twenty-four hours' warning, to go to sea, to take upon him the charge to which he hath been appointed by the Parliament." * " That the Parliament be humbly moved to give orders 1652.] THE COAST GARRISONS STRENGTHENED. 381 • Order Book ofthe Council of State, Saturday afternoon, December 4, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. ' Ibid, same time. ' Ibid, same time. * Ibid, same time. ^ Ibid, same time. for the granting of commissions to General Deane and General Monk, as to the exercising that command at sea, to which they have already been appointed by order of Parliament; and the Lord President [of the Council of State] is desired humbly to move the Parliament herein."* " The Lord-General Cromwell acquainting the Council that he had drawn out 500 men out of the guards here, and given them orders to march to Dover and the seacoast thereabouts, and likewise had commanded Colonel Rich's regiment of horse to draw together upon that coast, the Council doth approve thereof; and desire his Lordship to give further orders for speeding away the said 500 men, and also to give orders to another regiment of horse to strengthen the seacoast with."^ The indefatigable exertions of the Council of State, to put their fleet into that thoroughly efficient condition which it displayed in the next great fight with the Dutch, in the following February, can only be known completely by a careful perusal of their minutes. But to give these minutes in full would, I fear, appear tedious to the reader. On this, however, the last and greatest occasion they were to have for the exercise of their great administrative genius, some indulgence may, perhaps, be accorded to an attempt to give as many of them as may convey some idea at least of the labours of the most remarkable body of statesmen that ever sat together in Council. On Sunday the 5th of December, 1652, the Council recom- mend Harwich to Blake, as a port to refit, instead of Lee ' Order Book of the Council of State, Commander-in-Chief there, the Parlia- Saturday afternoon, December 4, 1652, ment having appointed Major-General MS. State Paper Office. — At the same Deane, the present Commander-in- time, " The Lord-General is desired to Chief, to be one of the Generals ofthe think of some fit person, to be imme- Fleet." — Ibid, same time. diately despatched into Scotland, to be ^ Ibid, same time. '■I .1 382 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. Road, but leave the decision to hiin. Blake chose to come into the river, to Lee Eoad. On Monday morning the Council order, "That a letter be written to General Blake, to take notice to him of his coming into Lee Eoad ; to desire him that he will forthwith give a particular account to the Council of the state of the fleet, and be very careful in the keeping of his men aboard."^ On the afternoon of the same day, the Council ordered, " That letters be sent to desire those of the western ports to set out some small boats to give notice to merchant- ships homewards bound of what hath happened, that they may take care of their o^vn safety." ^ " That the Council do approve of the Lord President's opening of letters directed to the Council, and authorise him to open such as shall come, and thereupon to summon the Council if he shall see cause." ^ On the 1 7th of December the Council of State wrote to Blake, " to let him know they have received an account from the Commissioners sent down to him of the state of the fleet, and of h:,s readiness to give them assistance in the business for which they were sent ; to return him thanks for his faithful service, and to acquaint him that all possible endeavours are using for the speedy setting forth of the fleet to sea." ^ " Upon consideration had of the qualities and rates of the several ships which are to be set forth in the fleet for the next summer, it is ordered that it be declared that all such merchant-ships as shall be taken on and hired for that service, shall be vessels carrying twenty-six guns at the least, and not under." ^ ' Order Book of the Council of " Ibid. Wednesday morning, De- State, Monday morning, December ceniber 8, 6, 1652, MS. State Paper Office. * Ibid. Friday, December 17, 1652. "^ Ibkl. Monday afternoon, December ^ Ibid, same day. 6, 1652. 1652.] KIGOUR OF THE PRESS-WARRANTS. 383 " That the captains of such ships as shall be hired for the service of the Commonwealth shall be chosen and placed by the State ; and the other officers are likewise to be approved of." ^ The following minute affords a graphic picture, in a small compass, of the rigour with which the press-warrants were executed, in order to man the State's ships in that great naval war : — " That a warrant of protection be granted to Thomas Girhng, waterman, son of Christopher Girling of Eichmond, in the county of Surrey, waterman, to protect him from being imprested into the State's service, in regard that by his labour only his aged father is supported, who is unable now to support himself; and that he, the said Christopher, hath lost two sons already in the service of the Common- wealth." 2 " That order be given to the Commissioners for Prize- goods, to bring up the prize-silver and cochineal from Ply- mouth, and to coin the silver in the Tower of London ; and to let them know that Major-General Desborowe is written unto, to afford convoy to the bringing of it up." ^ ^ Order Book of the Council of State, the loss of all, when they may be quiet Friday, December 17, 1652, MS. and receive the same pay." — Granville State Paper Office.— Sir Wm. Pcnn, in Penn^s Memorials of Sir Wm. Peim, a letter to the Lord-General Cromwell, vol. i. p. 427, from Milton's Collection, dated June 2, 1652, says : " My Lord, ^ Order Book of the Council of it is humbly conceived that the State State, Wednesday, January 5, 165§, would be far better served if, as for- MS. State Paper Office, merly, they placed commanders in all ' Rid. Fiiday, January 7, 165f. — the merchant-ships taken up ; for the On the same day an order was made, commanders now employed, being all " That Mr. Isaac Dorislaus be ap- part-owners of their ships, I do believe pointed Solicitor in the Court of Ad- will not be so industrious in engaging miralty on the behalf of the Common- an enemy as other men ; especially con- wealth, and that he have the allow- sidering that by engagement they not ance of £250 per annum for himself, only waste their powder and shot, but and a clerk in consideration of this are liable to receive damage in their employment." At the same time in- masts, rigging, and hull, and endanger structions for the directing of him in 384 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. 165f.] ENGLISH CAPTIVES AT ALGIERS. 385 The wording of the following minute is curious, and would seem to show that the Council of State had some doubts as to the precise meaning of the word Common- wealth. They would have been more accurate, however, if they had left out the word " Eepublique," to which title the Government of Venice had very small claim, less than their own Government had : — " That Sir Oliver Fleming do carry the letters from the Parliament directed to the Eepublique of the Commonwealth of Venice to the Secretary now here from that Common- wealth." 1 The business of the Council of State extended to trans- actions with all the Powers of the world. At this time they had, besides their conferences with the ambassadors of some Powers, correspondence by letters to carry on with many others — with the Great Duke of Tuscany, with " Jacobus Duke of Courland," with the Archduke Leopold.^ Their mode of dealing with those personages may be seen from the minute respecting a letter from the Duke of Ven- dome, complaining of the destruction of his fleet by Blake in September of this year. This minute is as follows : — " The Council of State having, in pursuance of the Order of Parliament in that behalf, taken into consideration the Duke of Vendome's letter, and the matter of fact of taking the ships mentioned therein, do find the state of it to be, — That General Blake, being with the fleet, in the Narrows, about the 5th of September last, part of the fleet, after some hours' chase, did take . . . [hlanlc in orig.] French men-of-war, being the King's own ships, who, as the com- mander said, were with several other ships going to the relief of Dunkirk." that employment were signed and de- State, Tuesday, January 11, 165f , livered to him. MS. State Paper Office. • Order Book of the Council of ^ jjjij^ Thursday, January 6, 165§. Whether any further explanation or satisfaction the Council may have given in their letter I do not know, as, though the "draught of a letter" to the Duke of Vendome is said in the minute to be "annexed here- unto," » I have not been able to find any such draught. But there is little doubt that the substance of the minute given above formed the substance of the letter. On the 11th of January 165f letters were ordered to be sent to the Vice-Admirals and Mayors of port towns, for the impresting of seamen in their respective jurisdictions, for the effectual manning of the fleet now to go forth ; and the ships at Portsmouth and Plymouth and in the western ports were ordered to cruise up and down in the Channel for the discovery of the enemy. ^ On the following day a letter, which shows in a striking manner the extent to which the Barbary pirates earned on their depredations, particularly in carrying Englishmen into captivity, was written to " Mr. Longland, to acquaint him that it is the opinion of this Council that, for the furnishing of the English shipping in the Straits with Englishmen, he do, by such vessels as he shall have occa- sion from time to time to send to the African shore, bring from Algiers some of the English captives ; which the Council conceive may now be effected upon the paying for every man who shaU be brought away the price of his redemption ; which the Council is informed is now set and agreed upon.**" "3 ' Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, November 23, 1652,MS. State Paper Office. 2 3ld. Tuesday, January 11, 165§. •'' Ibid. Wednesday, January 12, 165f . On the same day the Council made an order, " That Mr. Thui-loe do prepare a paper to be brouglit into the Council, VOL. II. c C in pursuance of an Order of Parlia- ment, whereby it may be signified to the ambassadors and public ministers now here, sent from foreign states and princes to this CommouM-ealth, that they are not to permit any of the people of this Commonwealth to re- sort to the hearing of Masse in their 386 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. I have repeatedly had occasion to call attention to the sensitiveness of the Council of State on the subject of what they termed " libellous and scurrilous books and pamph- lets." It is due to the memory of the statesmen who composed that Council to state that their aversion to scur- rility extended even to scurrility against their enemies, as will appear from the following minute of 27th of January 165|:— "That the printed paper this day brought into the Council, containing scurrilous matter against the Dutch- men, be referred to the Committee of the Council appointed for putting in execution the late Act for regulating the press; who are to cause enquiry to be made after the author, printer, and publishers of the said paper, and also search to be made for them, and seizure of such of them as can be found ; and to report to the Council what they shall do herein." ^ An adequate conception cannot be obtained of the labours of the Council of State without mentioning that a vast number of petitions came in almost every day, which necessarily occupied some part of their time. Many of these petitions were from the widows who had lost their husbands in the service of the State. All these petitions received careful attention ; even, when the Council could do nothing for the petitioners, as in the following case : houses, it being contrary to the laws of the nation." — Order Book of the Council of State, January 12, 165§, MS. State Paper Office. ' Ihid. Thursday, January 27, 165f . — Some specimens of the "scurrilous matter" here referred to, matter containing more scurrility than wit, may be seen in the King's Pamphlets, Anno 1 65^3, Brit. Mus. The English scurrility had, however, the excuse that it had been provoked by the demeanour of the Dutch, who had made bragging and scurrilous songs of their own success in the war — a success of which they had, in truth, small cause to boast, since they owed it to a superiority of force amounting to three to one. 165i] RELATIONS WITH FOREIGN POWERS. 387 " Upon the reading of the petition of Susanna Cowlino- it is ordered that it be returned in answer to the said petition, that the matter of the petition is not within the cognizance of the Council." ^ And yet Cromwell charged this Council of State with neglect of their duty and delays of business. On Wednesday, the 19th of January, it was ordered :— " That it be signified to the Commissioners for the Navy, that the Council hold it fit that directions be by them given to such as they employ under them as prest-masters, that they do not for the future press out of any vessel trading for coal to Newcastle, any man who is aged above forty-five years, or any boy under the age of sixteen years, to the end that that trade, which is so necessary to this Com- monwealth, may be continued, and the ships in the service of this Commonwealth be well and effectually manned." 2 " That the paper in answer to the ambassadors from the King of Spain and Duke Leopold be humbly reported to the Parliament by Colonel Sydney." ^ I will give here several other minutes, throwing light on the Parliament's relations with the Great Powers of Europe at that time : — " That six thousand pounds be allowed unto the Lord Viscount Lisle" [Algernon Sydney's elder brother], ' Order Book of the Council of State, Tuesday, January 18, 165f, MS. State Paper Office. ^ Ibid. Wednesday, January 19, 165§. ' Ibid, same day. — Such minutes prove that Algernon Sydney did not speak without authority when he said, "All the states, kings, and potentates of Europe most respectfully, not to say submissively, sought our friend- sliip." — Algernon Sydney on Govern- c c 7nent, chap. ii. sect. 28. I may add here another minute, showing the active part taken by Sydney in the business of the Council of State : — " That Colonel Sydney, Mr. Strickland, Colonel Purefoy, Sir H. Mildmay, or any two of them, be desired to go out to treat with the French agent, they being the Commissioners formerly appointed to that business." — Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, February 10, 165|, MS. State Paper Office. 2 388 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. " nominated ambassador for Sweden, for his preparations, joumej, house-expenses, and all other ordinary necessaries for the space of six months ; of which £3,000 be paid unto him in money here, and the other three thousand to be sent over by bills of exchange either to Stockholme, or Ham- burgh, as shall appear most convenient ; and that £6,000 be set apart for that service by the Council out of the exi- gents accordingly." ^ " That Mr. Thurloe do prepare the letter this day passed in the Parliament to be sent to the Archduke, for the sig- nature of Mr. Speaker ; and that it be sent by Sir Oliver Fleming to the Lord Ambassador of Spain, in order to be sent to the Archduke Leopold." ^ ' Order Book of the Council of State, Monday, January 24, 165^, MS. State Paper Office. — It appears, there- fore, that Ludlow was in error when he stated that at this time " The Parliament sent the Lord-Commis- sioner Whitelock on an extraordinary embassy to the Crown of Sweden." — Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 439 : 2nd edition, London, 1721. But as it would appear that Lord Viscount Lisle, though nominated, did not go, probably in consequence of the change in the English Government that took place soon after, Ludlow might easily confuse this appointment of Lord Lisle with that of Whitelock by Cromwell in less than a y^^ar after. A story told by Whitelock, in his ac- count of his embassy to Sweden, may show that the English Parliament had special reasons for nominating to that appointment a man of the rank of the Lord Viscount Lisle. Wlien White- lock, after having had the honour of dancing with Christina, the Queen of Sweden, had conducted the Queen to her chair of state, she said to him. " Par Dieu ! these Hollanders are lying fellows." "I wonder," replied WTiitelock, "how the Hollanders should come into your mind upon such an occasion as this is, who are not usually thought upon " in such solemnities, nor much acquainted with them." " I will tell you all," replied the Queen. " The Hollanders reported to me a great while since, that all the noblesse of England were of the King's party, and none but mechanics of the Parliament's party, and not a gentleman among them. Now I thought to try you;^ and to shame you if you could not dance ; but I see that you are a gentleman, and have been bred a gen- tleman ; and that makes me say the Hollanders are lying fellows, to report that there was not a gentleman of the Parliament's party, when I see by you chiefly, and by many of your company, that you are gentlemen." — Whitelock' s Journal of his Swedish Embassy, vol. ii. pp. 155, 156, 2 vols. London, 1772. * Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, January 27, 165|, MS. State Paper Office. 165f.] OEDEES EELATING TO THE FLEET. 389 " That the Commissioners of the Council appointed to meet with the public minister from the King of France do give a meeting unto him to-morrow, in the afternoon, at the usual place in Whitehall. And Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, is to give notice hereof unto him, and to bring him to the place of meeting." ' " That the members appointed to meet with the public minister from the King of France, or any two of them, be appointed to receive from the agent of the Prince of Conde what he hath to offer." 2 " That Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies, do carry to Seigneur Armerigo Salvetti, Eesident with this Commonwealth from the Great Duke of Tuscany, the letter written from the Parliament to the Duke of Tuscany ; and he desired to transmit the same to the Duke, his master. "^ " That the letter now read to the Duke of Venice be ap- proved of and translated into Latin, and sent to the secre- tary of that Commonwealth now here, in order to be sent by him to Venice. And the Commissioners of the Council appointed to treat with the said secretary are to represent unto him the state of the business contained in the letter, and to press him, on behalf of the merchants concerned, that justice may be done unto them according to the desire of the CounciFs letter." ^ " That Mr. Thurloe do send a letter to the Mayor of Gravesend, about sending in men to the fleet, according as hath been sent to other Justices of the Peace to that purpose." ^ ' Order Book of the Council of State, * Ibid. Friday, January 28, 1 65§ — Friday, January 27, 165f, MS. State In the jnargin of this minute in the Paper Office. Order Book is this marginal note, in ' ^^>^- same day. Secretary Thurloe's hand (the minute 3 Ibid. January 14, 165§. being in a clerk's hand, though a rough * Ibid. Wednesday, February 2, draft written fast) :—" Let a duplicate ^^^§- of the former letter be writt." 390 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. The minutes of the next meeting of the Council of State (held on the following day, Saturday, the 29th of January 165f ), are all in Secretary Thurloe's hand — a hand which persons more accustomed to read manuscript than Tony Lumpkin might be excused for describing as a very " cramp piece of penmanship." At this meeting there were eighteen members of the Council present.* At this meeting of the Council the following orders were issued : — " That Mr. Scott be desired to make extracts of such of the intelligence now read by him, as is fit for the knowledge of the Generals of the fleet, and to send it unto them." 2 " The Council, upon consideration of the whole business now before them concerning the fleet, do think fit and order that all the three Generals go forth to sea with the fleet upon this present expedition." ^ " That the Council doth declare and order, that there be one secretary for the three Generals of the fleet, and that the Commissioners of the Admiralty do allow him a suffi- cient salary."'* " That Francis Harvey, late secretary to General Blake, be not employed in the service of the fleet." ^ " That Captain Benjamin Blake be discharged from his present command in the fleet, and that he be not employed, nor go forth in the service." ^ Campbell, in his Life of Blake, places the supercession of Benjamin Blake, the General's brother, at the attack on Santa Cruz, in 1657, on the authority of a work entitled > On Monday, 1 Tth of the same month, MS. State Paper Office, there were thirty members present. — ^ /^^-^ g^^j^^g ^^^^^ Order Book of the Council of State, * Ibid, same day. Monday, January 17, 165§. ^ /J j^. game day. ^ Ibid. Saturday, January 29, 16o§, ** Ibid, same day. 1G5§.] SOLDIERS SENT ON BOARD THE FLEET. 391 " Lives, English and Foreign." And as Campbell has not noticed this supercession in 1653, it is evident that he has confounded this case of Benjamin Blake, in 1653, with that of General Blake's brother Himiphrey at the attack on Santa Cruz in 1657. Benjamin Blake was in the autumn of the following year (1654) appointed to the com- mand of the Gloucester, in the fleet sent under Penn to the West Indies; and there are good reasons for believing that Benjamin Blake was not in his brother's fleet in 1657.1 On the 2nd of February 165|, the Council of State made the following orders : — " Upon consideration had of what hath been offered to the Council from the Commissioners for the Admiralty, for the better manning of the fleet now going forth to sea ; it is ordered, that 1,200 land-soldiers, besides officers, be sent with all expedition to the fleet ; wherein care is to be taken that they be persons fitly qualified for that service, according as it is propounded by the Commissioners of the Admiralty." ^ " That, for the rendering of the land-soldiers the more serviceable when they shall come on shipboard, it is ordered, that one sergeant and two corporals be appointed to each sixty men ; and that each soldier have the pay of eighteen shillings jper mensem , and his victuals ; and the officers to have their victuals, and also their pay as when employed ashore — viz., for a sergeant, eighteen pence per diem ; and a corporal, twelve pence." ^ * Granville Penn's Memorials of of the Council present, including the Admiral Sir William Penn, vol. i. Lord-General Cromwell, pp. 471, 472; London, 1833. ^ Ibid, same time.— It may be in- ■■* Order Book of the Council of ferred from this and the following State, Wednesday night, February 2, order, that no officers above the rank 1 6 5§, MS. State Paper Office. — At this of sergeants were to accompany the meeting there were thirteen members " land-soldiers " aboard ship. 1 892 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. " That the aforesaid officers and soldiers now appointed to go to the fleet are (when they shall come there) to per- form, as far as they are able, all service as seamen ; and to be ordered in the like capacity as the rest." ^ On Friday, the 4th of February 165f, the Council made the following orders : — " That Sir John Bourchier be desired to communicate with the Lord-General the letter from Mr. Eymer of York, informing of great robberies committed by companies of armed men in that county ; and to desire his Lordship from this Council to give orders that some forces may be appointed for the suppressing of them." ^ " That the intelligence this night received, contained in three letters, concerning the state and condition of the Dutch fleet, be sent to the Generals of the fleet." ^ " That the order made by the Commissioners of the Admiralty, concerning the entertainment of midshipmen on board the several ships for the year ensuing, in such manner as in the said order is expressed, be approved of."^ When the following order was made, on Wednesday, the 9th of February, there were twenty -four members present at the Council, including the Lord-General [Cromvv'ell] , Sir Henry Yane, and Colonel Sydney [Algernon Sydney] : — " That the regiment of the Lord-General, out of which 500 men have been taken for the supplying of the fleet, be recruited to the former numbers. And that the Lord- General be desired to give order to his officers for the re- cruiting of his regiment accordingly." ^ On Friday, the 11th of February, the following order was made : — ' Order Book of the Council of State, " Ihkh same day. Wednesday night, February 2, 165§, ^ Ihid. same day. MS. State Paper Office. ^ Ihid. Wednesday, February 9, 2 Ibid. Friday, February 4, 16-3§. IC5§. 16o§.] CEOMWELL AND THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 393 "That the Lord-General [Cromwell], Colonel Purefoy, Mr. Bond, Sir Henry Mildmay, Major-General Harrison, Mr. Strickland, Mr. Scot, Colonel Sydney, and Mr. Gurdon, or any four of them, be appointed a Committee, to go forth and confer with Mr. Douglas, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Kerr, ministers of the Scottish nation, to receive from them what they shall say by way of explanation upon what they have already spoken to the Council, concerning their engagement to live peaceably and inoffensively in Scotland, as becomes the ministers of the Gospel." ^ The result of this conference is shown by the following minute, made at a meeting of the Council on the evening of the same day, at which there were fourteen members present, including the Lord-General, Mr. Scot, Colonel Purefoy, and Mr. Gurdon. Sydney was not there : — " That Mr. Eobert Douglas and Mr. James Hamilton, prisoners in the Tower of London, be discharged from their imprisonment, and be at their full liberty." ^ Now these minutes of 9th and 11th of February prove that Cromwell was acting, even so late as within a few weeks of his turning round upon them, as the (to all ap- pearance) sincere friend and colleague of Yane, Scot, and Sydney. They also prove that Cromwell performed his part of the business of government, as a member of the admin- istrative council, though not as dictator or sole ruler. K it could be shown that any attempts were made by the other members of the Council of State to deprive Cromwell of his legitimate voice and vote as a member of the Council of State, there might be some colour for what his son Henry Cromwell afterwards said to Ludlow in Ireland. ' Order Book of the Council of State, 11, 165f. Marginal note m AVLoXlvcr Friday, February 11, 165§, MS. State hand:— "Send this warrant to tho Paper Office. Lord Bradshaw this night, who will 2 Ihid. Friday, at night, February take care of it." I 394 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [CiiAP. XV. Ludlow having made this remark, that " his [Cromwell's] power [as Lord-General and member of the Council of State] was as great, and his wealth as much, as any rational man could wish to procure to himself, without raising envy and trouble," Henry Cromwell replied : — " You that are here may think he had power, but they made a very kickshaw of him at London." ^ This, as Ludlow observes, was in fact to "acknowledge the ambition of his father." For, if the Government were to be by a Parliament and a Council of State, the Council of State being the Executive, it will be seen, from many of the minutes I have transcribed, that their Lord-General or Commander-in-Chief had no reason to complain of any undue interference with his particular department ; that in all matters relating to the employment of the military forces, they acted through the Lord-General — their form of words being, " That the Lord-General be communicated with " — " That the letter be referred to the Committee, who are to confer with the Lord-General, and report their opinions to the Council," — " That his Lordship be desired from this Council to give orders," &c. This indeed was not a military despotism ; and it seems it was a military despotism that Cromwell desired, that is, provided that he was the despot. In fact, so far was the Council of State from making " a kickshaw of him," that they favoured him only too much. While the pay of the rest of the army was often kept many months in arrear, we find, from such minutes as the following, that they paid special at- tention to the payment of " the Lord-General's regiment " — a regiment which made a return for such good treatment ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. fenders. Many arguments might be 491 : 2nd edition, London, 1721.— It found in defence of Caesar and Bona- ib astonishing, indeed, that CromweU's parte, which do not apply in the least conduct should ever have found dc- to the case of Cromwell. i65y BATTLE OF PORTLAND. ^^ ^ 395 by the most disgraceful act ever committed by English soldiers : — "That a letter be written to the Committee for the Army, to desire them that the two months' pay, due to the Lord-General's regiment on Saturday last, according to the muster of 1,200 men, may be speedily paid." ^ It appears from a petition of the Levant merchants to the Council of State that several of their ships returning from Turkey were obliged, for their security from the Dutch men-of-war in the Mediterranean, to put into har- bour upon the coast of Italy, where they landed aU their silks and fine goods. They were then taken into the service of the State, the English Government being in want of ships of war in the Mediterranean. For which reason, and " in regard of the present dangerousness of those seas by the Dutch," the petitioners prayed that they, bringing their goods overland to Dunquerque, might " have liberty to import them thence to England, without seizure or penalty imposed by the Act of Parliament for encouragement of navigation : " " ordered, that the case be humbly reported to the Parliament," ^ which amounted to granting the prayer of the petition. It had now become evident that a great battle must be fought with the Dutch fleet before many days passed. On the 15th of February, 165|, the Council ordered: — " That new warrants be drawn for all the messengers of » Order Book of the Council of State, Thursday, February 10, 165§, MS. State Paper Office.— On the same day the Council ordered, "That the sum of £200 be paid out of the exi- gent moneys of the Council to Mr. Marchmont Needham, in consideration of his great labour and pains in the translation of Mr. Selden's book en- titled ' Mare Clausum.' " — Ibid, same day. * Ibid, same day. — The Order of Parliament, giving power to the Coun- cil according to the prayer of the petition, is, by a minute of March 14, referred to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. 396 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. the Council, for the enabling them to ride post, to press horses upon all roads, and also any fit vessel in any port they shall come unto, whither they are directed, in order to sail towards the fleet." ^ On Sunday the 20th of February, the Council received a despatch from the fleet, the importance of which is shown by this order : — " That £10 be given to Mr. Symball, for his diligence in bringing a despatch from the fleet." ^ On that Sunday there were fourteen members of the Council present, including Yane and Scot. Bradshaw was president. Cromwell was not present ; neither was Sydney. Yane was on that day evidently the directing spirit of the Council, as appears from the following orders, which formed the business of that day : — "That it be referred to the Commissioners of the Admiralty to speak with the Lord-General [Cromwell], concerning putting aboard the fleet 1,200 or 1,500 land- soldiers, upon the same terms as the other land-soldiers were sent, and to give orders therein accordingly." ^ " That a letter be written to the Commissioners of the Navy, to let them know the necessity of having the ships now fitting forth completely ready by the 1st of March ; and, therefore, that they take care of supplying them with all things necessary, and especially with men." ^ On the following day, Monday, the 21st of February, 165|, an order was made : — " That the Council do sit to-morrow morning at 8 of the * Order Book of the Council of pursuance of an Order of Parliament, State, Tuesday, February 15, 165§, for bringing the letter from the Gene- MS. State Paper Office. rals of the fleet, containing an account "^ 7?>zc?. Sunday, February 20, 165§. — of the late action against the Dutch." On March 2, there is another order — Jhid. Wednesday, March 2, 165§. respecting the payment of this mes- ' Thid. same day. senger : " That the sum of £20 be * Jhid. same day. paid to Henry Symball, messenger, in 165§.] FIRST DAY'S BATTLE. 397 clock; and that Mr. Thurloe do by that time make extracts of the intelligence sent to the Council, of the late fight with the Dutch, in order to report the same to the Parliament." ^ On Tuesday, the 22nd of February, the following orders were made : — " That the sum of £5 be paid to Edward Proctor, water- man, in consideration of his bringing a pacquet of good news to the Commissioners for the Admiralty." ^ " That it be recommended to the Commissioners for the Admiralty to take care that physicians and chirurgeons may be forthwith despatched to Dover and Portsmouth, to take care of the sick and wounded men there." ^ " That Sir Henry Yane do humbly acquaint the Parlia- ment with the intelligence come concerning the late engagement with the Dutch." '* " That Sir Henry Yane do humbly move the Parliament to take into consideration the families of such as have been slain in the engagement with the Dutch, some whereof are already known, and further particulars ex- pected every hour." ^ On the 18th, the 19th, and the 20th of February, 165f, was fought the greatest battle that had yet been fought between the English and the Dutch fleets, which were about equal in the number of ships, each fleet consisting of about 80 line-of-battle ships and frigates. The best and largest ships of the two nations, commanded by the best admirals that the world had ever seen — on the Dutch side by Tromp, De Euyter, Evertz, Floritz, De Wilde, on the English side by Blake, Deane, Penn, Lawson — were engaged. On board of the English fleet were also many ' Order Book of the Council of State, ' Ihid. same day. Monday, Februaiy 21, 16o§, MS. State * Ihid. same day. Paper Office. a Hid. same day. 2 Ihid. Tuesday, February 22, 165§. 398 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. 165§.] SECOND DAY'S BATTLE. hundreds of the veteran soldiers of the Parliamentary army, men who had passed through a thousand dangers, and had been victorious in a hundred battles and sieges. Early in the morning of the 18th of February, the English fleet being in that part of the English Channel between the Isle of Portland and Cape de la Hogue, and some ^ve leagues distant from the English shore, the English admirals descried the Dutch fleet, consisting — " as we then judged," say the English admirals^ in their letter to the Speaker, " and are since informed by some of their own number — of 80, all men-of-war, and some 200 ^ merchantmen," a league and a half to windward of the weathermost of their ships, and two or three leagues to windward of most of the English fleet. Blake's ship, the Triumph, with the Fairfax (Rear- Admiral Lawson), the Spealcer (Yice-Admiral Penn), and about twenty more ships, being nearest to the Dutch, Tromp "might probably," says the despatch of the English admirals, " if he had pleased to have kept the wind, have gone away with his whole fleet, and we had not been able to have reached him with our main body, only with a few . frigates, our best sailers, which had not been likely to have done much upon them." ^ But Tromp, seeing that the main body of the English fleet was about a league and ' Blake, Deane, and Monk to the Speaker, February 27, 165f, in Old Parliamentary History, vol. xx. p. 116. '^ The Dutch writer of the *' Life of Cornelius Van Tromp" states the mer- chantmen at 250. He says : " Lieu- tenant-Admiral Tromp, after he had cruised some time in the Channel, to wait for the ships that were to come from Holland, arrived, at the begin- ning of February, near the isle of Ilheo^ to convoy 250 merchant-ships that were there assembled from divers parts of Europe ; and after having staid there seven days, he set out with that fleet to conduct them home to their own country. But as he came near Portland, he descried the English fleet under the command of Blake, upon which he stood directly towards them." — Life of Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 89. ^ Blake, Deane, and Monk to the Speaker, February 27, 165|. a half distant, at once perceived the adva^age this pre- sented to him, of attacking with a greatly superior force these twenty-three ships, forming hardly more than a fourth part of the English fleet. Accordingly, he put all his merchantmen to windward, and ordered them to stay there—" as some that we have taken have since informed us," say the English admirals^—" and himself, with his body of men-of-war, drew down upon us that were the weathermost ships, when we were in a short time engaged." Nothing could more strikingly manifest the extraordi- nary fighting qualities of the Englishmen who manned those twenty-three ships, than the fact that those ships fought the whole Dutch fleet for two hours,^ without that result which, under such circumstances, Lord Rodney pro- nounced inevitable, when he said that the officer who brings the whole fleet under his command to attack half or part of the enemy, will be sure of defeating the enemy and taking the part attacked. Tromp, indeed, did take several of the English ships in this first encounter. The English admirals, in their despatch to the Speaker, mention three by name, " and some other ships, but," they add, " we repossessed them again." But if the Dutch had pretty hard work even with those twenty-three ships, as the rest of the English fleet came up, and "had got so far ahead, that, by tacking, they could weather the greatest part of the Dutch fleet," Tromp perceived that the tables were turned against him, and. ' Blake, Deane, and Monk to the Speaker, February 27, 165§. ^ The want of clearness in the de- spatch might make it, at first sight, appear that these twenty-three ships fought the whole Dutch fleet till 4 o'clock in the afternoon. But a sen- tence brought in afterwards throws a different light on the matter : " The leewardmost part of our ships con- tinued fighting till night separated them, being engaged within two hours as soon as we." COMMONWEiiLTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. accordingly, "he tacked likewise, and those with him, and left us." ^ On the 19th of Febrnary, as soon as it was day, the Eng- lish fleet made what sail they could after the Dutch, but, it being calm, the main body of the English could not get up with the Dutch till 2 o'clock. The two fleets then fought till night parted them. The English this day took and destroyed five of the Dutch men-of-war. " The Dutch fleet steered up the Channel with their lights abroad ; we followed ; the wind at WNW., a fine little gale all night."^ The account of the English admirals agrees in the main points with the description given by foreigners of this battle. Paul Hoste, in his work on Naval Evolutions, says that in this battle, which he calls the " Combat de Portland," the two fleets met in sight of Portland ; that the Dutch had the wind ; that Tromp, though it appeared that he ought to avoid a battle in which he should hazard his convoy of 200 merchantmen, yet, considering that if the wind should change, he would be obliged to fight with less advantage, resolved to bear down on the enemy, after having placed his convoy to windward ; that the battle on the first day was very sanguinary, many ships being dis- abled, sunk, or fired ; that nothing was able to separate two enemies so furiously excited, but the darkness of the night, during which both parties prepared themselves to renew the combat, which had remained undecided. Hoste then says, that on the second day. Admiral Tromp found himself exceedingly perplexed ; and, after many delibera- tions, he determined to retreat.^ > Blake, Deane, and Monk to the Paul Hoste, Professeur de Math^ma- Speaker, February 27,165f. tiques dans le Seminaire Eoyale de 2 ihid. Toulon. A Lyon. Fol. 1696 and 1727, p. 5 Art des Armees Navales ; ou Traiti 90. GrauTille Penn, vol. i. pp. 481- des' Evolutions Navales. Par le P6ro 484. ^j'^m^-m^^t*:^ . "m>^. 165i] THIRD DAY'S BATTLE. Accordingly, on the third day, Tromp drew up his fleet in the form of a half-moon or semicircle ; and, as a hen covers her chickens with her wings, the Dutch admiral put his convoy of 200 merchantmen richly laden in the middle — that is, within the semicircle composed of his men-of-war, his own ship occupying the post of danger and honour; for his own ship formed to windward the ex- treme point of the semicircle, and the rest of his fleet extended on each side to form the segments of the semi- circle which covered the convoy. In this order he re- treated with the wind astern, firing to the right and left on all the English ships that approached to insult his wings. Tromp continued to fight till night, which gave him time to renew his order of retreat ; and Hoste says, that though pursued the following day by the English, he entered his ports " with the glory of having, by his valour and skill, preserved for his country a rich convoy which was on the point of becoming a prey of the enemy." How far this last statement is correct, may be judged by the despatch of the English admirals, which thus j)roceeds : — " On the 20th, about nine in the morning, we fell close in with them, with some fine great ships, and all the frigates of strength, though very many could not come up that day. And seeing their men-of-war somew^iat weak- ened, we sent smaller frigates, and ships of less force, that could get up amongst the merchantmen, w^hich put their whole body to a very great trouble, so that many of them and their men-of-war began to break off from their main body; and towards evening we pressed so hard upon them, that they turned their merchantmen out of their fleet upon us (as is conceived), for a bait ; but we gave strict order, that none of our ships that could get up to their men-of- VOL. II. D D 402 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. war, and had force, should meddle with any merchantmen, bnt leave them to the rear. We continued still fighting with them until the dusk of the evening, by which time we were some three -and-a-half leagues off Blackness,^ in France (four leagues W. from Calais), the wind at N.W. ; we steering directly for the point of land, having the wind of the Dutch fleet. So that if it had pleased the Lord, in His wise providence, who sets bounds to the sea, and over- rules the ways and actions of men, that it had been but three hours longer to-night, we had probably made an in- terposition between them and home ; whereby they might have been obliged to have made their way through us with their men-of-war, which at this time were not thirty-five, as we could count — the rest being destroyed or dispersed. The merchantmen, also, must have been necessitated to have run ashore, or fallen into our hands ; which, as we conceive, the Dutch admiral being sensible of, just as it was dark, bore directly in upon the shore, where, it is supposed, he anchored ; the tide of ebb being then come, which was a leewardly tide. We consulted with our pilots, and men knowing those coasts, what it was possible for the enemy to do ? Whose opinions were, that he could not weather the French shore, as the tide and wind then was, to get home ; and that we must likewise anchor, or we could not be able to carry it about the flats of the Somme ; whereupon we anchored. Blackness being N.E. and by E., three leagues from us. " This night being very dark, and blowing hard, the Dutch got away from us ; so that, in the morning of the 21st, we could not discover one ship more than our own, which were betwixt forty and fifty, the rest being scattered, ' Cap Oris Noz, opposite to Dimgenese. 1651] RESULTS OF THE BATTLE OF PORTLAND and as many prizes as made up sixty in all. We spent all this night and day, while [till] twelve o'clock, in fitting of our ships, masts, and sails, for we were not capable to stir till they were repaired ; at which time, being a windward tide, and the Dutch fleet gone, we weighed and stood over to the English shore, fearing to stay longer upon the coast, being a lee- shore." The despa-tch thus concludes : — " Thus you see how it hath pleased the Lord to deal with us, poor unworthy instruments, employed in this late transaction ; wherein He hath delivered into our hands some seventeen or eighteen of their ships of war, which have been by your fleet (without the loss of any one ship save the Sampson) taken and destroyed ; besides merchant- men, whose numbers we know not, they being scattered to several ports. "We have many men wounded, and divers, both of honesty and worth, slain. (Subscribed) Robert Blake, RiCHAED Deane, George Monk." "P.S. — Several of the Dutch are driven ashore in France, one without any men at all in her." ^ In this Battle of Portland, Blake himself waftjg^gunded, some accounts say severely, others slightly. Lord Lei- cester-isfc-^ie JouTnB.1 says, "General Blake was hurt in the thigh with a crossbow-shot." ^ Another cotemporary account says, " General Blake was slightly wounded in the neck at Portland fight." ^ Lord Leicester says, "Van * Blake, Deane, and Monk to the ^ Sydney Papers, edited by R. W. Speaker, aboard the 2 Vmw^/i in Stokes Blencowe, p. 139: London, 1825. Bay, February 27, 165f, in Old Pari, " Granville Penn, vol. ii. p. 615, Hist. vol. XX. p. 116 e^ seq. Appendix M. D D 2 404 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV Tromp got home into Holland with some of his men-of- war, leaving aU his merchants which he was to convoy, many whereof feU daily into the hands of the English. It is said the Hollanders lost 4,000 men, the English not above 400." ' But the loss on both sides was probably much greater than this. In another letter the General of the fleet says, " The loss on our side is greater than was expected, for we have lost many precious commanders, besides many wounded— some having lost their legs, and others their arms." Among the slain were Captains Ball, Mildmay, and Barker, " with our secretary Mr. Sparrow, whose deaths are much lamented." ^ " On the 24th of February, the Council of State ordered a letter of thanks to be written to the Generals of the fleet.3 Whatever was the nature or severity of Blake's wound, it would appear that soon after the battle he was suffering from an ilhiess which alarmed the Council of State ; for on Sunday, the 6th of March, the Order Book contains the following minute, which is the only minute made on that day. The minute is headed, " Lord's Day, 6th March, 1 65f ," and is as foUows : " Whereas it is"just now sig- nified to the Council, that General Blake is faUen very ill at Portsmouth, It is ordered ^that Colonel Walton and Mr. Scot be desired to speak with Dr. Pridean and Dr. Bates ; and to desire them, in the name of the Council, to take a journey to Portsmouth to contribute their advice and assistance for the restoring of him to health again, if the Lord please ; and to desire them to go away this night, to which end the Council have given order for a coach ' Sydney Papers, p. 139: London, 480, 48L ^^f^^. . ^ ,, 'Order Book of the Council of Xmg s Pamphlets, No. 555, Brit. State, Thursday, February 24 165^ Mus, Granville Penn, vol. i. pp. 479, MS. State Paper Office. ' ^' 165§.] EFFECT OF THE GREAT BATTLE. 405 and six horses to be made ready, and a messenger to attend them for defraying the charge of their journey." * On Monday, the 14th of March, there is the following order relating to the same matter : " That fifty pounds apiece be paid, out of the exigent moneys of the Council, to Dr. Pridean and Dr. Bates, in consideration of their pains in their journey to visit General Blake at Poi-tsmouth, by the order and at the desire of the Council." ^ On Wednesday the 16th of March, the Council made the following order, with a view to remedy the want of men to man the fleet, arising from the " great number of private men-of-war,"to which Blake had called their attention in his despatch of December 1, 1652, quoted in a former page : — " That a letter be written to the Generals of the fleet, to let them know that the Council have put a stop to the granting of any more commissions for private men-of-war, unless they shall be certified of the supply of the fleet with men ; and do give power unto them, for the speedy manning of the fleet, to take men out of the private men- of-war as they shall meet with them, and as they shall find they shall stand in need of them." ^ To enable the reader to judge of the effect of this great battle at the time, I will quote a passage from a cotem- porary Dutch writer, whose efforts to prove that the Hollanders "had not much less right to pretend to the victory than their enemies," only confirm the truth of the English claim to the victory : — " The success of this battle made so great a noise at London, that they made no diffi- culty to publish abroad that Tromp, Evertz, and De Euyter were totally routed, and that 100 merchant-ships, » Order Book of the Council of State, ' jIjIj Monday, March 14, 165§. Lord's Day, March 6, 165§, MS. State » Ibid. Wednesday, March 16, 1G5§. Paper Office. 406 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XV. and fifty men-of-war, of tlie Dutch were taken or sunk. Nay, and this noise was echoed over all Europe, and was carried into France, Sweedland, Denmark ; and to render w^hat they affected to speak of it the more credible, the Parliament appointed an extraordinary thanksgiving-day to be kept on that occasion. And what seemed fully to authorise so great a triumph, and exalt the glory of Blake, was, that the prisoners were led in a drove to Canterbur)^, under the guard of a troop of horse ; and that in all the places through which they passed, they rang the bells, thereby to make that defeat to appear the more signal and incontestable ; though the Dutch at the same time no less confidently pretended " [this word " pretended," used by a Dutch writer, is very significant] " that the action did not pass altogether so much to the advantagfe of the Ens-lish, that they ought to have attributed to themselves all the glory of it, since, say they" \i,e. the Dutch], "excepting the merchant-ships that fell into their hands, the Hollanders had not much less right to pretend to the victory than their enemies." ^ The English Eoyalist party rejoiced at any symptom of disaster to the Parliament of England, and affected to disbelieve their successes. Hyde WTote thus,, on the 20th of March, 1653, to Secretary Nicholas in Holland : "We do here (Paris), notwithstanding all their brags in England of their victory, believe the Dutch to have absolutely the best of it." And this patriotic English- man's joy was unbounded because Blake was unable with thirty-seven ships, some of them commanded by captains who were traitors to the Parliament, to contend successfully against a Dutch fleet of ninety-five ships. On the 14th of December, 1652, he thus wrote to Nicholas : "We are in ' Life of Coruoliub Vau Tromp, pp. 104, 105: London, 1697. 165§.] BLAKE'S EXPLOITS IN TEN MONTHS. 407 great hope that this notable fight at sea, in which the Hol- landers have so thoroughly banged the rebels, will make a great alteration in the counsels with you and here. It is the first signal overthrow those devilish rebels have sustained, either at sea or land ; and therefore must make a deep impression upon the spirits of the common people of England, who have hitherto been transported by their in- credible successes." Hyde hoped to bring back by foreign arms the Stuarts, and himself with them, upon the people of England. But all the naval and military power of all the world would have been powerless to do that, but for the " self in the highest " policy of Cromwell. The^me dr the "English admiral filled all the world. The testimony oT'liis'frieiid and cotemporary, Algernon Sydney, is fully borne out by that of his enemy and co- teTfiporary, Clarendon, and confirmed by the verdict in after- times of men most hostile to his cause — of Samuel Johnson and David Hume. " The reputation and power of our natioH^^-Hsays Algernon Sydney, " rose to a greater height than when we possessed the better half of France, and the Kings of Prance and Scotland were our prisoners. All the states, kings, and potentates of Europe most respectfully, not to say submissively, sought our friendship : and Rome was more" afraid" of Blalfee, and his fleet, than they had been of the great King of Sweden, when he was ready to in- vade Italy with a hundred thousand men.'** Hven according ^ Algernon Sydney on Government, together in some of these parts (from chap. ii. &eck~.2S.— Alg'erfffttr^^ney Dunkirk to Ostend), hath struck a very was a member of the Council of State great terror into mosthearts; insomuch, when Blake fought the great Battle of that the most judicious amongst them Portland. A letter in Thurloe, after do begin to consider, in case these two giving an account of the subsequent mighty potentates should join together, great battle in June, thus proceeds : what would become of the kings of tho " The very noise of the guns, which earth. Doubtless Babylon is upon licr I was heard very plain for three dayy fall ! " — Thurloe, vol. i. pp. 272, 273. u \ ^ I ^. .,\ 408 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap XV. to the testimony of the Dutch themselves, " the noise of this battle was echoed over all Europe, and was carried into France, Sweden, Denmark." ^ The exploits of Fairfax and Cromwell sink into insig- nificance besUe those 'of Elake. Indeed, we should find it difficult" tS^^STscover any equal portioiT'of the lives of the greatest names in war — of Nelson, of Hannibal, of Ca3sar, of Frederic, of Napoleon — so full of great achieve- ments as this ^sTloi^ period, perhaps the most brilliant in the history of England. Within the space of ten months, besides > i !niiioy ''Exploits, such as The destruction of the French fleet under the Duke of Yendome, Blake fought four great pitched battles against the greatest naval armaments commanded by the greatest admirals the world had ever seen. Three of these battles' he won ; the defeat in the fourth battle, where Blake maintained for many "hours with thirty-seven ships a fight^against ninety - five, commanded by Tromp, tended rather to raise than , , . ' **'»'"«•-■ . .m»:^ . « . . . lower his naval renpwn.^ ' Lifo of Cornelius Van Tromp, p. 104. ^ In reference to the opinion that, with such a disproportion of force as thirty-seven ships to ninety-five or one hundred, Blake ought to have declined an engagement, Dr. Johnson says: "We must then admit, amidst our eulogies and applauses, that the great, the wise, and the valiant Blake was once betrayed to an inconsiderate and desperate enterprise by the resistless ardour of his own spirit, and a noble jealousy for the honour of his country." — Life of Blake, Johnso7i's Works, vol. xii. '^p.-^S."' ■ Df rJolinson, in re- ference to the remark of Rapin that the Dutch and Spaniards susfeined a great loss of ships, money, men, and mer- chandise, while the English gained nothing but glory, says truly, " As if he that increases the military reputa- tion of a people did not increase their power, and he that weakens his enemy in effect strengthens himself." — Ibid. vol. xii. p. 59. { cc CHAPTER XVI. Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni verso di noi : " ^ the Pro- tector's colours loom in the distance, spread out by the wind, and bearing, in great golden characters, the word Emmanuel ! That one word upon that flag was indeed a taliSmaiTmore potent, an ensign more formidable, a sym- bol of success and victory more sure, more unvarying, more infallible, than the image of any beast or bird, ancient or modern — lion, tiger, leopard, or eagle, whether with two heads or one. For there have been times when the most for- tunate and victorious of those have met with reverse and disaster. But who can tell the time when that banner of Emmanuel was borne backward in battle, and beheld either in captivity or flight ? ^ God with us ! ^ What a history of ' Dante's Inferno, canto xxxiv. w. I, 2. ^ It is to be observed that those troops lost their character of invinci- bility after Cromwell had expelled the Parliament. General Ludlow thus accounts for the result of the expedi- tion against Hispaniola : " Those very men, who, when they fought for the liberties of their country, had per- formed wonders, having now engaged to support the late-erected tyranny, disgracefully fled when there was none to pursue them." — Ludlow's Me- moirs, vol. 11. p. 496: 2nd edition, London, 1721. ' " That the inscriptions which are to be put on the coin of England shall be written in the English tongue. That the inscriptions shall be these : viz., on the side on which the English arms do standalone, this, The Commonwealth OF England ; on the other side, which bears the arms of England and Ire- land, God with us." — Order Book of the Council of State, April 24, 1649, MS. State Paper Office. / I ^ 410 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL resistless energy — of toils endured, of dangers encountered, of fields fought and won, of towns taken by assault, of hostile armies annihilated — is written in these three magic words ! More than sixty years after the great leader of those who had marched under those colours had fought his last fight, and been carried to his grave — not indeed his last resting-place, for those who came after him were not ashamed to violate even the sanctities of the tomb, and to do outrage and insult to the bones of the dead enemy before whose living face they had so often fled — a very ancient laird declared to an English officer of engineers, quartered at Inverness, that " Oliver's colours were so strongly impressed on his memory, that he thought he then saw them spread out by the wind, with the word Emmanuel (God with us) upon them, in very large golden characters." ^ No wonder that a halo should encircle the name of the chief of those who had carried those colours to so many victories, and should so dazzle the imagination as to per- vert the judgment. Nevertheless, though they are not to be met with in any great abundance, there are still men in • " Oliver had 1,200 men in and near this citadel [Invernees], under the command of one Colonel Fitz, who had been a tailor, as I have been in- formed by a very ancient laird, who said ho remembered every remarkable passage which happened at that time, and, most especially, Oliver's colours, which were so strongly impressed on his memory, that he thought he then saw them spread out by the wind, with the word Emmanuel (God with us) upon them, in very large golden characters." — Burt's Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. i. p. 217 : new edition: London, 1815. Sir Walter Scott, in one of his notes to his edi- tion of Dryden's Works (vol. ix. p. 20), in which he refers to the above passage, and to the writer of it as *' an officer of engineers quartered at Inverness shortly after 1 720," says : '* Tlio garrisons established by Crom- well upon the skirts and in the passes of the Highlands, restrained the pre- datory clans, and taught them, in no gentle manner, that respect for the property of their Lowland neighbours, which their lawful monarchs had vainly endeavoured to inculcate." 1652.] THE WORSHIPPERS OF SUCCESS. 411 the world whose words can be relied on, whose idol is not '^ self in the highest," and who (to borrow the words in- scribed on the tomb of one known to me in days long gone by), sustain the honour of their country by deeds of bravery and devotion, and the honour of human nature by an un- selfish life, and by benevolence never weary of well-douig. There were such men then, though the number of them might not be great. While the worshippers of its de- stroyer shower reproaches upon the broken faction, others can remember that it contained men who were willing to die, and who did die, for that cause which, in their last words on the scaffold, they called " a cause not to be re- pented of," ^ "a cause which gave life in death to all the owners of it and sufferers for it."'^ Wlien the members of a legislature have been expelled from their House by armed men, even though they have not been sent off in the felon's van, the worshippers of success in all its shapes step for- ward, and pour forth the vials of their scorn upon " such a shattered thing ; " ' and hang it up on the gibbet of their eloquence as an object for the contempt and derision of mankind. Then the man who, when " faith was broken and somewhat else,"^ turns suddenly round upon his ancient friends and comrades, and to-day concentrates in his single person all those powers of sovereignty which but yesterday had been theirs, becomes a man-god, with slaves for worshippers; and they become "a small faction of fanatical egotists, uniting to the love of power and the fanaticism of opinions all the ridicule of helplessness, and the infatuation of pretended legitimacy." Is it really so, Devilsdust ! worshipper of the evil spirit, and kneeler • The last words of Thomas Scot. * Some of the last words of Sir Henry Vane. ' Words also of Thomas Scot. * Words of Thomas Scot. 412 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. before the burning throne ? Something has been seen al- ready from those men's acts and deeds in answer to this question. Let us now look a little farther, and try if we can see anything more. I have said in a former page ^ that Cromwell " gradually enveloped the men who sat and talked at Westminster in net within net, like so many flies in the widespread and powerful web of a huge and active spider." I will now show, on evidence which has never been produced before, that I did not use these words without sufficient authority. The following minute, made the very day after Cromwell's meeting with some members of Parliament and chief officers of the army at the Speaker's house, namely on Thursday, the 11th of December, 1651, looms like the terrible shadow of the future, and shows that Cromwell was beffinninof then to draw his nets closer around his prey :— '' That it be referred to the Committee for the Affairs of Ireland and Scotland, to consider where quarters are to he had for the regiment of foot of the Lord-General, ivhich is ordered to the guard of the Parliament ; and to take care that the captain of the guard may be spoken to, that full and sufficient guards may be placed in Whitehall (espe- cially in the night), upon all the gates entering into the House, and upon most of the principal passages within the House." ^ Now let it be observed, that all the time, several years, that Fairfax was Lord-General, and even all the time that Cromwell was Lord-General — he succeeded Fairfax on the 26th of June, 1650 — there had been discovered no need for appointing the Lord-General's own regiment of foot as ' Vol. L p. 160. State, Thursday, December 11, 1651, 2 Order Book of the Council of MS. State Paper Office. 1652.] PAY OF THE PARLIAMENTARY AEMY. 413 the guard of the Parliament. There was no need for the change now. The Parliament and the Council of State had been very sufficiently guarded hitherto by Colonel Berkstead's regiment. And setting the Lord-General Cromwell's regiment of foot to guard the Parliament, was neither more nor less than setting the wolf to guard the sheep. But this was not all. On the 25th of the same month, just a fortnight after the order last quoted, the following order was made : — " That twelve pence a day be allowed to the soldiers of the two regiments appointed for the guards of the Par- liament and city, to be paid out of the Lord-General's contingencies." ^ It here becomes necessary to ascertain, as far as possible, the pay of the army of the Parliament :— "Die Sabbati, Januarii 11«, 1644.— The House, ac- cording to the order yesterday made, took into considera- tion their armies, and proceeded first into the consideration of the New Model." * ^ * # # ^ " Eesolved &c. that each trooper shall receive 2^. per diem for his entertainment." ^ Neither the dragoons' nor the foot-soldiers' pay is men- tioned. But it may be inferred, from a minute of the Council of State of the 11th of May 1649, which states " that three private soldiers of Colonel Pride's regiment were taken to attend Dr. Dorislaus to Holland, and agree- ment made they should each of them have 5s. per week, besides a gratuity at their return," ^ that the pay of the foot-soldiers was about 6d, a day. For it may be con- ' Order Book of the Council of State, Januarii 11°, 1644. Thursday, December 25, 1651, MS. » Order Book of the Council of State Paper Office. State, May 11, 1649, MS. State Paper * Commons' Journals, Die Sabbati, Office. 414 COMMON^VEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. eluded that they would receive a little more than their usual pay when employed on this extraordinary service; and Is, 6d, a week, the difference between 3s. 6d, a week and the 6s, a week above mentioned, may be taken as an addition to their pay as foot- soldiers. Besides this pay, the troops of the Parliament were allowed money to pay for their quarters, at the rate, according to many minutes in the Order Book of the Council of State, of 6d, a day for each foot-soldier, and Is. a day for each horse-soldier. These allowances are with special reference to the troops ordered for transportation to Ireland in 1649, " during the stay at the waterside for wind and weather;"^ and are somewhat higher than those in the following order of the House of 29th June of the same year :— " Ordered, that this House doth approve of what the General hath done in allowing 2s. 6d, a week to each soldier and non-commissioned officer of foot, and the train of artillery, and 3s. 8d, the week to the horse, over and above the established pay, in consideration of billet-money, during such time as they did quarter within the city of London and Westminster, and the parts adjacent." ^ It would appear, however, from the following minute, that about the beginning of the year 1652, the pay of the foot was lOd, a day ; and that the Is. a day allowed by the minute of December 25, 1651, to the two regiments appointed for the guard of the Parliament, was not double the pay of the other regiments of foot, but only 2d, a day more : — " That 2d, per diem be added to the pay of the inferior officers and soldiers of the two regiments appointed for > Order Book of the Council of March 27, 1649. State, May 29, 1649, MS. State Paper ^ Commons' Journals, Die Veneris, Office.' Ibid. August 25, 1649. Bid. Junii 29, 1649. 1652.] EXTEA PAY OF CROMWELL'S REGIMENTS. 415 the guard of the Parliament and city, more than is allowed to the rest of tlie army ; and that it be paid out of the Lord-General's contingencies, according to their several musters, and to begin from the 25th of December last inclusive." * This additional 2d, a day, " to be paid out of the Lord- General's contingencies," would to the soldiers have the appearance of being paid out of Cromwell's own pocket. This, in fact, amounted to giving him a sort of Praetorian Guard. It will be seen that the two following minutes, made on the 25th of December, 1651, are to the same purpose and effect : — " That it be especially recommended to the Committee of Parliament for disposal of the Commonwealth's houses, to cause all necessary repairs to be made at James's for the convenient quartering and accommodation of the soldiers of both regiments appointed for the guard of the Parliament and city, so as that the three companies at Syon College may be also brought to James's, and that quarter at Syon College quitted." ^ "That £50 be paid unto Major Wiggan and Major Allen uponyiccompt, for fire and candles for the several guards kept by the two regiments about Whitehall, James's, and the city, and that this money be paid out of the Lord-General's contingencies." ^ ' Order Book of the Council of sent, and likewise to consider how they State, Tuesday, January 6, 165|, MS. may be speedily furnished with beds; State Paper Office. and also how they may be constantly '^ Ibid. December 25, 1651. supplied for the future with a fitting ^ md. same day.— On November 4, proportion of ammunition, and have 1652, the Council ordered, "That it be some of their musquets chan acted more thoroughly on this principle. But it now suited him to turn round on the men with whom he had acted, and repudiate both them and his former self. Moreover, the MS. records of the Council of State prove, that while the application in private matters to the Council of State might arise from the anomalous state of the Government, the Council of State generally refen^ed such matters to the proper legal tribunals. The following is one of many instances of the Council of ' Trial of Sir Henry Vane, Knight, p. 477. small. 4to, 1662, p. 88. vSee title of ^ sir Eogcr Twysden's Journal, this curious old volume in full, post, p. 49. 1652.] CROMWELL AND WHITELOCK. 427 State's declining to interfere in matters belonging to the Courts of Justice : — " That the petition of Mary Downes, widow, relict of Roger Dovmes, Esq., deceased, be recommended to the consideration of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, to proceed therein, according to law and justice." ^ The following is to the same effect : — " Upon reading the petition of the Lord Baltimore, it is this day ordered, that the said Lord Baltimore be left to pursue his cause according to law." ^ It is not often that a Government has left behind them such conclusive and irrefragable evidence aS this, to rebut the calumnies of their destroyers, and to vindicate their memory to after-ages. Cromwell, in the cQurse of the conversation with White- lock, to which I have already referred,^ put to Whitelock the following startling question : — " What if a man should take upon him to be King ? " Whitelock. — " I think that remedy would be worse than the disease." Cromwell. — " Why do you think so ? " Whitelock. — " As to your own person, the title of King would be of no advantage, because you have the full kingly power in you already, concerning the militia, as you are General. So that I apprehend less envy, and danger, and pomp, but not less power and opportunities of doing good, in your being General, than would be if you had assumed the title of King." * ^ Order Book of the Council of " the enemies of Cromwell began to State, Monday, December 22, 1651, multiply very fast" — "that it had MS. State Paper Office. given him a blow at the heart, and ^ 75/c?. Tuesday, December 23, 1651. that he will not long be anything." ' See ante, p. 423. —Sir Edward Nicholas to Lord Cul- * There is a concurrence of cotem- pepper, June 8, 1657: see Granville porary evidence that, on Cromwell's Penn's Memorials of Sir William Ptnn, manifesting an ambition to be King, vol. ii. p. 8. I '/ } 428 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL Cromwell. —''What do you apprehend would be the danger of taking this title ? " WJdteloch.—" The danger, I think, would be this. One of the main points of controversy betwixt us and our adversaries is, whether the Government of this nation shall be established in monarchy, or in a free State or Commonwealth. Now, if your Excellency shall take upon you the title of King, this state of our cause will be thereby wholly determined, and monarchy established in your person; and the question will be no more whether our Government shall be by a monarch or by a free State, but whether Cromwell or Stuart shall be our king and monarch. And that question, wherein before so great parties of the nation were engaged, and which was universal, will by this become, in effect, a private controversy only : before, it was national— what kind of Government we should have ; now, it will become particular— who shall be our governor ?— whether of the family of the Stuarts, or of the family of the Cromwells ? Thus, the state of our contro- versy being totally changed, all those who were for a CommouAvealth (and they are a very great and considerable party), having their hopes therein frustrated, will desert you." Cromivell~"l confess you speak reason in this; but what other thing can you propound, that may obviate the present dangers and difficulties wherein we are all engaged?" Whitelock then represents himself as propounding a private treaty with the King of Scots, whereby Cromwell might secure himself and his friends, and their fortunes ; and might j)ut such limits to monarchical power, as would secure the spiritual and civil liberties of the nation. To this proposition Cromwell thus replied:— "I think you have much reason for what you propound, but it is a 1652.] SELF IN THE HIGHEST." y^ 429 matter of so high impoi-tance and difficulty, that it deserves more time of consideration and debate than is at present allowed us. We shall therefore take a further time to discourse of it." Whitelock adds : " With this the General broke off, and went to other company, and so into Whitehall, seem- ing, by his countenance, displeased with what I had said ; yet he never objected it against me in any public meeting afterwards. Only his carriage towards me from that time was altered, and his advising with me not so frequent and intimate as before." ^ The words of Whitelock' s statement, " by a treaty with him you may secure yourself, and your friends and their fortunes —you may put such limits to monarchical power, as will secure our spiritual and civil liberties," are exceed- ingly important ; and Cromwell's utter neglect of securing anybody but himself, and anything but his own power and fortune — so thoroughly bearing out the truth of John Lilburne's happy expression, "self in the highest" — lea\ang brave and devoted and single-hearted soldiers, such as Harrison and Hacker, who had shed their blood for him in so many battles, to die a death of torture and ignominy, has always appeared to me the worst and darkest part of his strange character. When this conference took place between Cromwell and Whitelock, nearly four years had elapsed since the death of King Charles. During those four eventful years, the Rump of the Long Parliament had talked about resigning their power, and going out to make way for their succes- sors ; but there was a hitch somewhere in the matter of going out. Whatever arguments may be used to show ' Whit clock's Memorials, pp. 549-551. 430 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. that these residuary members of the Long Parliament really did mean to go at last, and not to perpetuate the supreme trust and power in their own persons, and to debar the people from their right of elections— that they were only waiting till the right moment should arrive — there can be no doubt that their delays in this momentous business were the means of putting a most powerful weapon against themselves into the hands of a man who, as we shall see, knew well how to make use of it for his own purposes. K Cromwell had made use of the expulsion of the Parliament as really the first step for paving the way to a new and free Parliament — if he had clearly shown by his acts that self-aggrandisement was not his object^ — the reluctance to resign their power, manifested by the Eump, might certainly serve as some justification for his doing what he did in the first instance. But what are we to think of the consistency, of the morality, of the honesty of a man, who proceeded to dispose of by his will, as if it were a private property, the dominion of his country, after having been a party to that Eepresentation of the Army already quoted, which, in the clearest terms that words are capable of expressing, declares against " any absolute arbi- trary poiver, engrossed for perpetuity into the hands of any particular person or party whatsoever " ? The course pursued by Cromwell has had indeed de- fenders, some of whom have defended him on the ground of his proceeding being the only available protection against anarchy ; while others have prostrated themselves * " If he had made use of his leave his own family, together with power to establish the just liberties of the whole body of the people, in a the nation, he might live more most happy and flourishing condition." honoured and esteemed, have the plea- —Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 567 : sure and satisfaction arising from so 2nd edition, London, 1721. generous an action, when he died, and 1652.] DEFENDERS OF CROMAVELL. at his feet, and while they have worshipped him as an object of idolatry, have been very profuse of their scorn and reprobation towards all who refuse to do the like, and particularly towards those members of the Eump who persisted in refusing to recognise his authority. The answer to the latter class of the defenders of Crom- well, who have sought to deify Cromwell, and to heap op- probrious epithets on all who have refused to worship their idol, is shortly that, as was long ago remarked, " no man can be expected to oppose arguments to epithets ; " and that, though opprobrious epithets and scurrilous jesting may pass for fine writing among barbarians, they have little weight among civilised men, who, whatever be their faults, will admit the truth of an observation of a great English writer of the 17th century, in reference to some scurrilous attacks upon himself, that " to a public writino- there belong good manners." ^ The argument of those who have defended Cromwell on the ground of his proceedings being the only protection against anarchy, is founded on an imperfect and incorrect view of the facts of the case — a view which confounds this case with another, which, though somewhat similar, is not identical ; as when we see, as we constantly do, well-informed public writers asserting that a Cromwell or a Napoleon is needed to prevent anarchy. Now, thouo-h ^ " And first for the strength of his discourse, and knowledge of the point in question, I think it much inferior to that which might have been writ- ten by any man living, that had no other learning besides the ability to write his mind. Secondly, for the manners of it (for to a public writing there belong good manners), they consist in railing, and exclaiming. and scurrilous jesting. And lastly, for his elocution, tlie virtue whereof lieth not in the flux of words, but in perspicuity, it is the same language with that of the kingdom of darkness." — The Question concerning Liberty, Ntcessity, and Chance, clearly stated and debated between Dr. Eramhall, Bishop of Derry, and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury : London, 1G»5'3. \ ■ 432 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. Napoleon might be needed to prevent anarchy, Cromwell was most decidedly not. On the contrary, it was Cromwell's usurpation which caused the anarchy which, by confusion of ideas and of facts, has been transferred from its proper place to a place which does not belong to it — namely, from the state of confusion caused by Cromwell's unjust usurpa- tion, to the state of order and of good and strong govern- ment which his evil ambition destroyed. To no Government that ever existed upon earth could the term "anarchy" be more unjustly applied than to that Government which existed in England from 1648 to 1653. But between 1653 and 1660 there were— as Hobbes has shown, in a passage of his " Behemoth," with his characteristic clearness and precision — six changes or " shiftings " of the supreme authority. ^ There never, probably, has been a more complete example of confusion of ideas, perversion of facts, and consequent illogical and inaccurate conclusions, than is afforded by the confounding of these historical phenomena in such a way, and to such a degree, as to compare the Government of the Council of State— composed of such statesmen as Yane, Scot, and Sydney, which was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, to be succeeded by, first, a nan'ow and hard military despotism, and then an anarchy — with that preeminently bad French Gov.ernment, which may be called the Government of the Guillotine, and by putting an end to which Napoleon Bonaparte may be said to have substituted a military despotism for anarchy. In the case of England and Cromwell, military despotism did not prevent, it produced anarchy, though the contrary has been so long and so con- fidently asserted. Tlie answer, then, to those who affirm that the course • Hobbes's Behomoth, pp. 322, 323 : London, 1682. 1653.] OTHER COURSES OPEN TO CROMWELL. 433 Cromwell pursued was the only course practicable under the circumstances of the case — that it was what is, in the modern German jargon, called a historical or political necessity — is that it was not a political necessity, inas- much as, as has been already proved from the minutes of the Council of State of the Long Parliament, and can be further proved from the minutes of Cromwell's Council of State, the Long Parliament governed infinitely better than Cromwell ; and, further, that to Cromwell, as to all men in his situation, there are always two paths open the one that which has been trodden by ten thousand tyrants the other that which has been chosen by the few men who have been able to resist the greatest temptation to crime known to mortals— by Epaminondas, by Timoleon, by Washington— the great men who, in the dispute about the value of such men in history, at least are good to show that truth, justice, and honour are not altogether extinct among mankind. Will it be pretended that two thousand years ago, Sicilian Greeks— people of a temperament which made them such easy victims to tyrant after tyrant could justly appreciate the magnanimity of Timoleon, when, after having delivered them from all their domestic tyrants and from all their foreign enemies, he voluntarily resigned his dictatorship; and could universally recognise in him a man who had amply earned, what Xenophon' calls, " that good, not human but divine, command over willing men " a man uncorrupted by a career of superhuman success " ^ a man whom everyone loved, trusted, and was grieved to offend— a man who sought not to impose his own will upon free communities, but addressed them as free- men, building only upon their reason and sentiments, and a 66 ' Xenoph. (Economic, xxi. 12. 2 Grote's History of Greece, vol. xi. p. 272. VOL. II. F F 434 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. carrying out, in all his recommendations of detail, the instincts of free speech, universal vote, and equal laws ;" ^ and that Englishmen, living in the middle of the 17th century, would have been unable to appreciate at its just value, and to turn to its right use, a similar a-ct of magnanimous justice on the part of Oliver Cromwell? Besides the direct political consequences of such an act and of its contrary, which are great enough, the social and moral consequences are of unspeakable extent and magni- tude. How many a villain on a small scale has justified, at least to himself, his career of self-aggrandisement, through all the adroit falsehoods which make mean villains^ rich and prosperous, by the audacious violation of truth and the gigantic villany of Cromwell ! ^ It is observable that these three truly great men, Epa- minondas, Timoleon, and Washington, were all alike exempt from the irascible and vindictive as well as the ambitious passions. What Mr. Grote has said of Timoleon is appli- cable no less to the other two. Timoleon "was distin- guished no less for his courage than for the gentleness of his disposition. Little moved either by personal vanity or by ambition, he was devoted in his patriotism, and imreserved in his hatred of despots, as well as of traitors."'* The furious transports of rage which took ^ Grote's History of Greece, vol. xi. p. 267. ^ " No villany, no flagitious action, was over yet committed, but a lie was, first or last, the principal engine to ef- fect \tr— South. ' It is one of the greatest of human misfortunes, that the evil which great men do is so much more apt to be imi- tated than the good. " Quo in genere multum mali etiam i:i exemplo est. Studiose enim plerique facta principum imitantur : ut L. LucuUi, summi viri, virtutem, quis ? at quam multi villanim magnificentiam imitatisunt ! " — Cicero De Off. i. 39. * Grote's History of Greece, vol. xi. p. 192. Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 3. . . .... ^iX6iraTpis Se «al vpaos ^ia(pep- Si'TCDS, oaa fjL^ a a great measure, the traces of his dark work. His careful keep- ing back and, no doubt, ultimate destruction of the Bill for a New Parliament — a business to which I will advert more fully in a subsequent page of this chapter — was a remarkable example of this manner of proceeding. In other cases, such as the following, he was unable to obliterate the marks of his tortuous course, of the crooked ways he pursued underground. While he was making " the most solemn professions of \ Ludlov/s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 455: ^ Ludlow, ibid. p. 451. 2nd edition, London, 1721. s Ludlow, ibid. p. 452. 1653.] ALTERATION IN CROMWELL'S PLANS. 447 fidelity to the Parliament— assuring them, that if they would command the army to break their swords over their heads, and to throw them into the sea, he would under- take they should do it-yet did he privately engage the officers of the army to draw up a petition to the Parlia- ment, that for the satisfaction of the nation thej would put that vote which they had made, for fixing a period to their sitting, into an Act ; which, whilst the officers were forming and ' debating, the General, having, it seems, for that time altered his counsels, sent Colonel Desborough, one of his instruments, to the Council of Officers, who told them, that they ought to rely upon the word and pro- mise of the Parliament to dissolve themselves by the time prefixed ; and that to petition them to put their vote into an Act, would manifest a diffidence of them, and lessen their authority, which was so necessary to the army. The General, coming into the Council whilst Desborough was speaking, seconded him : to which some of the officers took the liberty to reply, that they had the same opinion of the Parliament and petition with them ; and that the chief argument that moved them to take this matter into consideration, was the intimation they had received, that it was according to the desires of those who had now spoken against it, and whose latter motion they were much more ready to comply with than their former." i What was the cause of this alteration in Cromwell's plans ? Was it that CromweU, seeing that the Parliament had now set about their BiU for a dissolution of the present and the election of a new Parliament, and were proceeding with great energy and activity in preparing it for the final vote, saw that the reason for the petition no ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 451, 452 : 2nd edition, London, 1721. 448 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. longer existed ? This is the most obvious cause. But then it involves the supposition, that Cromweli really wished the Bill to be passed; and his subsequent proceedings proved, in the most conclusive manner, that he did not wish the Bill to be passed. We are then driven to seek another cause, and to ask if he stopped the petition, lest it might have the effect of accelerating the passing of a Bill which he did not wish to be passed? There is, it will be seen, a contradiction here in Cromwell's conduct, which cannot be explained away. He had professed himself eager to have the question of the Parliament's dissolution settled ; and when, at last, the Parliament were proceeding to settle it, and were on the point of finishing their work, he expelled them by military force, carried off their Bill for a New Parliament; and then blackened their characters by charges, some of which I can prove to be false, and others he did not prove to be true, though he could have done so if they had been true. As Ludlow, when he states that the Parliament resolved, without any further delay, to pass the Act for their own dissolution, says nothing about there being two parties in the Parliament, as shown by the, divisions on the vote of 14th November 1651— one of which, a majority of 50, was for fixing a time for the dissolution, and the other, a min- ority of 46 or 47, was against entertaining the question of dissolution at that time — it may be inferred that those two parties had both come to the conclusion that, under the present circumstances, there should be no further delay. There was, moreover, a third party, at least a certain num- ber of members, who, according to Whitelock, were not averse to the design of that part of the army, headed by Cromwell, Lambert, and Harrison, to turn out the Parlia- ment by force, " and were complotting with them to ruin 1653.] ONE OF CROMWELL'S DARK STATE-PAPERS. themselves, as by the consequence will appear."^ These men appear to have been the dupes of a mistaken confidence m CromweU's protestations and ever ready tears, as may bemferred from Whitelock's expression, "neither could it be clearly foreseen, that the design of Cromwell and h^'s officers was to rout the present power, and to set up them- selves." 2 About twenty members of Parliament are said, in Crom- weU's declaration, dated "Whitehall, AprH 22, 1653 " to have been present at the last meeting, on the' 19th of April 1653, of what is called the Council of Officers at CromweU's lodgings in Whitehall ; and these twenty members may be assumed to represent " the Parliament men who " (Whitelock says) - complotted with Cromwell and his officers to ruin themselves." It is remarkable that Whitelock was himself present, though he describes himself and Widdrington as strongly dissenting from those who were for "putting an end forthwith to this Parliament • " and expressing themselves freely to the effect that it would be "a most dangerous thing to dissolve the present Parlia- ment, and to set up any other Government, and that it would neither be warrantable in conscience or wisdom so to do." 3 Of the opinion for putting an end foiihwith to this Parliament, Whitelock says : " St. John was one of the chief, and many more with him; and generally all the officers of the army, who stuck close in this likewise to their General." ^ The conference lasted tiU late at ni^ht " when Widdrington and Whitelock went home weaiy and troubled to see the indiscretion and ingratitude of those men, and the way they designed to ruin themselves."^ ' Whitelock'.s Memorials, p. od2 London, 1732. 2 Ibid. ' Hfiff. p. oo4. * Ibu/. * Ibii/. VOL. II. G G 450 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. It is asserted by Cromwell, in liis " Declaration of tlie Grounds and Eeasons for dissolving the Parliament by Force," dated "WhitehaU, April 22, 1653," that tlie members (" about twenty," he says) present at the con- ferences with the officers of the army at his lodgings on the 19th of April, " did agree to meet again the next day in the afternoon for mutual satisfaction; it being con- sented unto by the members present, that endeavours should be used that nothing in the meantime should he done in Parliament that might exclude or frustrate the proposals before mentioned; that, notwithstanding this, the next morning " (the 20th of April) " the ParHament did make more haste than usual in carrying on their said Act, being helped on therein by some of the persons engaged to us the night before, none of them which were then present endeavouring to oppose the same ; and being ready to put the main question for consummating the said Act,, whereby our aforesaid proposals would have been rendered void, and the way of bringing them into a fair and full debate in Parliament obstructed; for preventing thereof, and all the sad and evil consequences which must, upon the grounds aforesaid, have ensued, we have been necessitated, though with much reluctancy, to put an end to this Parlia- ment." * The " grounds aforesaid," as far as they can be ascer- tained, always a very difficult matter in Cromwell's long and dark state-papers, were that the " persons of honour and integrity were rendered of no further use in Parlia- ment, than by meeting with a corrupt party," and thereby enabling by their countenance that " corrupt party " to " effect the desire they had of perpetuating themselves in the supreme government." J Pari. Hi*it. vol. iii. pp. 1386-1390. 1653.] THE CONFERENCE AT CROMWELL'S LODGINGS. 451 Now it is proved, by the division on the 14th of Novem- ber 1651, that there was a party in the House who were against entertaining at aU the question of dissolution. This party however is also proved, by the same division, to have been a minority, though a large minority, of the number present ; and they were outvoted, and a day fixed for the dissolution. It is therefore demonstrated that this assertion of Cromwell, respecting the power of a certain part of the Parliament to " perpetuate themselves in the supreme government," is unsupported by evidence. More- over, observe the inconsistency of his statement. The Parliament on the morning of the 20th of April, " being ready to put the main question for consummating the Act " for dissolving themselves, " we have been necessitated to put an end to this Parliament." That is, he (Oliver Cromwell) conceived himself necessitated to put an end to the Parliament when they were in the very act of putting an end to themselves ; necessitated to prevent the consuni^ mation of an act bearing the form and having much of the substance of law, and instead of that act to do an act at once violent and utterly illegal, and at the same time to put an ineffaceable insult upon the Legislature and Government of which he was the paid servant. In regard to CromweU's assertion that the Members of Parliament present at the conference at his lodgings on the 19th had left the meeting with an express understandino. that endeavours should be used to suspend all further pro"^ ceedings on the Act for dissolution and a new Parliament till the result of the conference next day, I am inclined to think— though Whitelock makes no allusion to such a pledge having been given on the part of himself and the other members present at the conference— from the sudden anger which Cromwell is reported to have evinced, on f ; G 2 452 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL hearing next day what the Parliament was about, that some such pledge may have been given. But if Whitelock and the other members did give such a pledge, they " did so," as Mr. Forster justly observes, " without authority, and in the absence of any means of redeeming it." ^ For the ablest as well as the most influential members of that great Parliament — those by whose unwearied industry, by whose unconquerable energy, and by whose great abihties the Dutch war had been so successfully carried on Yane, Scot, Algernon Sydney, Bradshaw, and the Parliamen- tary majority they carried with them, would have consi- dered the proposal to mould their proceedings either in Parliament or in the Council of State, according to the will of Cromwell and his creatures as a species of dictation not to be submitted to for an instant. I have said, in a note to the preceding paragraph, that the conferences held at Cromwell's lodgings were not only unconstitutional, but illegal and even treasonable meet- ings ;— for they were meetings at which the destruction of a Legislature and a Government was debated by its own paid servants, by its own generals and some of its military officers. Nevertheless, the singularity of the situation might not only have excused but justified those meetings. ' Forster's Life of Oliver Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 57: London, 1839. — I will {idd here a not unimportant note of Mr. Forster in reference to that conference vn April 19, which conference, be it observed, was, in its very nature, not only an unconstitutional but an illegal and treasonable meeting. •' The only sincere (however wrong-headed) re- publican," says Mr. Forster, "of whose attendance at these councils I can find any evidence is Sir Arthur Haselrig. That he did attend is clear from a ma- nuscript report of a speech delivered by him in Richard Cromwell's Parlia- ment : • I heard, being seventy miles off, that it was propounded that we should dissolve our trust, and devolve it into a few hands. I came up, and found it so ; that it was resolved in a junto at the Cockpit. I trembled at it, and was, after, there, and bore my testimony against it. I told them the work they went about was accursed. I told them it was impossible to de- volve this trust.' "—Ibid. p. 58, note. 1653.] THE EVE OF AN EVIL DEED. 453 if the avowed object of them had been strictly and con- sistently carried out— the dissolution of the present, and the election in its place of a fair and free Parliament. It is most important to carefully note that up to this day, this 19th of AprH 1653, the above-mentioned ground of justification of these meetings being admitted, Cromwell had committed no overt illegal act; and the meetings having, moreover, had the effect of hastening the Parliament to the very completion of their BiU for their dissolution and for a new Parliament, if CromweU had stopped here, and allowed the Parliament to consummate their Act on the day following, that is the 20th, he would have been entitled to the credit of having acted upon the Parliament for good and not for evil and would have left to after-ages a name very different from the name which he has left. It is very probable that CromweU, when he went to bed after that conference, from which Whitelock went home weary late at night, had not determined on the irrevocable deed which he was to do on the following day. The last act of undertakings of that nature is apt to be, at least partly, the result of passionate impulse. C^sar was less subject than CromweU to such impulses. Yet Plutarch relates of Caesar, whose farsighted inteUigence could not fail to perceive, and who even " discussed at length with his friends who were present aU the difficulties and en- umerated the evils which would ensue to all ma^iUndfrom his passage of the river " » (the Eubicon), that " at last with a * Plutarch, C. Caesar, c. 32.— The words I have marked in italics show that Caesar himself took a very differ- ent view of the matter from that taken by certain modern writers who have attempted to prove that despots are necessary to the progress of humanity. Such men as Caesar and Frederic II. of Prussia were not to be deceived them- selves by the shallow sophistries by which inferior minds have sought to support evil deeds. Frederic, though, for form's sake, he might in manifes- toes insert some idle stories about his antiquated claim on Silesia, in his conversation and memoirs pretended I 454 COMxMONWEALTII OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL hind of passion, as if he were throwing himself out of reflection into the future, and uttering what is the usual expression with which men preface their entry upon desperate enter- prises and daring, ' Let the die be cast ! ' he hurried to to no more vinue than he had, and that was little enough. His own words were: "Ambition, interest, the desire of making myself talked about, carried the day ; and I decided for war." These are the words which Voltaire, in his Memoirs, says he tran- scribed from the work as it was when Ered eric showed it to him : "L'ambi- tion, Tinteret, le desire de fuire parler de moi, I'emporterent, et la guerre fut resolue." In Frederic's work as after- wards published, the words are some- what altered: — "Une armee toute prete a agir, des fonds tout trouves, et peut- etre I'envie de se faire un nom ; tout cela fut cause de la guerre que le Koi declara a Marie Therese d'Autriche, Keine de Hongrie et de Boheme." Histoire de mon Temps, tom. i. p. 128, ed. Berlin, 1788. Voltaire's reflections on the words as they stood in the origin- al MS. of Frederic's work, and which words Voltaire says he made the King omit when he (Voltaire) subsequently corrected his works, are well worth transcribing : " Depuis qu'il y a des conquerants ou des esprits ardens qui ont voulu I'etre, je crois qu'il est le premier qui se soit ainsi rendu justice. Jamais homme peutetre n'a plus senti la raison, et n'a plus ecout^ ses pas- sions. Ces assemblages de philoso- phic et de dereglemens d'imagination ont toujours compos6 son caract^re. C'est dommage que je lui aie fait re- trancher ce passage quand je corrigeai depuis tous ses ouvrages ; un aveu si rare devait passer a la posterite, et servir a faire voir sur quoi sont fondees presques toutes les guerres. Nous autres gens de lettres, poetes, historiens, declamateurs d'academie, nous cele- brons ces beaux exploits : et voila un roi qui les fait, et qui les condamne." — Memoires pour servir a la vie de M, de Voltaire, Merits parlui-meme. The passage as the King has left it in his history is scarcely less conclusive than Voltaire's commentary on it. After dismissing in one word, "incontest- able," the nature of his claims upon Silesia, he proceeds to expatiate upon the dilapidated state of the Austrian finances, the general disorder and weakness of the ministry and the army, and above all the youth and in- experience of the Queen Maria Theresa and her unprotected condition; and sums up by stating that he had an army ready for action, funds provided, "et peutetre I'envie de se faire un nom." It maybe said that C£esar,who was a philosopher as well as Frederic, also passed a judgment condemning his own actions, if we can trust Plu- tarch's account, given above, that he "enumerated the evils which would ensue to aU mankind from his passage of the river." And as Plutarch men- tions Pollio Asinius (C. Asinius PoUio) as being present when Caesar entered into this discussion; and as C. Asinius Pollio was with Caesar at tlie Eubicon and at the Battle of Pharsalia, and also wrote a history of the civil wars, which furnished materials for anec- dotes about Caesar, we may infer that Plutarch took his account from Pollio's work— a good authority. 1653.] VANE, SCOT, SYDNEY, HARRISON. cross the river; and thence advancing at full speed he attacked Ariminum before daybreak and took it." ^ I have said that before the 20th of April 1653, Cromwell had committed no overt illegal act, the justification of the meetings at his lodgings being admitted. This expression must, however, be understood as applicable to the Govern- ment as then constituted. For as the Government was constituted before the expulsion by military force of the Presbyterian members of the Parliament, known as " Pride's Purge," that expulsion was undoubtedly an illegal act against the Legislature as then existing. It was an act, however, partaking rather of the nature of open war than of treachery. The Presbyterians hated the Inde- pendents, and would have destroyed them if they had had the power. The expulsion therefore of the Presbyterians from the Parliament, by Cromwell and the Independents, was an act of self-defence. But Cromwell's expulsion, on the 20th of April 1653, of the Independents who then constituted the Parliament, was an act of a totally different kind ; being not an act of self-defence against enemies, hut an act of treachery against friends— against friends who trusted him, and with whom he had acted for all the thirteen years during which he had sat with them in that great Parliament ; against friends to whom, even at the very moment he was preparing to destroy them, " he made the most solemn professions of fidelity." ^ As long as truth and honour have any existence among mankind, and till a time come when those who live not merely by pil- laging or overreaching other people, but by betraying their friends, shall be powerful enough to make a code of mora- lity founded on their own practice, there can be small ' Plutarch, C. Caesar, c. 32. 2 Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. ^51 ; 2nd edition, Ix)ndon, 1721. I 456 .COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Cap. XVL difficulty in stamping its proper name upon the deed which Cromwell was now about to do. For the last time in that antique chapel which formed their hall of debate, and has become more famous than any of those temples in which the Eoman Senate assembled m ancient days,-sat that renowned assembly. There was Sir Henry Vane, the wildest of theologians, the subtlest and yet laostpractical of statesmen, with long; pale, melan- choly face, and bright yet somewhat restless look, that to the superstition of that age might seem to forebode an . unquiet end. There was Thomas Scot, as^ eloquent and almost as able as Vane, some of whose speeches, though only preserved in fragments, are among the most eloquent j in the English language. There was the soldier-philo- sopher, Algernon Sydney, by his mother's side the descendant of Hotspur, as impatient as Hotspur himself ot kingly arrogance and court arts, and lite Hotspur pre- pared to resist them to death ; with face thoughtful, like Vane's and Scot's, yet different from theirs in a certain stem, dauntless, and commanding expression, which seemed to unite the high, fierce, determined spirit of a repubhcan soldier with the pride of a nobility of twenty generations. There too, with taU military figure, aquiline featares, and bright black eyes, in which the enthusiasm that sparkled at times, and often seemed to slumber under his long dark eyelashes, gave something wild, striking, and even noble to his aspect, was the "bravest of the brave " Thom^arrison, who, though not, like Sydney, possessing any pretSnsions to chivah-y of lineage, carried his daring as a soldier to the most chivalrous extent; and whose re- ligious enthusiasm took a wilder flight even than Vane's and on this day made him the dupe to aid in digging a pitfall that was to be his own grave. For all those four 1653.] THE TWENTIETH OF APEIL, 1653. men the deed that was to be done that day by their ancient friend and comrade was to lead to a terrible end. For them there wiH be " a darker departure " than feU to the lot of HampiJen, and Pym, and Ireton. For them "the war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier." t^or them, amid the frantic shouts of a fickle multitude for the resto- ration of the Stuarts, the " death-bell is tolling," that is to herald them to the scaffold, which is destined to be their stormy and agonised pathway to the grave. Yet of all four— the statesmen and the soldiers— the deaths were to be equaUy without fear, and without a shadow of mistrust in their great Cause—their " good old Cause "— for which they had lived and fought and laboui-ed, and for which they died, or, to use their own words, which they " sealed with their blood." Early on the morning of the 20th of April, 1653, White- lock and Widdrington went again, according to appoint- ment, to CromweU's lodgings, where there were but few Parliament men, and a few officers of the army. A point was again raised which had been debated the preceding night, " whether forty persons, or about that number of Parliament men and officers of the army, should be nomi- nated by the Parliament, and empowered for the managing the affairs of the Commonwealth, tiU a new Parliament should meet, and so the present ParHament to be forth- with dissolved."! Whitelock says he was against this pro- posal, and the more, fearing lest he might be one of these forty, who he thought would be in a desperate condition affcer the Parliament should be dissolved ; but others were very ambitious to be of this number and CouncH, and to be invested with this exorbitant power.^ During this ' Whitelock's Memorials, p. 554 : London, 1732. 2 3id. 458 COMMONWEALTH OP ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL debate Cromwell, being informed that the Parliament was sitting, and "that it was hoped they would put a period to themselves, which would be the most honourable disso- lution for them,'^' immediately broke up the meeting. The members of the Parliament who were with him then leffc him at his lodgings, went to the House, and " found them," says Whiteloek, "in debate of an act which would oc- casion other meetings of them again, and prolong their sitting." 2 ^ ^ This statement of Whiteloek, who was present- appears at first sight to be at variance with the evidence of no less than four authorities : Cromwell's Declaration, the Memoirs of Ludlow, (who, though not present, expressly says he had his information from Major-General Harrison,) the Journal of the Earl of Leicester, (who received his in- formation from his son Algernon Sydney, who was present,) and a speech in Eichard Cromwell's Parliament of Sir Arthur HaseMg, who was also present. The variation may be accountedfor by the supposition that the House was for some time in debate on the Bill for settling the claims of ' Whitelock's Memorials, p. 554: London, 1723. ^ Ibid. After tlie record of the pro- ceedings of the 19th of April, 1653, in the printed Journals there occurs this note: "Here follows an entiy, which is expunged ; and against it, in the margin, is written this memoran- dum, 'This entry was expunged by order of Parliament, January 7, 1659.'" Tlie Journal of that day, January 7, 1659, contains the following passage : *' Whereas this House do find an entry in the Journal-Book of April 20, 1653, in these words: 'This day his Excellency the Lord-General dissolved this Parliament, which was done withput consent of Parliament,' Re- solved, that the Parliament doth de- clare, that the same is a forgery. Re- solved, that Mr. Scobell be sent for to the bar of the House." Mr. Sco- bell, on his appearing and being shown the entry, acknowledged that it was his own handwriting, and that he did it without the direction of any person whatever. The House then ordered the entry to be expunged out of the Journal, and referred it to a Committee to consider whether the then late Act of Indemnity extended to pardon that offence.— Co??«wiows' Jour- nals, January 7, 1659. 1653.] CROMWELL'S INCONSISTENCY. 459 the adventurers for Ireland, and then returned to the great question of finally passing the BiU for their own dissolu- tion, which question was ready to be put. Harrison after- wards told Ludlow—" The question for passing the BiU being to be put, Cromwell said to him (Harrison), 'This is the time, I must do it.' " And HaseMg's words are, " The question was putting for it, when our General stood up and stopped the question." The facts then we may conclude, on the testimony of four witnesses, Cromwell, Harrison, Algernon Sydney, and Hasebig, were these. The BiU for the dissolution, with the amendments, was ready to be put to the final vote. But before proceeding to that vote the House went into a debate on a BiU for settling the claims of the adventurers for Ireland. Now there starts up here one of those contradictions so difficult to comprehend, much less to explain, in the cha- racters of such men as CromweU. First, the information brought to CromweU of the Parliament's having entered into debate on new business, and thereby raising pretexts for continuing their sitting, affords CromweU a pretext for getting into a rage with the Parliament for not putting an end to their sitting. And secondly, when, on going to the House, he found they were actually putting the question for passing the BiU for their dissolution, he makes that a new pretext for getting into a new rage. Let those who claim for this man the perfection of human inteUigence and human virtue reconcUe these contradictions if they can. " Thereupon," continues Whiteloek, " Colonel Ingoldsby went back to CromweU, and told him what the House were doing ; who was so enraged thereat, expecting they should have meddled with no other business but putting a period 460 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL to their own sitting without more delay, that he presently commanded some of the officers of the army to fetch a party of soldiers, with whom he marched to the House." ' It is remarkable that Whitelock, who was present, should have made a statement so inaccurate as that contained in the concluding words of the sentence 2 which I have just quoted down to the word "House." The sentence in Whitelock concludes thus, " and led a file of musketeers in with him ; the rest he placed at the door of the House, and m the lobby before it." Two of the witnesses abeady mentioned, Algernon Sydney and Major-General Harrison, distinctly state that he did not lead either a file or files 1653.] CROMWELL INSULTS THE PARLIAMENT. 461 * Whitelock's Memorials, p. 654. 2 It has been proved that the editor of Whitelock's Embassy to Sweden omitted some most important passages (see Aysc. MS. Brit. Mus. 4991^ p. 206, and Brodie's Hist vol. ii. pp. 16, not©, and pp. 43, 44, and note). There are some circumstances in Whitelock's account of Cromwell's expulsion of the Parliament that seem to lead to the supposition that the passage has been tampered with. Besides the gross inaccuracy mentioned in the text, which could hardly have been made by a man who was present, un- less he had lost his senses and was paralysed by fear, the man who has shown this confusion of mind is repre- sented as having also the folly to say, •'And among all the Parliament men, of whom many wore swords, and would sometimes brag high, not one man offered to draw his sword against Cromwell, or to make the least resist- ance against him ; but all of them tamely departed the house." Ludlow, who was not there— being in Ireland at the time, but who received an exact account of what occurred from Harrison, and others who were present — and Alger- non Sydney, who was present, knew too well, as soldiers, the folly of resistance with the sword at such a time to make any remark like this of Whitelock's, which resembles the silly and malicious imputations of cowardice which Hyde and Mrs. Hutchinson are so fond of making. Whitelock's remark is made in the spirit of Jacobitism, and has been since repeated by Jacobite writers. For there is no mode so easy of blackening a man or a body of men as the charge of cowardice. How little the mean reproach here made was merited in the case of Vane, Scot, and Sydney, was signally proved by that fortitude which deliberately pre- ferred honourable death to dishonour- able submission, a fortitude beyond the comprehension or credence of such men as Clarendon and Whitelock. of musketeers " in with him." Neither did the Parliament know that he had any musketeers outside the door of the House till he called them in. As Algernon Sydney told the story to his father, "Cromwell came into the House, clad in plain black clothes, with grey worsted stockings, and sat down as he used to do in an ordinary place." ^ After sitting and hearing the debate for some time, he called to Major- General Harrison, who was on the other side of the House, to come to him, and told him that " he judged the Parlia- ment ripe for a dissolution, and this to be the time for doing it." The Major-General answered, " as he since told me," says Ludlow 2— " Sir, the work is very great and dangerous, therefore I desii-e you seriously to consider of it before you engage in it." " You say well," replied the General, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an hour. Then the question for passing the Bill being to be put, he said again to Major-General Harrison, " This is the time, I must do it." Then suddenly standing up he made a speech, wherein he loaded the Parliament with the vilest reproaches,^ charging them with not having a heart to do anything for the public good, with having espoused the corrupt interest of presbytery and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an intention to perpetuate themselves in power, had they not hem forced to the passing of this Act, which he ' The Journal of the Earl of Leices- ter, p. 139, in Sydney Papers, edited by E. W. Blencowe, A.M. : London, 1825. 2 Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 455 : 2nd edition, London, 1721. ^ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 456 : 2ud edition, London, 1721. — Lord Lei- cester says, "After a while, he rose up, put offhis hat, and spake. At the first, and for a good while, he spake to the commendation of the Parliament for their pains and care of the public good ; but afterwards he changed his style, told them of their injustice, de- lays of justice, self-interest, and other {a,iilts"— Journal of the Earl of Leices- ter, pp. 139, 140. 462 COMx^ONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. affirmed they designed never to observe ; » and tliereupon told them, " that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other instruments for the carrying on His work, that were more worthy." AU this he spoke with so much passion, as if he had been distracted. The cant which introduces the name of the Deity on all occasions, a cant which is offensive enough in the ordinary saints of that time, is infinitely more offensive in the mouth of a man who uses it as a cloak for his own rapacious self-aggrandisement. It is like an attempt to invest the mortal tyrant with the attributes of Immortality and Omnipotence. Sir Peter Wentworth stood up to answer him, and said " that this was the first time that ever he had heard such unbecoming language given to the Parliament, and that it was the more horrid in that it came from their servant, and their servant whom they had so highly trusted and obliged." But as he was going on, Cromwell stept into the midst of the House, where he said, " Come, come, I wiU put an end to your prating." Then walking up and down the House like a madman, and kicking the ground with his feet, he cried out, " You are no Parliament ; I say you are no Parliament ; I will put an end to your sitting ; call them in, call them in.'-' Thereupon Harrison went out and presently brought in Lieutenant-Colonel Worsley, who commanded the General's own regiment of foot, with five or six files of musqueteers, " about 20 or 30 " says Lord Leicester, " with their musquets ; " 2 which Sir Henry Yane observing from his place, said aloud, ^Ludlow's Momoirs, vol. ii. p. 436. referred to are false. -The words which I print in italics ^ ^^^d Leicester's Journal, p 140 are another proof, in addition to those "Six. hommes font une fi!e"-¥e^ 1 will give presently, that Cromwell's moires de Montecuculi, I. ii 24 assertions respecting the Act here 1653.] CROMWELL EXPELS THE PARLIAMENT. 463 " This is not honest, yea, it is against morality and com- mon honesty." ^ Then CromweU feU a railing at him, crying out with a loud voice, " Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Yane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane ! " Then looking upon one of the members, he said, " There sits a drunkard ; " and giving much reviling language to others, he commanded the mace to be taken away, saying, " Here, take away this fool's bauble ! " 2 Cromwell, then, pointing to the Speaker in his chair, said to Harrison, " Fetch him do^vn." Harrison went to the Speaker, and said that, " seeing things were brought to this pass, it would not be convenient for him to remain there." The Speaker, according to Ludlow,^ answered that " he would not come down unless he were forced." But according to Lord Leicester, the Speaker sat still, and said nothing. " Take him down," eaid Cromwell. Then Ham- son went and pulled the Speaker by the gown, and he came down.4 " It happened that day," continues Lord Leicester, " that Algernon Sydney sat next to the Speaker on the right hand. The General said to Harrison, ' Put him out.' Harrison spake to Sydney to go out ; but he said he would not go out, and sat still. The General said again, ' Put him out.' Then Harrison and Worsley put their hands upon Sydney's shoulders, as if they would force him to go out. Then he rose and went towards the door." * Cromwell then addressed himself to the members of the House, who were, says Ludlow, between 80 and 100, and ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 45 : says (p. 141), " Then the General went 2nd edition, London, 1721. to the table where the mace lay, which 2 Ludlow says (vol. ii. p. 457) ^ised to be carried before the Speaker, Cromwell said, "What shall we do and said, ' Take away these baubles."' with this bauble ? Here, take it away." " Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 457. Whitelock says (p. 554), " He bid one * Lord Leicester's Journal, p. 140. of his soldiers to take away that fool's * Jhid. jip. 140, 141. bauble, the mace.'' Lord Leiccste \ k 4 I 4C4 COMMOinVEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. said to them, " It's you that have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work.'" " CromweU," continues Ludlow, " having acted this trea- cherous and impious part, ordered the guard to see the House cleared of all the members, and then seized upon the records that were there, and at Mr. ScobeU's house. After which he went to the clerk, and, snatching the Act of Dissolution, which was ready to pass, out of his hand, he put it under his cloak, and having commanded the doors to be locked up, went away to Whitehall." ^ Lord Leicester says that, as the members were going out, the General said to young Sir Heniy Vane, caUing him by his name, that he might have prevented this extraordinary course ; but he was a juggler, and had not so much as common honesty.^- Lord Leicester prefaces this anecdote with the words "they say," and it is not mentioned either by Ludlow or Whiteloek. It is probable enough, however, that Cromwell said something of the kind by way of retort to Vane's exclamation, " This is not honest ; yea, it is against morality and common honesty." Which of the two. Vane or Cromwell, was the- juggler may be left to the judgment of impartial posterity. It has been shown that Cromwell, on this 20th of April 1653, first got into a passion when he was informed that the Parliament were occupied with other business than the Act for their dissolution ; and secondly, that he got ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 457, 458: 2nd edition, London, 1721. •■' Md. p. 458.—" This villanous attempt," adds Ludlow, "was much encouraged by the ambassadors lately arrived from Holland with in.itnic- tion.'j to conclude a peace, «'ho insti- gated Cromwell to take the power into his own hands, well understanding that he would soon be necessitated to make peace with them upon what terms they should think &t."~ll,id. ' Lord Leicester's Journal, p. 141. 1653.] DEPARTURE OF THE GREAT PAELUMENT. into a passion with them when they were goin/to put the question for finally passmg the Bill for their dissolu- tion. If such conduct have something of the appearance of madness, it is madness with method in it. To do an act of treachery and perfidy with a burst of imperious anger mstead of doing it with the command of temper which is usually observed to belong to treacherous and perfidious natures, may give to such an act an appearance of daring of grandeur, of magnanimity, which, false though it be' may yet be able to dazzle the imagination and mislead the judgment. I do not say that Cromwell had nicely calcu- lated this effect of his passion on this occasion. I think It more probable that he found the work he had set himself to do disagreeable, and that he took refuge from the reproaches of his own mind by putting himself irto a passion— a very common proceeding with manv men I also agree with Hume, that while Cromwell could descend to employ « the most profound dissimulation, the most obhque and refined artifice," he was "carried by his natural temper to magnanimity, to grandeur, and to an imperious and domineering policy." A man of this temper of mind is apt to attempt to indemnify himself for the restraint he has found it convenient to put at one time on the predominant part of his nature, by giving at another time the loose rein to his imperious passions ; and when he suddenly turns round upon his former friends' and ruins them and their cause, to seek to justify his deeds' to himself, if not to others, by heaping on those, to whom he had just before given the highest commendations and made the most solemn professions of fidelity, every term of reproach and contempt which a scurrilous voeabularv can supply. ^ It must have been a strange sight to see the members VOL. II. y 2 ' iS^W- %- 466 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XYI. 1653.] 1 of that great Parliament walking away in groups of two or three, after this extraordinary scene, from the old Gothic chapel, which had witnessed their labours and their triumphs, and which, through all the ages of its famous history, has never before or since held such men as they. To the superior spirits among them — to Vane, to Scot, to Algernon Sydney, whose knowledge of the past history of mankind would give them some foresight of the future, and whom the deed done by Cromwell that day was, at no very distant time, to send to the scaffold^ — it must have been manifest that their career as statesmen was ended ; that never more for them could the Parliament or the Council of State be the great arena, where they had once so powerfully contended for liberty and empire. Cromwell, having thus settled to his own satisfaction the expulsion of the Parliament, returned to Whitehall, where he found the Council of Officers in debate con- cerning this weighty affair ; and informed them that he had done it, and that they needed not to trouble themselves any further about it. But Colonel Okey and some others, officers of the army, who did not come under John Lilbume's designation of " creature colonels," repaired to the General, to desire satisfaction in that proceeding, conceiving that the way they were now going tended to ruin and confusion. " To these," says Ludlow, " having not yet taken off his mask, but pretending to more honesty and self-denial than ever, he professed himself to do much more good, and with more expedition, than could be expected from the Parliament ; while professions from him * I think that, but for this deed of faith in the honesty of the Indepen- Cromwell— which not only ruined the dents— the Stuarts would never have cause for which the Parliamentary been able to return, armies had fought, but destroyed all >-., THE COUNCIL OF STATE DEPART. 467 put most of them to silence, and moved them to a resolu- tion of waiting for a further discovery of his design, before they would proceed to a breach and division from him But Colonel Okey, being jealous that the end would be bad, because the means were such as made them justly suspected of hypocrisy, enquired of Colonel Desborough what his [Cromwell's] meaning was to give such high commendations to the Parliament, when he endeavoured to dissuade the officers of the army from petitioning them for a dissolution, and, so short a time after, to eject them with so much scorn and contempt ; who had ^no other answer to make, but that, if ever he drolled in his life he had drolled then." ' . ' ' In the afternoon of that same day, the 20th of April 1653, in the morning of which he had thus expelled the Parliament, Cromwell came to the Council of State who were assembled at the usual place of meeting in White- hall. CromweU was accompanied by those two officers whose concurrence, a^ has been shown, he had taken such care to procure-Lambert and Harrison. On his entrance CromweU said : " Gentlemen, if you are met here as private persons, you shall not be disturbed ; but if as a Council of State, this is no place for you ; and since you can't but know what was done at the House in the morn- ing, so take notice, that the Parliament is dissolved." To this Serjeant Bradshaw ' answered : " Sir, we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England wiU hear of it. But, Sir, you are 495 \lf'1% ^^.v'^''; ^'!* "• PP- ^''^'^ ^''^' '^ '^' <^-'^^^^^ of state 495 460 : 2nd edition, London 1721. Wednesday, March 23, 165f, /s. State Bradshaw was not President of Paper Office. The Earl of Salisbury the Council for this month. " That had been President of the Council fo^ Mr. Bond be appointed President of the month preceding-namelv, rom the Council for the month ensuing."- February 23 to March 23. II H 2 ■f % % 468 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. I mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved ; for no power nnder Heaven can dissolve them but themselves ; therefore take you notice of that." Something more, according to Ludlow, was said to the same purpose by Scot, Haselrig, and Love; and then "the Council of State, perceiving themselves to be under the same violence, departed." ^ When a man of Cromwell's abilities sets to work to give a particular colour to any transaction, it is no easy matter to discover the true colour of that transaction. Cromwell's strongest point against the Parliament was his assertion that their Bill for a new Parliament, which they were pass- ing through its last stages when he expelled them from their house, contained clauses by which " these present members were to sit, and to be made up by others chosen, and by themselves approved of." These words are from a " Narrative of the Manner of the Parliament's being Dis- missed," published on the day after the expulsion of the Parliament, the 21st of April, which the compilers of the new " Parliamentary History " designate as " of equal authority with that of the Journals themselves ; being published at the very time of action, and licensed by Mr. Scobell, Clerk of the House." ^ But the compilers of the " Parliamentary History," in making this assertion, must have forgotten the vast difference between the position of Mr. Scobell on the 20th of April 1653, and his position on the following day, - the 21st of April 1653. As Antony in Shakspeare's play said of Csesar, we may truly say of that great Parliament : " But yesterday their word might have stood against the world : and now none so poor to do them reverence." The " Clerk of the House " was no longer their servant, but the ' Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 461 : ^ Pari. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1381, 2nd edition, London, 1721. 1382. / 1663.] IF CROMWELL'S ASSERTIONS WERE TRUE, 469 servant of their destroyer ; and in that capacity he could do, and did, his part to poison the very fountain-head of history. I believe, as firmly as I believe my own existence, that at this stage of his career Cromwell made as much use of falsehood as his creature Monk afterwards did, when he was taking measIIJ^TEo- sell his country for a dukedom and a large sum of money. My belief is grounded on a vast mass of evidence, long and carefully weighed.' Yet he took such precautions in this case, that it is impossible to Tprove that the Bill did not contain what he asserted that it contained ; for he seized it, and carried it off with him to his own house, and it was never produced afterwards The words quoted above, if they mean anything, mean that the present Parliament, under colour of giving the people a new and free Parliament, meant to perpetuate their own power. Now this is most distinctly denied by two wit- nesses, both of them credible and well-informed : the one, • As one ofinnumerable instances of that he and some others were fined the opmtons formed by those who knew and imprisoned for their pretended him personally of Cromwell's honesty misdemeanours."_Z„rfW. yu,noir, and veranty I give the following: vol. ii. p. 6,.o : 2nd edition, London,' Amongst^ these was a cornet, whose 1721. That Cromwell was quite con- nate was Day, and who, being charged scions of the distrust with which his wxth saymg that Cromwell was a asse«ions were received by those he wfT ""<'/ •^^■"'^; ™''f'=^^^d 'h^ addressed, is proved by the e:.pre..sions words; and, o justify himself, said with which he interlarded his dis- that Cromwell had affirmed, in the course, such as, " This is very true that presence of himself and divers other I Ml you, God iuows I lie mt!" officers, that if he did oppress the con- a form of words certainly not indica- scientious, or betray the liberties of tive of a man of truthful habits-. he people or not take away tithes by phraseology now in use among th! a certain t.me nov, past, they should lowest and least veracious memlirs of then have liberty to say he was a society. A man of habitual verad"y o^e or traitor. He moved there- and honour would no mo,. thU of fore that he might be permitted to using such asseverations, than an produce his witnesses who were then honourable matron would think ' t tioned ; but the matter was 80 ordered, honest woman." I 470 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. General Ludlow, a member of that Parliament ; and the other Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of Colonel Hutchinson, also a member of it. Falsehood, in the shape of calumny, has ever been and will ever be one of the most powerful weapons of those who, while they pursue their selfish ends with the ravenous fury of wild beasts or savages, find themselves compelled to pay some deference to the public opinion of their age and country. When you have done any man a deep and grievous wrong, it may appear a duty you owe to yourself and your family, to blacken the cha- racter of the man you have injured, so that what you have done may have a chance of appearing not wrong, but right. In the beginning of that 1 7th century, a very remarkable example of this mode of proceeding occurred in the affair which James I. called the " Gowrie Conspiracy." The Earl of Gowrie and his brother, Alexander Euthven, were mur- dered by King James, who published his own account of the matter, in which he declared that he had acted in his own defence ; and everything in the shape of a defence of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother was so effectually de- stroyed, that not a single copy can now be met with.^ Cromwell, in his " Declaration of the Grounds and Eea- sons for thus Dissolving the Parliament by Force," dated "Whitehall, April 22, 1653," asserted that " those persons of honour and integrity amongst them, who had eminently appeared for God and the public good, were rendered of no further use in Parliament, than, by meeting with a cor- rupt party, to give them countenance to carry on their ends, and for effecting the desire they had of perpetuating themselves in the supreme government ; for which pur- pose the said party long opposed, and frequently declared ' See Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 209, 210. 1663.] AND COULD HAVE BEEN PKOVKD ; 471 themselves against having, a new representative: and when they saw themselves necessitated to take that Bill into consideration, they resolved to make use of it to recruit the House with persons of the same sph-it and temper, thereby to perpetuate their own sitting."^ This passage partakes, in a large measure, of the darkness that characterises Cromwell's utterances, whether written or spoken, when he had a case to make out. First he admits that there were " persons of honour and integrity amongst them." Then he says that "those persons of honour and integrity were rendered of no further use in Parliament, than, by meeting with a corrupt pai-ty, to give them countenance to carry on their ends, and for effecting the desire they had of perpetuating themselves in the supreme government." The meaning I suppose is, though the grammar is in a state of chaos, that the per- sons of honoTir and integrity were made use of by a corrupt party as a cloak to deceive the nation. And in the next passage "the said party" means the "corrupt party" before mentioned. Now it certainly appears, from the Journals of the 14th November 1651, that when the question was put, " That it is now a convenient time to declare a certain time for the continuance of the Parliament, beyond which it shall not sit," there was a large proportion of members, out of a house of 96— in one division 46 to 50, in another 47 to 49— who were against entertaining the question at all. In both the divisions Cromwell was one of the tellers for the Yeas. It was, however, four days after, on the 18th of November, ultimately " Eesolved, that the time for the continuance of this Parliament, beyond which they resolve not to sit, shall be the 3rd day of November 1654." And, ' Par]. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1387. ■ 472 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL by a subsequent resolution, the 3rd of I^^ovember 1653 was appointed, instead of the 3rd of JSTovember 1654. It may be inferred from this, that the above-mentioned minority of 46 or 47 constituted the "corrupt party," re- ferred to by Cromwell in the passage just quoted of his " Declaration " of 22nd April 1653. So far, then, Cromwell had a colour of truth to support his assertions. But this colour will not go far. For his assertion implies that this " corrupt party " was a majority, and not, as the Journals show in the above-cited divisions, a minority, though un- doubtedly a large minority. And therefore that assertion, that the " corrupt party " had so framed their Bill for electing a new Parliament, as to render it an instrument for perpetuating themselves, is unsupported by evidence. If Cromwell could have proved the truth of his assertions, why did he not publish a copy of the BHl ? He could not prove the truth of his assertions, and he took good care that the Bill should never be forthcoming. The Bill had not been printed or even engrossed. " Cromwell," as Mr. Forster says, " had seized the only copy in existence on the day of the dissolution ; had carried it himself, under his cloak, to his own house at Whitehall ; and was never afterwards known to refer to it in any way." ^ It was to be expected that, partly from carelessness, partly from bias against the Eump, writers such as the compilers of the " Parliamentary History " should, as has been shown, assume as true Cromwell's assertions respecting the Bill which he seized, and never produced afterwards. But it is rather surprising that Mr. Forster, who has investigated ' Forster's Life of Oliver Cromwell, visions of the Bill, which were sub- stantially the same as those of Ireton's Bill, called " An Agreement of the People of England," described in the First Volume of this History, pp. 27-30. 1653.] WHY DID HE NOT PRINT THE BILL? 47a vol. ii. p. 75: London, 1839. —Mr Forster, in his " Life of Yane " (pp. 158-162), has collected from the Journals of the House the main pro- this subject with great care and ability, should have ad- mitted, or taken for granted, Cromwell's assertion that the Bill provided for the re-election, or for the continuance without re-election, of the members of the present Parlia- ment. Besides the reasons I have already assigned for saying that Cromwell's assertion was not proved, and that his ob- ject was to make it seem that the Bill contained such provisions without being able to prove it, though, had it been true, he could have provedi it at once, by printing and publishing the Bill, it is a significant circumstance, that while the semi-offirAal " Narrative," already re- ferred to, issued on the 21st of April, asserts in positive words that " by the said Act these present members were to sit and to be made up by others chosen, and by them- selves approved of," the official "Declaration," issued on the 22nd of April, carefully avoids any such positive asser- tion, using* more vague words, " recruit the House with persons of the same spirit and temper, thereby to perpetu- ate their own sitting." The craft of Cromwell is very conspicuous in this distinction. He might, and would of course, disown the semi-official paper when it suited him so to do. The words of the official paper, which he could not disown, were so chosen that they might be explained to mean, either that the present members were to continue to sit, and that persons of the same spirit and temper were to be added to them, to make up the full number of 400 ; or that the present members were e.'ther not to sit at all in the next House, or were to take their chance of re-election with the new members who were to form the new Parliament. Add to all this evidence against the assertion of their destroyer, that the Parliament meant to pei-petuate them- ,1 I ' ^ « 1 ^'^^ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL selves, the solemn declaration of Thomas Scot, one of their most illustrious members. In a speech made in Kichard CromweU's Parliament, Thomas Scot said : " The Dutch war came on. If it had pleased God and his Highness to have let that little power of a Parliament sit a little longer,— when Hannibal is ad portas, something must be done extra leges,~we intended to have gone off with a good savour, and provided for a succession of Parliaments :, hut we stayed to end the Dutch war,'' ^ " Thus," says a hostile writer, ''by their own mercenary servants, and not a sword drawn in their defence, fell the haughty and victorious Eump, whose mighty actions will scarcely find belief in future generations." ^ A more modern hostile writer declares he knows not in what eyes are tears at their departure, except it be their own ; and then he approvingly quotes the assertion of his veracious man-god, " my Lord-General," " we did not hear a dog bark at their going." It would, I apprehend, be some- what difficult to detect a dog in the act of barking at the hanging of " my Lord-General " himself, and all his para- sites in one rope. Yet let not this renowned Parliament die unheard. And in the vindication of the purity of its intentions, and of the respect due to its memory— by such men as Scot and Vane, who " sealed the cause with their blood," and declared upon the scaffold, in the last words they uttered, " that it was a cause not to be repented of,"— -there is a tone of deep yet manly sorrow, that must command the respect of every candid and generous mind. There is too, • This speech, which was made in 1656-1659," edited by John Towill Kichard Cromwell's Parliament, is re- Eutt. ported in the "Diary of Thomas Burton. ^ j^oger Coke's Detection of the Esq., Member in the Parliaments of Court and State of England, vol ii Oliver and Richard Cromwell, from p. 30. 1653.] END OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 475 in the words of those men, all the solemnity of death ; for events were already looming in no distant future, which foreboded to them a dark and inevitable fate. Neverthe- less, their courage quailed not ; and in their, I might say, dying words^— even, as it were, from the very ashes of that great assembly, which such men as they were to make im- mortal — there "flashed forth a stream of heroic rays." Ay, these are the true heroes ; though libraries may be written, and temples dedicated, to the Moloch-worship of successful renegades, liars, and robbers ! Thus ended that Government called " The Common- wealth," after a duration of four years and nearly three months. Though English historians have extended the name of Commonwealth to the military despotism of Cromwell which succeeded, and have thus given to Crom- well all the credit due to the good government of the states- men of the Commonwealth, and to the statesmen of the Commonwealth all the discredit due to the bad government of Cromwell, the original records of the proceedings of both remain, to show to all ages the vast difiference between that body of men who constituted The Council of State, and that body of men who constituted Cromwell's Coun- cil OF State. ^ Scot's last words in Parliament — when some of the Presbyterians, who were in the reassembled Long Parlia- ment, before its final destruction by Monk, moved that before they sepa- rated they should bear their witness against the execution of tHe King — were that, "though he knew not where to hide his head at that time, yet he durst not refuse to own, that not only his hand but his heart also was in it." — Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 864 : 2nd edition, London, 1721. The words, as reported in Burton's Diary, which seem to refer to the same occa- sion, are these : " I would be content it should be set upon my monument — if it were my last act, I own it — I was one of the King's judges. I hope it shall not be said of us, as of the Eomans once, ' homines ad servitu- tem parati ! ' " Vane and Algernon Sydney, though neither of^them ap- proved of tlie Kijig's execution, or had either "hand or heart in that affair,"' manifested the same lofty and in- trepid spirit before their fudges and on the scaffold. '"^~~"'"^-- f I 476 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVL The last meeting recorded in the Order Book of the Council of State, is on Friday, the 15th of April 1653. No business of any particular importance is recorded in the minutes ; nor does anything appear in the minutes, giving the least sign or foreboding of the catastrophe of Wednes- day next, the 20th of April. There were eighteen members of the Council present, including Vane, Scot, the Earl of Salisbury, and Sir Arthur Haselrig. There is no record pre- served of the meeting in the afternoon of the 20th of April. And so closes the last Order Book of the Council of State.' The first meetings of Cromwell's Council of State, begin- ning a new Order Book, like the former Order Books in all outward signs, is on Friday the 29th of April 1653. The members present of this new Council of Saints— who were, as poor Harrison dreamt, to initiate the Millennium— were the Lord-General Cromwell, Major-General Lambert, Major-General Harrison, Mr. Carew, Colonel Bennet,' Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Stapeley, Mr. Strickland. Of these eight, six were military men. This seems to be the general proportion. Thus on Tuesday, the 3rd of May 1653, the members present were Major-General Lambert, Major' General Harrison, Mr. Carew, Major-General Desbrough [Desborough, Cromwell's brother-in-law], Mr. Strickland, Colonel Sydenham, Colonel Stapeley. This, therefore, was a mere barrack-room Council— a Council of what John Lilburne called the " creature colonels," whom Oliver, assuming the style royal, might call " creatures of our own," as Queen Elizabeth called the Earl of Leicester " a creature of our own." John Lilburne proved only too true a prophet. Never more were Vane,^ Scot, and Sydney to appear in that Council-room. There was no affinity • As to the composition of Crom- fusal to be a member of it, see note 1 well p Council of State, and Vane's re- p. 479. ' 1653.] CROMWELL'S COUNCIL OF STATE. 477 between the nature of Oliver Cromwell and theirs. But there was a strong affinity between Cromwell's nature and that of Monk, and of another man whose name soon after appears in the list of the members of Cromwell's Council of State. The name of that other man is an omen and, as it were, a history of what were to be the consequences of the grand perfidy of Cromwell. The name is entered on the list thus — " Sir A. A. Cooper." It was of such men, no doubt, as Cromwell, and Monk, and Cooper, that Sir Henry Vane was thinking when, in his prayer with liis family and friends, in his chamber on the morning of his execution, he used these words — " Oh ! what abjuring of light, what treachery, what meanness of spirit, has appeared in this day ! " ^ The three men above mentioned may be designated as a triumvirate of traitors, who carried the successful practice of treachery and falsehood to a height sufficient to strike the common herd of their imitators at once with admira- tion and despair. And so long had this successful career lasted, with that one of the three who survived the others. Cooper or Shaftesbury (for he had^otted^into a peer with that title), that it might reallyliave seemed that the only character to be venerated on earth, where success has so much to do with veneration, was that of an adroit practi- tioner of treachery and falsehood. This man had been a traitor to every party, but, up to a certain point, his treach- eries had always prospered. " Whether it were accident or sagacity," says Lord Macaulay, " he had timed his • The Tryal of Sir Henry Vane, Kt. interrupted an I overruled by the Court) At the King's Bench, Westminster, and his Bill of Exception. With other June the 2nd and 6th, 1662 ; together occasional speeches, &c. Also his with what he intended to have spoken speech and prayer on the Scaffold, the day of his sentence (June 11) for Small 4to. Printed in the year 1662, arrest of judgment (had he not been p. 83. I \ COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. desertions in such a manner, that fortune seemed to go to and fro with Tiim from side to side." ^ LordrMacaukj has described with great force the cha- racter of Sha ftesb ury— with greater force than jgither Butler or Drjden ; though the character of Shaftesbury, while still living, had been drawn by them, "two of the greatest writers of the age— by Butler with characteristic brilliancy of wit, by Dryden with even more than characteristic energy and loftiness, by both with all the inspiration of hatred." 2 ^^^ ^he character of Shaftesbury was a sort of archetype of the characters of the politicians who ap- peared in England, not only after the restoration of Charles TI., but after the expulsion of the Long Parliament by Cromwell. From that time, if we except Blake— who continued to fight the foreign enemies of ^ngland, but who never, in any sense, became the creature ofCromwell ^ —■none of the great spirits, whose fixedness of purpose, intensity of will, and fierce yet single-minded and unselfish enthusiasm, had fought the great fight for liberty in the haU of debate as well as on the field of battle, had borne down before them the opposition alike of adverse opinions and of hostOe armies, and extorted even from enemies a reluctant admiration, ever more acted with Cromwell. Between him and them a deep and impassable gulf had been fixed. Henceforth he must seek for other instruments of his will ; for those who had been his coadjutors in the advancement of the • Macaulay's Essay on Sir William Temple. ' Neither Blake himself, nor his brother Benjamin, nor his nephew Eobert, ever set their hands to the declaration of approval of Cromwell's expulsion of the Parliament, to which Cromwell obtained the signatures of Deane, Monk, Penn, and many of the captains of the ships.— See the declara- tion in Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir Wm. Penn, vol. i. pp. 489- 491 : London, 1833. See also Dixon's Eobert Blake, p. 247: 8vo. edition, London, 1852. 1653.] CHAKACTER OF THE COMMONWEALTH MEN. 479 great work of delivering England from civil and religious tyranny — from the tyranny of Laud, as well as from the tyranny of Strafford and Charles Stuart — would never sub- mit to be the tools of their treacherous comrade, who now sought to substitute a tyrant under the name of Cromwell for a tyrant under the name of Stuart.^ Whatever vices or infirmities those men might have had, they had not the vices and infirmities of slaves or cowards — of quacks, of liars, of renegades. One who lived among them and knew them well, though he had the weakness to serve under and to eulogise their treacherous destroyer, had learned from his knowledge of them how to describe that firmness of purpose which disdained submission ^ — that fortitude which * •' With Cromwell were associated, in his Council of State, eight officers of high rank and four civilians. The last would seem to have been thrown in as a convenient screen alone ; for the Council of State, so constituted, was, to all intents and purposes, a military council. It will scarcely be believed that a desperate attempt was made to secure, in the position of one of the civilians, the name and authority of Sir Henry Vane ; for none knew better than CromwCil, that any damage to such a character must be self- inflicted, and none more certain than he that such co-operation, by any argument secured, would altogether avert the possibility of a popular outbreak before his plans were ripe. No argument was therefore forgotten, no inducement omitted, to achieve the services of the 'juggling' Vane. But the manner of their reception became his character. As he had treated the insult, he treated the mean submis- sion. From Belleau, his house in Lin- colnshire, to which he had at once retired after the 20th of April, 1653, he wrote a brief answer to the application from the Council, that ' though the reign of saints was now no doubt begun, he was willing, for his part, to defer his share in it till he should go to heaven.'" — Forster's Life of Oliver Cromaell (vol. ii. p. 129, London, 1839) cites an intercepted letter of Mr. T. Robinson to Mr. Stoneham, at the Hague, in Thurloe's State Papers, vol. i. p. 265. "^ On the day before his execution some of Vane's friends having at- tempted to persuade him to make his submission to the King, and by that means endeavour to save his life, he said, " If the King did not think him- self more concerned for his honour and word than he did for his life, he was very willing they should take it." And when others spoke to him of giving some thousands of pounds for his life, he said, " If a thousand farthings would gain it, he would not give them ; and if any should attempt to make such a bargain, he would spoil their market : ; 480 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. 1653.] CHARACTER OF THEIR SUCCESSORS. 481 ! disdained escape : ^ " The unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield. And what is else not to be overcome." ^ In the same essay in which Lord Macaulay has so for I think," he added, ''the King but I did it all according to the best of himself is so sufficiently obliged to my understanding, desiring to make spare my life, that it is fitter for the revealed will of God in his Holy him to do it than myself to seek it." Scriptures as a guide to me. I humbly — State Trials, vol. vi. pp. 189, 190. conceive that what was done was done • When the Restoration came. Major- in the name of the Parliament of Eng- General Harrison refused to with- land, and that this Court or any Court draw fiww.Jiis house and escape, below the High Court of Parliament deeming that a desertion of his cause hath no jurisdiction of these actions." and principles. He was accordingly — State Trials, \ol. r. pp. 1024, 1025. seized with all his horses and arms, A more sincere, honest, and single- at his house in Staifordshire and hearted enthusiast than Harrison never brought to London. He was then existed. There is in Lincoln's Inn committed to the Tower, and his horses Library a small 4to. which contains, taken to the Mews for the King's use. besides the " Trial " and " Life and I have already described Harrison's Death of Sir Henry 'Vane " before re- behaviour on the scaffold (Vol. I. pp. ferred to, •' The Speeches and Prayers 79, 80). There is a touching simplicity of Major-General Harrison and others of and earnestness in the few words that ' the late King's judges,' with several oc- he was permitted to speak on his trial, casional speeches and passages in their where he saw the faces of brass of imprisonment and at their execution, Monk, ShaResba/f.^and. 3ffolles on the faithfully and impartially collected." bench, among- ttle judges "who con- ^ I will give here two out of many demned him to death] ^i would minutes in the Order Books, showing not," he said, " offer of myself the least injury to the poorest man or woman that goes upon the earth. I did what I did, as out of conscience to the Lord ; for when I found those that were as the apple of mine eye to turn aside, I did loathe them, and suf- fered imprisonment many years. I that Milton's work was not confined to foreign tongues : " That Mr.Jdilton do go to the committee of *TKe army and desire them to send to the Council the book of examinations taken about the risings in Kent and T^ssexT^— Order Book of tJi'e"Uoiincirof State, June 22, 1650, MS. State Paper Office. "That chose rather to be separated from wife Mr. Milton do peruse the examinations and family than to have compliance taken "by the cofnihiltee of the army with them, though it was said, * Sit at concerning the insurrections in Essex, my right hand,' and such kind expres- and take heals of the same, to the end sions. Thus I have given a little poor the Council may judge what is fit to be testimony that I have not been doing taken into consideration." — find. June things in a corner, or from myself. 25, 165t)r See also Vol. I. p. 172 of Maybe I might be a little mistaken ; this history. 1 powerfully delineated the character of Shaftesbury, he has made an ingenious attempt to trace the cause of the difference between the leading politicians of the Long Par- liament and the leading politicians who succeeded them. The cause of that difference he considers to lie in the difference between the moral quaUties " which distinguish the men who produce revolutions from the men whom revolutions produce." If this be true— and if the moral qualities of Shaftesbury, of Danby, of Churchill, of Jefferies, of Lauderdale, of Claverhouse, were the natural fruit of the great English Eevolution— why then, it may be asked, did not the Ameri- can Eevolution produce an equally abundant crop of such men ? The answer is, that it would have produced such a crop, if Washington had acted the part which Cromwell acted ; that is, if he had turned round, and made use of the military power which he possessed to ruin the cause for which he had fought, and the men with whom he had acted, and who had entrusted him with that mUitary power. By such a proceeding he would have driven away, or imprisoned, or destroyed (as CromweU did) all the men who had fought and acted for something higher than self; and would have let loose, as Cromwell did, all the men whose god was, like his own, « self in the highest." It was the gigantic viUany of Cromwell which was the father of all the villanies of the next two generations of Englishmen— from the falsehoods and treacheries of Monk, who sold the men who trusted him, and with them his country, to Stuart, who sold it to the King of France ; of Shaftesbury, who just before the Restoration declared to the Eegicides that he would be damned, body and soul, rather than suffer a hair of their heads to be hurt, and just after the Eestoration was one of the judges who sentenced them to death ; of VOL. II. I 1 ( I i 482 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. II Lauderdale, who sold his King, and afterwards turned round, and in the name of that King's son tortured his former friends with iron boots and thumbscrews, — to " the hundred villanies of Marlborough." And yet Cromwell himself, who did all this, was one of the men who produced the revolution, not one of the men whom the revolution produced. Such are some of the consequences of a great crime committed by a great man. The civil wars of Eome, with- out the termination which the success of Csesar gave to them, might have been productive of many bad men, but not of such fiends in human shape as Tiberius and Se- janus, as Caligula and Nero, and their courtiers. Such men were not the natural production of a revolution or revolutions, but of the act of a man who, being entrusted with military power by his country, turned that power suc- cessfully against the country which had so trusted him. As Thomas Scot said of Cromwell — " Faith was broken, and somewhat else." And when an incarnate lie is set up and enthroned as the representative of a nation, that na- tion cannot be pronounced to be in a very healthy or hope- ful condition. As we look mournfully on the last page of these records ^ of the labours of statesmen who, like the Eoman Senate of ancient days, had destroyed empires, and shown them- selves more powerful than kings ; and reflect that their free and far-extending thoughts and counsels were to be succeeded but by a troop of " creature colonels," and by the statesmanship of the barrack-room, we may say of them and of their fate — Farewell the free debate, where mind meets mind, and the result is determined by the ' I mean the last page of the Order different body from CromwelVs Conncil I Books of THE Council of State, a very of State. 1653.] CONSEQUENCES OF CROMWELL'S CONDUCT. reason of the most powerful intellect, not by the domineer- ing will of a man at the head of a band of soldiers ! — Fare- well the statesman-thought, the high design, which, seeking something higher than self, commands the respect of free- born men even in its very errors ; and, far more than " the plumed troop and the big wars " of him whose god is " self in the highest," " makes ambition virtue ! " The consequences of CromwelPs proceeding, by which he had substituted for the Council of Statesmen a barrack- room Council of " creature colonels," soon began to show themselves. Cromwell, in the hour of his extremity at Dunbar, said, in that letter he wrote to Haselrig, " Let H. Vane know what I write ; I would not make it public, lest danger should accrue thereb3r.*^--^iiadiioti:hen occurred to him to pray that " The Lord would deliver him from Sir Henry Vane ! " It was indeed in an evil hour, for himself as well as others, that he so prayed— in that fit of insanity, in which he blasphemously gave to the Evil Spirit who had taken possession of him the name and attributes of the Omnipotent. Had the voice of that Sir Henry Vane, whom he loaded with scurrilous reproaches, been heard, as, in the days that could return no more, it had been heard in the Council of State, the expedition against Hispaniola would never have been undertaken ; or if, by any chance, it had been undertaken, it would have been placed under very different leaders from Penn and Venables. The expedition was, in itself, a distinct departure from the policy of the statesmen of the Commonwealth, who in all their measui^s had observed those rules of "morality and common honesty," which Vane told Cromwell he had violated in his expulsion of the Parliament. It was a positive viola- tion of treaty, as unwarrantable as Frederic II. 's attack on Silesia. I I 2 / / / / 484 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. Cromwell had now, however, taken up his lot with the common herd of robber-tyrants, who, provided their villanies are successful, are hailed as gods upon earth. And as one principal occupation of those lofty personages is to rob one another, Oliver Cromwell bethought him, after having so infamously cheated the English nation, of com- mitting a robbery on a large scale on his brother and ally the King of Spain, as the best method he could devise of purchasingthe freedom of the high company into which he had thrust himself. But even there Cromwell failed in r establishing a parallel favourable to himself, "who," as I Cowley says, " for his particular share of it, sat still at 1 home, and exposed them "so fi-ankly abroad." ^ Cowley i should have added, too, that he exposed them in a pestilen- tial climate.^ Napoleon Bonaparte accompanied his army to Moscow. If Oliver Cromwell wanted the glory of foreign conquest to gild over his perfidy and villany, he should have accompanied his fleet to the West Indies, and shown the world whether his genius and valour were equal to the task of averting the disgrace which in that disastrous expedition fell so heavily upon the arms of England. Even after that disgraceful failure, the genius and valour of Blake could still gain many victories and triumphs for England, though Blake's fleets were no longer equipped and provisioned as they had been by the great statesmen of the Commonwealth ; and Blake's own premature death may in great part be attributed to the ' Cowley's Discourse, by Way of Vision, concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell. "^ For a description of their sufferings from the pestilential climate, see Ad- miral Penn's Journal, published in Mr. Granville Penn's Memorials of Ad- miral Sir William Penn, vol. ii. p. 56 et 5^5'.— "The fever and flux have been so general," writes Admiral Penn to Cromwell, " that 'tis rare to find a man that hath escaped either one or both of them."— Penn to Cromwell, June 6, 1655, in Granville Penn, vol. ii. p. 112. 1653.] THE GLORIOUS CAHEER OF BLAKE. 485 culpable neglect of the usurper, who was too much occu- pied with the intrigues for his own further personal aggrandisement to pay due attention to the naval afi*airs of the State. For Blake's death was certainly owing to his health's being thoroughly broken, by his being kept at sea so long without intermission ; and his ships were rendered so foul that, under any commander but himself, they would have been quite unserviceable. As I have said, none of the great spirits of the English Commonwealth ever more acted with Cromwell — except Blake, whose strong and noble passion for the honour of his country still led him to fight that country's foreign enemies, and whose resistless energy, directed by the in- stinct of genius, was such that, wherever he led, victory was still his companion, till he " who would never strike to any other enemy, struck his topmast to Death." From Cadiz to Leghorn, from Leghorn to Tunis, from Tunis to Santa Cruz, his fleet held on its victorious course. To him, as to his antitype of later days, whom England delights to honour, while to Blake she has as yet refused even a tomb : — To him, as to the burning levin Short, bright, resistless course was given ; Where'er his country's foes were found, Was heard the fated thunder's sound, Till burst the bolt on yonder shore, RoU'd, blaz'd, destroy'd — and was no more ! But the honour of the exploits of Blake belongs to himself, and to the great statesmen of the Commonwealth, who had first discovered his genius, and had created the powerful navy which that genius led to victory. Very different, as we have seen in the business of Hispaniola, was the result when the genius of Cromwell was left to its own resources. Plato and Tacitus have exhausted the powers of language \ \ / 486 COMMONWKALTH OF ENGLAND. [Chap. XVI. in depicting those "wounds and lacerations " which the minds of tyrants would disclose if they were laid open. Some traces of those mentaJ tortures may be discerned even on their outward aspects, and sometimes where the inteUectual grandeur of the head and face renders the . ettect more remarkable ; as in that immortal marble ' in that look of the great Dictator, which is so instinct at once with mind and courage,-aTira mcTr^ ffiai human in- teUigence 'shone through it, strangely combined with an expression about the mouth of tremulous sensibiHty, and as if the mmd within were so powerful as to have preserved a serenity showing no tra^e of aJl that stormy and eventful past-of years of war, of toil, of mental anxiety, of bodUy suffering, of superhuman success-save something of an air, partly stem, partly anxious, partly melancholy, which , may perhaps indicate remorse, and which seems to forebode but not to fear, a terrible fate. ' The great English Protector's face is a far less inteUec- tual one than that of the great Roman Dictator, and I have never seen any portrait of it which evinces any trace ot this look of anxiety observable in the bust of Cresar to which I refer. But I have seen in the State Paper Office signaTures of Cromwell's (" Oliver P.") in 1656, which from their extremely tremulous character, betray either very great mental anxiety or very-gr'St bodQy weakness. Could this be the effect of what is caUed remorse, or at least of that torture of the mind arising from the uneasy the rackmg consciousness that he had committed a gigantic crime m vain ? These signatures are strikingly different from his signatures of earlier days-even from his signa- ture two years before, in 1654. As we look at these tremulous signatures, and remember that the writer was ' The bust of Julius Caear in the British Museum. 1653.] REMORSE. 487 not sixty years of age, we are tempted to ask, is this the man whose adamantine nerves some ten years before, after all the toil and excitement of the day of Haseby, could still before he slept^^wrrte" CBat letter to the~S|5^aker in such firm, bold, and distinct characters ? But "when he penned that letter, on the night of the 14th of June 1645, his conscience was as clear as that which enabled Vane and Scot, and Harrison and Sydney, to meet death with such intrepid serenity. To have kept such a clear con- science would have been far better for him while he lived, and a far greater honour to his memory, than a dormitory among the ashes of kings. If his saying on his deathbed, when one of his chaplains, whom he had asked if it was possible to fall from grace, answered that it was not possible, " Then I am safe, for I know that I was once in grace," is accurately reported, it proves that he was himself con- scious that he had deviated from the path of rectitude, of honesty. In spite of all his long-winded and involved sophistries to his Parliaments, hcT50tiM"iibt cheat his own conscience : for his was one of those minds of which Walter Scott says that, while Fear is the scourge of cowards. Remorse is the torturer of the brave— ^Eglnorse, which the Greeks personified under the name of the Erinyes, or the Avenging Deities, and which, in the' case of powerful criminals, whom no other punishment can reach, half avenges the wrongs of mankind f /' j \ , H ^[6 /^ INDEX. f\ 0^ I \1 \) -J^' ^ >-^v> ABE ABERDEEN, cruelties of Montrose at, i. 293-295 Admiralty, the Committee for carrying on the affairs of, ii. 268, 269. See Navy " Agreement, an, of the People of Eng- ]and," the writing drawn up by Ireton and the officers of the army, so called, i. 27-30. Treatment of, by the Parlia- ment, 31, 32. John Lilburne's andthe Levellers' " Agreement of the People," 90-94. Question how far Ireton ac- quiesced in the putting aside the Agreement of the People which he had drawn up, 211-213 Algiers, English captives at, ii. 385 Ambassador, Spanish, conducted to an audience by the Parliament through streets lined with the Ironside cavalry, ii. 287, 288 Ambassadors, Danish, diet allowed - them, ii. 359. Permitted to killveni^ son in Hyde Park and in Hampton Court Park, 360 Ambassadors, Dutch, diet allowed them, ii. 359. See Dutch Ambassadors >' Ambassadors, manner of giving audienc^ to, ii. 278 Amboyna, the affair called " The An^ boyna Massacre," ii. 285, 286 J^ Antinomians, i, 77-80 ^ Antrim, the Earl of, a commission granted to, by Charles I., to raise an Irish army to be employed against Scotland, i. 131, 132 Arg}'le, Marquis of, i. 280 and note Army, Parliamentary, the, i. 60. New regiments raised for the service of^ Ireland, 63, 64. Composition an^ state of, 72-77. Influence of pam^ I BAI lets on the soldiers of, 83, 84. Com- ponent parts of, 95, 96. Representa- tion of, to Parliament, in 1647, drawn up by Ireton with the assistance of Cromwell and Lambert, ii. 247-250. Pay of, 412-414. Clarendon's cha- racter of, 141 Army, Scottish, how raised and how composed, i. 319-323. Strong posi- tion of, under David Leslie, i. 343, 350, 351 ; ii. 143, 144. Moves south- ward by rapid marches, 145. In- vades England, 155. Totally defeated at Dunbar, i. 360, 369 ; at Worces- ter, ii. 195 Ascham, assassination of, i. 311, 312. The Parliament insist upon justice being done on the murderers of, ii. 288, 289 Aubrey, his account of Dr. William " Harvey, the discoverer of the circula- tion of the blood, ii. 12, note. His character of Thomas Challoner, 79, 9iote 4von, the River, important battles fought on, ii. 187, 189 Ayscue, Sir George, ii. 103, 105. Cla- rendon's character of, 272. Never employed again after his engagement with Ruyter, 346, 347 BACON, Francis, his peerage conferred not for his merits, but for his de- merits, i. 3. His account of Empson and Dudley, ii. 15, note Baillie, Robert, Letters and Journals of, compared with Strafford's Letters and Despatches, as furnishing an accurate knowledge of those times, i. 271 f 1 490 INDEX. BAT INDEX. 491 y* Bates, Dr. George, physician and pane- gyrist of Charles II., gross misstate- ments of, i. 345, note ; ii. 198-200 Baxter, Kichard, chaplain for two years to the principal Ironside regiment, i. 95. His account of Cromwell and the Parliamentary army, 72-84 Bell, John, a Scotch Presbyterian minister of the Gospel, "inclined to think the murder of Sir James Standsfield by his son was a violent murder committed by wicked spirits," i. 276, note Berry, James, Major-General, i. 72, 75, 76 Black, David, a Scotch Presbyterian churchman, says that God has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to the Church, and that the clergy " are empowered to deliver unto Satan, and to lock out from the kingdom of heaven," i. 267 Blake, Robert, Admiral and Colonel, i. y 50, 175; ii. 57, 58. Incident in his last action, showing the height to which he raised the naval power of England, ii. 30, 31. His birth and early life, 32-36. His character, 39. His defence of Lyme and Taunton,,-' 40, 41, Opposed to the King's ex^ cution, 49, 50. Appointed one of the Generals of the Fleet, i. 50 ; ii. 57, 58. Letter from, to Crom- well, 67, 68. Sent in pursuit of Prince Rupert, 69, 70. Instructions to, 73, 74. Additional instructions to, 81, 82. Attacks the Portuguese Brazil fleet, 88. Destroys Rupert's fleet, 90-92. Captures four French ships ; the Scilly Isles surrendered J^ to, 103, 104. Exertions of, to obtairf^ prompt payment of the seamen's wages, 229. Commission of, for 1652, as Admiral and General of the fleets of the Commonwealth of England, 296, 297. Resemblance of the cha- racter of, to that of Nelson, 313. First meeting of, with Tromp, 315. Thanked by the Parliament and Council of State for his victory off Dover, 321, 322. His northern expedition, 337-339. Blake and Tromp, -when preparing for action among the Shetland Isles, separated by a sudden tempest, 340-343. Blake returns from the North, 344. Defeats CMS a French fleet under the Duke of Ven- dome, 347, 348. Defeats the Dutch admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, off the North Foreland, 349-356. Is de- feated in the Battle of Dungeness, in which he had only 37 ships, against 95 commanded by Tromp, 374-377. Defeats the Dutch fleet in the Battle* of Portland, 396-407. Exploits of, in the last ten months, 408. Effect of, on Cromwell, 437. Neglect of his fleet by Cromwell, compared with the care of it by Vane, a complete proof of the utter falsehood of Cromwell's charges against the Parliament of " delay of business," 441, 442. Glori- ous cai-eer of, 485. His dead body dragged from its grave at the Restora- tion, by command of Charles II., 303 Bond, Dennis, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. One of the tellers for the Noes, on the question of a New Parliament, ii. 233 Boyd, Zachary, rails at Cromwell's soldiers to their faces in the High Church at Glasgow, ii. 141, note Bradshaw, John, serjeant-at-law, ap- pointed at first President of the Council of State, i. 38 ; though after- wards a new President was elected every month, ii. 235. His answer to Cromwell, when the latter came to expel the Council of State, after hav- ing expelled the Parliament, ii. 467 Bradshaw, Richard, resident from the ■ Commonwealth of England with the Senate of Hamburg, ii. 24, note Broghill, Lord, story told by, respecting the commission under the Great Seal produced by those engaged in the Irish massacre, ii. 5, note. His ac- count of Cromwell's will, by which he had made Fleetwood his heir, 252, note Broxburn, i. 354, 355 Burghley, or Burleigh, Lord, character of, ii. 13, 55 CAL CON CiESAR, Julius, the evil in him more easy to imitate than the good, i. 127. His own opinion of the conse- quences of his proceeding — enume- rated the evils which would ensue to all mankind from his passage of the Rubicon, ii. 453. He and Frederic II. / of Prussia were not deceived by the shallow sophistries by which some have sought to defend their actions, ii. 453, note Calamy, Cromwell endeavours to obtain the concurrence of, and of others of the clergy, in his plot against the Par- liament, ii. 443, 444. See Smectymkus Cambridge, University of, men dis- tinguished in the Civil War of the 17th century, educated at, ii. 241, 242. A letter ordered by the Council of State to be written to the Master of Trinity College, respecting " such students of that society as are willing to go to sea in this summer's fleet," i. 59 Challoner, Thomas, a member of the Council of State and of the Commit- tee of the Navy, ii. 79. Aubrey's character of, ibid. note. One of the commissioners sent to the fleet after the Battle of Dungeness, ii. 378 Charles I., the French ambassador's opinion of his mental constitution, i. 17. Political effects of his trial and execution, 34, 35 ; ii. 7. Contrast b^'^ tween him and Cromwell, i. J^. Charged by the English House of Commons with remissness in taking steps to punish the perpetrators of the Irish massacre, i. 132. Plans of, for punishing his rebellious English subjects, ii. 2 Charles IL, proclaimed King by the Scottish Parliament, i. 283, 284. Ar- rival of, in Scotland, 310. Meaning of the words " the King's exerting himself in an action," 343-344 and note. His " spirit and vivacity," 345. Character of, by Buckingham, ii. 143. Conduct of, in the Battle of Worcester, ii. 195-198. False panegyric on, 198 -200. Escape of, to France, 202, 203 "Cheater" and *' Cheat," words derived from the perversion of the office of the King's escheator by Empson and Dud- ley, ii. 16 Christina, Queen of Sweden, why she said toWhitelock, "These Hollanders are lying fellows," ii. 388, note Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, mis- statements of, as to Sir Henry Vane, i. 83 notCy ii. 168 ; as to John Lilburne, i. 144 ; as to the Battle of Dunbar, (where, and in his History generally, he charges the whole Scottish nation with cowardice), i. 368, note \ as to the Battle of Worcester (where he under- takes to prove that King Charles was a brave man, and his army an army of cowards), ii. 197, 198 ; as to the character of Sir George Ayscue, 272. His remarks on the Battle of Portland, and on the Battle of Dungeness, ii. 406, 407. His character of the Par- liamentary armv, 141 Clerk, John, of Eldin, his book on the subject of breaking the enemy's line in a naval engagemient, ii. 306, 307 and note (and see Rodney, Lobd) Cockburn's Path, the pass so called, mistakes respecting it and Cromwell's march, i. 330-338 Commissions to the Vice-Admirals of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Sussex, and Hants, to press seamen, i. 58,59 ; ii. 325. See Wabrants to Peess Sea- men and Pbess-"waebants Commonwealth, the name given by the English Parliament to the Govern- ment after the death of King Charles, i. 25. The Government not a Com- monwealth in the sense of republic, 33 ; nor strictly Parliamentary gov- ernmentjbeing without the essentials of Parliamentar}'^ government, a second chamber, and a Parliamentary opposi- tion, 106, 107. That the style or title should be, " The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England," 178. Foreign enemies of, ii. 19, 20. Vigi- lance of, 23, 24. Alone against the world, 25, 26. Work which it had before it, 27, 28. The Commonwealth flag, 59. Contrast between the Govern- ment of the Commonwealth and Queen Elizabeth's Government, 55, 56, 185, 186, 280-282. A treaty of peace between the King of Portugal and the Commonwealth of England, 88, 89. Contrast between the Government of the Commonwealth and the Govern- ment of Charles II., 303, 304. End of the Commonwealth, 473, 474. Character of the Commonwealth-men, 477, 478. Character of their suc- cessors, 479, 480 Contrast between the Council of State of the Commonwealth and Queen Elizabeth's Council, ii. 55, 56 ; be- V 492 INDEX. INDEX. 493 coo tween the Governments of 1658 and 1651, ii. 184-186; between 1585 and 1652, ii. 280-282; between 165i^ and 1853, ii. 295, 296; be- tween the Government of the Com- monwealth and the Government of Charles II., ii. 303, 304 ; between Cromwell in 1647 and Cromwell in 1652, ii. 430 Cooper, Sir A. A. (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), a member of Cromwell's Council of State, ii. 477. Character of, 477, 478, 481 Council of State, the, formation of, i. ^.^ 24. Persons constituting, 37. Powers of, 36. First meeting of, 40, 41. Errors in political economy of, 62. Conduct of, inregardtofree quarter and billeting, compared with the conduct of preceding and subsequent Govern- ments, 64-66. Tyranny of, 69, 70, 150 and note. Business and secre- taries and clerks of, 116,117. The history of, furnishes a new fact to- wards the formation of a science government, 118-122. Howitdi from the English and American net Council, ibid. Numbers present at the meetings of, 123. Business of, 1 63-172. Election of, for 1650,178, 179. Went about its work in a dif- ferent fashion from Queen Elizabeth and her Council, ii. 55,56. Orders for regulating the proceedings of, 77, 78. Example of the tact of, 105,106. Instructions of, to their ambassadors in Holland, 117, 118. Vigilance of, against the invasion of England by the King of Scots from Scotland, and by the Duke of Lorraine from Dun- kirk and Ostend, 119-122. Election of, for 1651, 146, 147. Energy, cou- rage, and prudence of, on the invasion of the Scots, and a threatened invasion from the Continent, 149-151. Great exertions of, 153-167. Disband the militia immediately after the Battle of Worcester, 217. Election of, for 1652, 234, 235. Orders of, for the management of treaties, 283, 284. Work of, in 1652, 287,288. Ad- vantages arising from the composition of, 293. Orders (not given before) for regulating proceeding of, 294. Great energy and vigilance of, at this time, (1652), 297, 298. Great exertions of, CRO to strengthen Blake's fleet, 322-324. Care of, to seek for fit men, and never to prefer any for favour, or by impor- tunity, 358. Prompt and energetic proceeding of, in the case of Captain Warren, 366, 367. Commit a blunder in sending twenty ships to the Medi- terranean, 368, 371, 372. New Coun- cil of State for 165f, 369, 370. Great exertions of, to reinforce Blake's fleet, 377-382. Their mode of dealing with foreign Powers, 384. Labours of, 386. Eelations of, with foreign Powers, 387-389. Orders of, relating to the fleet, 390. End of, 467, 468 " Covenant, Solemn League and," how viewed by the Scottish oligarchy and people, i. 276. Words inserted in, by Sir H. Vane, ibid, note Crime, consequences of a great, success- fully committed by a great man, ii. 418,419 Cromwell, Oliver, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Appointed Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, 44. Kichard Baxter's character of, 81. His strange fanati- cism, 82, 83 and note. His departure for Ireland, 113. Allowance to, as General in Ireland, 114. Takes Drogheda and Wexford by storm, 135-139. John Lilburne's character of, 156-159. Difference between the amount of ability requisite to destroy armed enemies, and that requisite to overreach and destroy friends who are off their guard, 161, 162. ^2,500 per annum in land given to him, 176. Cha- racteristic anecdote respecting, 189, 190, 313. Appointed Commander-in- Chief in England, 315. Invades Scot- land, 318-328, 330. Finds Leslie's position about Edinburgh " not to be attempted," 343. Having in vain at- tempted to bring Leslie to an engage- ment, retreats to Dunbar, 343-350. Character of Cromwell as a gene- ral, 352, 353, 357. His taste for practical jokes, ii. 37, 38. His illness in Scotland, 139, 140. His arrival before Worcester, 190. Defeats the King's army, 194, 195. Inconsistencies of his character, and consequent diffi- culty of analysing it, 218-220. His alleged designs, 221. £4,000 a year settled on him, in addition to £2,500 CRO DUT formerly granted, 222. His reception by Parliament, 223. Why Ireton was a check on his ambition, 252-254. His children, 257-259. Calls a meeting at the Speaker's house, and reopens the question of monarchy or a republic, which had been settled by Parlianaept, 263-267. Proof that till within inew weeks of his turning round upon them, he was keeping up the appearance of being the sincere friend of Vane, Scot, and Sydney, 393, 394. Effects of the apotheosis of, 419. Displeased and alarmed by the Parliament's military retrenchments, 421, 422. Conversation of, with Whitelock, in which he says, "What if a man should take upon him to be King ? " 427-429. Contrast be- tween, in 1652 and in 1647, 430. Answer to the worshippers of, 431. Answer to the defenders of, 432-434. Effect of Blake's victories on, 437. Secures the cooperation of Lambert and Harrison, 437, 438. Calumniates the Parliament, 440, 441. Proof of the falsehood of his charges, 441,442. Endeavours to obtain the concurrence of Calamy and others of the clergy, 443, 444. Alteration in his plans, 447, 448. Meeting at his lodgings on the 19th of April 1653, 449-451. Illegal and treasonable character of those meetings, 452, 455. Inconsis- tency of a statement of his, 451. First gets into a rage with the Par- liament for not putting an end to their sitting, and then gets into a new rage when he finds them putting the question for passing the Bill for their dissolution, 459. Insults and expels the Parliament, 461-464. His madness was madness with method in it, 465. His unproved assertions, 469-471 ; which he could have proved, if they had been true, by print- ing and publishing the Parliament's Bill for their dissolution, 472, 473: His Council of State, 476, 477. Evil consequences to England of his con- duct, 483, 484 Cromwell, Bridget, Oliver Cromwell s eldest daughter, character of, ii. 257 Cromwell, Frances, ii. 258, 259 Cromwell, Henry, a conversation of, with Ludlow, ii. 394 Cromwell, Richard, character of, ii. 257 DANVERS, Sir John, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37 ; but not re-elected in February 16|f, 178 Deane, Richard, Admiral and Major- General, i. 50, 175; ii. 57, 58, 192. Appointed one of the Generals of the Fleet, i. 50; ii. 58, 381 Denbigh, Basil, Earl of, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Signs, as President of the Council of State for the time, the commission to Popham, Blake, and Deane, to command the fleet, ii. 58 Denmark, King of, the, arrival of am- bassadors from, ii. 359. Seizes a fleet of English merchantmen, la- den with naval stores, in the harbour of Copenhagen, 360-362 Derby, the Earl of, defeated by Colonel Robert Lilbume, ii. 181. Went wounded into Worcester, 192. Be- headed, 213 Despotism, progress of, in Europe, ii. 21, 22. Effect on the Romans of the despotism of Julius Caesar, 416. A good despotism is a false ideal, 417 Divine Right of Kings, the, ii. 7-14 Divine Right Nobility, i. 2, 3, 13; ii. 17, 18 Divine Right Tyranny, i. 16-18; ii. 11, 15, 16 Dorislaus, Dr., resident in Holland for the Parliament, assassination of, i. 97, 98. Funeral of, 104 Down Hill, i. 353-355 Dragoons, difference between "Horse" and " Dragoons," i. 44-46. Numerical proportion of dragoons to horse about 1 to 6, i. 44 and ii. 154 Drogheda, storm of, i. 135-139 Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, cha- racter of, ii. 14—18 Dunbar, Battle of, i. 357 et seq. The only land battle in these wars (except the battles fought by Montrose) in which any great degree of generalship was shown, 372, 373. Explanation of the great disproportion between the loss of the conquered and that of the conquerors at, 389-392. Treat- ment of prisoners taken at the, 378- 384 Dundee taken by storm, ii.214, 215 Dungeness, Battle of, ii. 374-376 . Dutch Ambassadors Extraordinary, the, 494 INDEX. INDEX. 495 DUT / received by the English Parliament and Council of State with punctilious courtesy, ii. 274-277. Audience given to them by the Parliament, 278, 279, 283. Depart from London and act the part of spies, 335, 336 Dutch Government, the, character of, in 1651, ii. 114-116. Advantages of, 291, 292. Keal cause of the war with England on the part of, 308. While they profess to desire peace, prepare for and mean war, 310. The Parliament charge, with attempting to destroy their fleet hy surprise during a treaty, 329-334 Dutch merchants, the, great loss of' ships and goods by, ii 327, 328 ^ Dutch prisoners in England, good treat- ment of, ii. 363, 364 Dutch prize-goods, disposal of, by the Council of State, ii. 365, 366 Dutch war, the, beginning of, ii. 317- 320. Dishonourable end of, made by Cromwell f»p his KFfttstl purposes, ii. 232 — — r i' , EDINBURGH CASTLE, surrender of, i. 385, 386 Eglinton, the Earl of, considered the Stool of Eepentance " the best seat in the Kirk," and therefore said he should " always sit there for the fu- ture, as he did not see a better man to take it from him," i. 269 Empson and Dudley, the escheators of Heniy VIL, ii. 15, 16. Origin of the word «' cheat" or " cheater," 16. Es- teemed by the people as the King's "horseleeches and shearers," 15, note England, alone against the world in 165L ii. 25, 26. England's claim to the honour of the flag, 309 Evanson, a captain of Whalley's regi- ment, orthodox according to Baxter, i. 74 Excise, amount of, for three years from the Oi-der Book, showing the great exaggeration in Sir John Sinclair's, and the much greater in Clement "Walker's account, i. 173 GRE / FAIRFAX, Thomas, Lord, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Resigns his commission. as Commander-in-Chief, i. 314. Buck- ingham's character of, ii. 416 Fanatics, honest, are not necessarily honest men, i. 274, 275. Language of the Presbyterians and Independ- ents to each other, 324, 325 Fifth Monarchy men, i. 77-80 Flag of the Commonwealth, ii. 59 Fleet, estimate of the charge of the, for 1650, i. 175. Revolt of a part of the, from the Parliament, ii. 51, 52. See Blake, Robert, and Navy Fleetwood, Charles, Lieutenant-General, commands a brigade at the Battle of ^ Worcester, ii. 193. One of the Inns of Court Life Guard, ii. 243 and 7iote. Appointed Ireton's successor in Ire- land, 261. Lord Broghill's story that Cromwell had made him his heir, 253, note Fleming, Sir Oliver, Master of the Ce- remonies to the Parliament, petition of, ii. 357 Flintlocks, proportion of, to matchlocks, i. 68 Fortescue, Sir John, Lord Chancellor under Henry VI,, in his work on the " DiiFerence between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy," deals honestly with the passage of Scripture, with which James I. and Hobbes have dealt so dishonestly, for the purpose of establishing the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, ii. 9, 10, note Frederic II. of Prussia's own opinion of some of his actions, ii. 453 7iofe Frost, Walter, appointed Secretary to the Council of State, i. 39. Salary of, i. 117. Death of, ii. 299 Frost, Walter, the younger, son of the preceding. Assistant Secretary to the Council of State, i. 116; ii. 119. Sa- lary of, i. 117. Continued in his place on the death of his father, ii. 299 GRE HEV GARRISONS, reduction of, i. 113. Retrenchment of, ii. 421 Grey, Thomas, Lord, of Groby, nomi- nated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. A commission granted to, " to command the forces of Leices- ter, Northampton, and Rutland," on the invasion of the Scots, ii. 163-165, and 163 note Grey, William, Lord, of Werke, nomi- nated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37 ; but not re-elected in February 16f?, i. 178 Guise, Dukes of, a branch of the House of Lorraine, their affinity to the Stuarts, ii. 4. Henrj, Duke of, his concern in the massacre of St. Bar- tholomew, ibid. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was the first who introduced the use of the cartridge, i. 167. None of the Scots' regiments which had been in the service of, were engaged in these wars, though some officers that had served under him were in the service of the Scots' Parliament, i. 322, 323 H AMILTON, James Hamilton, Mar- quis of (commonly called Duke of), /Q^ one of the leaders of the party of the i^W "Engagement," i. 258 ; all of whom were brought to the Stool of Repen- tance, i. 269, 270. His mode of levy- ing men for his expedition into Eng^ land ; many yeomen in Clydesdale fled from their houses to Loudoun Hill to avoid being pressed, 320. Tried by a High Court of Justice and beheaded, 48 Hamilton, William (brother and heir of the preceding), was severely wounded at the Battle of Worcester, and died of his wounds four days after the battle, ii. 194 Harrington, Sir James, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. One of those who always op- posed Cromwell's usurpation and ty- ranny, ii. 444 Harrison, Thomas, Major-General, Roy- alist calumny and scurrility respect- ing, i. 77. His wild religious enthu- siasm, and his daring as a soldier, 78. His fearless demeanour on the scaf- fold, 79. Was to Cromwell what Murat was to Bonaparte, ii. 94. Commands the forces raised by the Council of State to oppose the Scots' army, ii. 150, 151, 153, 179. One of the members of the Inns of Court who, at the beginning of the Civil / / War, composed the Earl of Essex's life-guard, ii. 244. Conversation of, with Ludlow, 438-440. The dupe of Cromwell's strong professions of ho- nesty and saintship, 440. So that he stoutly asserted ** he was assured the Lord-General sought not himself, but that King Jesus might take the scep- tre," to which it was replied that " Christ must come before Christmas, or else He would come too late," 445. Cromwell's character of, '* An honest man, and aims at good things, yet, from the impatience of his spirit, will not wait the Lord's leisure," 443. Refuses to make his escape at the Restoration, 480, note Haselrig, Sir Arthur, John Lilburne's charge against, i. 195 and note. John Lilburne's charge of rapacity against Haselrig, supported by a statement of Sir Roger Twysden, ii. 424, 425. One of those who always opposed Cromwell's usurpation and tyranny, 444 note, and 452 note Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I., her name connected with the Irish massacre, i. 132 ; ii. 4 and note. Plans of, for punishing her husband's re- bellious English subjects, ii. 2 Henry III., King of France, character of, ii. 8, 12 Henry VIL, King of England, employed Empson and Dudley in oppressing, " cheating," and pillaging the people of England, ii. 15, 16. Substituted for the old English nobility a nobi- lity composed of such persons as Empson and Dudley, 1 7 Henry VIII., King of England, gave up to the executioner Empson and Dud- ley, ii. 15. But continued the work of his father in oppressing, plunder- ing, and degrading the English na- tion, and in direct violation of his promise, solemnly declared in Parlia- ment, that none of the Church pro- perty (which had become national property) should be converted to pri- vate use, but that it should be applied to the necessary expenses of govern- ment, and thus save the people from taxation, distributed it among court lackeys, cooks, and turnspits, ii. 239, 240 Heveningham, William, nominated a i \ 496 INDEX. / ^ y / ■r HOB member of the first Council of State, i. 37. John Lilbnrne's letter to, i. 147 and note Hobbes, Thomas, in his "Leviathan," undertakes to establish the doctrine of the Divine Eight of Kings by the perversion and mutilation of the 8th chapter of the First Book of Samuel, ii. 9, note. Though not the slave of words, the slave of fear — a circum- stance which, notwithstanding his in- tellectual power, coloured and dis- torted much of his philosophy, 110, note Holland, relations of the English Com- monwealth with, i. 102. Dutch ships pressed for transporting troops to Ireland, 103. The English ambas- sadors, St. John and Strickland, in- \j- suited in, ii. 112, 113. Character oU^ the Government of, in 1651, 114-llC Eapid rise of the naval power of, 289, 290. Advantages of, 291, 292. Eeal cause of the war on the part of. 308 Holies, Denzil, his description of the Parliamentary ai-my, i. 4, 5; ii. 141, 142. Belonged to the same class of renegades as Monk and Shaftesbury, ii. 480, note Horse, difference between " Horse " and "Dragoons," i. 44-46. "Horse" to •' Dragoons " in the proportion of 6 t^ 1, i. 44 and ii. 154 Howard, Lord, of Escrick, charge of bribery against, ii. 127 Hutchinson, John, Colonel, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Was a member of the Council of State for the first two years, but not afterwards, ii. 147. Algernon Sydney's character of, ii. 132 Hutchinson, Mrs., misstatements of, ii. >'' 145-152, 151 note, 256. Her ^^ count of Cromwell's children odn- sistent, 257 Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon. See Clarendon JUG Parliamentary General, composed of members of, ii. 243, 244 Interest of money, the attempt of the Government to reduce by Act of Par- liament, i. 62 Invasion of England and Ireland, pro- jected, by an army under the Duke of Lorraine, ii. 2-4, 119-122, 183, 184 Invasion of England by the Scots, ii. 155 Ireland, preparations for the expedition to, i. 107-112. The Irish massacre of English Protestants in 1641, 126- 133. Story told in Lord Orrery's Memoirs respecting the commission under the Great Seal under which the Irish professed to act, ii. 5, note. Ke- inforcements for, i. 185-188 Ireton, Henry, appointed Lord Deputy of '' Ireland, i. 189. Refuses a grant from the Parliament of 2,000/. a-year in land, ii. 221. Death of, 236. Family, education, and military career of, 236, 241-245. His "Agreement of the People," 27-30; his "Representation of the Army to Parliament," ii. 246-250. Why he was a check on Cromwell's ambition, 252, 253 INDEPENDENTS, difference between -L them and the Presbyterians, as re- garded military efficiency, i. 272-274 Inns of Court, the officers of the Parlia- mentary army, members of, i. 6^ 7. Life-guard of the Earl of Essex, the / JAMES L, his misgovernment, i. 16. His " True Law of Free Monarchies, ' in which he imdertakes to establish the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, by the perversion and mutila- tion of the 8th chapter of the First Book of Samuel, ii. 9, note. His mur- der of the Earl of Gowrie and his bro- ther, which he called the "Gowrie Conspiracy," 14, note. Revived in Whitehall the infamies of the Louvre in the time of Heniy III., 12 Jermin, Mr. Justice, may not give leave to have his conscience to err, by allow- ing the jury a quart of sack amongst them, to refresh them, at Lilbnrne's trial, i. 246, 247. His mode of per- forming the duty of a judge, 241, 242 Jones, Michael, Lieutenant-General, de- feats the army of Ormond before Dub- lin,i. 124,125. Death of,140. Character given him by Cromwell, ibid. Juggler, "the grand juggler " and "false Saint Oliver," names given to Oliver Cromwell by John Lilburne, i. 156, 158, 160. Who was the "juggler," Vane or Cromwell? ii. 464 INDEX. 497 JUS Justiciary, Chief, nature of the office of, i. 8, 11, 12. Exercised the judicial functions of the grand seneschal, or Senescallus Angliae, 18. &ee Senes- CALLUS AnGLIJE KEBLE, Richard, appointed one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, i. 25. The presiding judge at the trial of John Lilburne, i42, 244, 245, note. His misstatement of the law at Lilbnrne's trial, 244-246 Keble, Joseph, the reporter, son of Richard Keble, i. 245, note King, causes of the abolition of the office of, in England, i. 16-18 Kings, the divine right of, ii. 7-14 Kings of Europe, the, all eager to join a confederacy against the Common- Y wealth of England, ii. 19-27 Kinsale Harbour, Rupert escapes from, y^ ii. 65 ^Kinsale, surrendered to Blake, ii. 68 y Knox, John, extract from a form of Church policy framed by, — "the tyyf''^ ranny of priests is turned into the tyranny of lords and lairds," — i. 263. Plan of, for the maintenance of a national church, and also of hospi- tals, schools, and universities, out of the property of the Roman Catholic Church, pronounced by the lords who had seized that national property to be a "devout imagination," but vision- ary and impracticable, 266 T AMBERT, Major- General, grant to, /Xi of £300 per annum, i. 1 H). Sees ^ the effect of the Scots leaving their position on Down Hill, i. 359. His reasons altered the opinion of the Council of War on the night before the Battle of Dunbar, and Cromwell granted him the conduct of the army next morning, 360, 361. Sent for- ward by Cromwell, with a large body of cavalry, to obstruct the march of the Scots' army, ii. 155, 179. Ap- pointed Ireton's successor in Ireland, 255. Quarrels with the Parliament, 259-261. His character, 261, 262. Contrast between his behaviour at and that of Vane at his, his trial 169, 170 VOL. II. LIS Land forces, i. 60. See Army Laud, Archbishop, character of, as dis- played in the correspondence between him and Strafford, i. 271 Lauderdale, Earl of, i. 282, 283; i:. 195, 214. Character of, 481, 482 Lawers, Laird of, i. 254, 255 Lawyers, English, did not, like the French, constitute a nobility of the gown inferior to the nobility of the sword, i. 6-12 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, character of, ii. 14-18 Leslie, Dand, commander of the Scot- tish army, but controlled by the Com- mittee of Estates, i. 341, 342. His prudent generalship, 343-346. Is defeated at the Battle of Dunbar, 369, 370. Escapes from the Battle of Worcester, ii. 199. Taken pri- soner, 206, 208 Levellers, the, origin of the term, i. 89. The Levellers' war crushed. 90-94 Lilburne, Lieutenant-Colonel John, com- mitted to the Tower upon suspicion of high treason, i. 71, 72. Petition in his behalf gave offence to the Parlia- ment, 85-88. His "Agreement of the People," 90-94. Preparations for his trial, 141, 142. Clarendon's mis- statements as to Lilbnrne's birth, &c., 144-146. His letter to the Speaker] 154, 155. His predictions respecting Cromwell, 156, 157. His description of the stormy debates in the councils of the officers of the army, 1 59. Calls Cromwell "the false Saint Oliver," whose object is " self in the highest," 156, 157. Trial of, 191-251. Ac- quittal of, 247-261. Lilburne showed a more accurate knowledge of the law than the Court and the Attorney- General, 200, note; 230, 235, 240, 244. Subsequent career of, ii. 270, 271. Lilburne, Colonel Robei-t, petition of, in behalf of his brother, .John Lil- burne, i. 146, 147. Another petition of, 153. Defeats the Earl of Derbv ii. 181 •^' Lisle, John, appointed one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, i. 25. Nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37 Lisle, Lord Viscount, nominated a member of the first Council of State, K K 498 INDEX. / / LOR i. 37. Eldest son of the Earl of Leicester, and brother of Algernon Sydney, ii. 129. Signs, as President of the Council for the time, Blake's commission for 1652, 297 Lome, Lord, i. 256 Lorraine, the Duke of, projected invasion of England and Ireland, by an array under the command of, ii. 2-4, 119 -122, 183, 184 Loudoun, Earl of, i, 255, 256. Sat on the Stool of Repentance in his own parish church, 269 Ludlow, Edmund, Lieutenant-Generalf^ nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. His incor- ruptible honesty and invincible spirit, 1. 317. His account of a treaty be- tween the Duke of Lorraine and Vis- count Taff, for the invasion of Ireland by foreign forces, to be transported by the Dutch fleet, ii. 2, 3. His description of Cromwell's flinging a cushion at his head, 53. Recommends Algernon Sydney to Cromwell as a fit man to command the horse in Ireland, 131. His account of the invasion of England by the Scots in August 1651, 150. His erroneous statement that... Cromwell dismissed the militia, 21^ 218. Owed his appointment of Lieu- tenant-General of the Horse in Ire- land to Cromwell, 254, note. His account of the life-guard for the Earl of Essex, composed chiefly of members of the Inns of Court, several of whom were afterwards colonels of the Ironside regiments, 243,244. Was Commander-in-Chief in Ireland from the death of Ireton till the appoint- ment of Fleetwood, 261. Conversa* tion of, with Harrison, 438-440. iis account of an action brought by Henry Nevill against the Sheriff of Berkshire, 444, note MOR INDEX 499 Tl/f ACAULAY, Lord, the opinion of, i-TJ. that there would be no chance of finding in a Cabinet of thirty members,' the qualities which such a body ought to possess — unity, secrecy, expedition, — disproved by the fact of the efficient action of the Council of State of the Commonwealth, i. 120-122. His opinion as to the cause of the dif- ference between the politicians of the Long Parliament and the politicians who succeeded them, ii. 479 Mar, Earl of, his mode of forcing his tenants into the Rebellion of 1715, i. 320, 321 Marshall, Stephen, an eminent Pres- , byterian preacher, i.. 181. His two daughters, celebrated actresses after the Restoration, 182 Marten, Henry, nominated a member , of the first Council of State, i. 37. A Grant to, of land, of £1,000 a year, i. 110. Moved the House that Lilburne should be liberated on security, 141. His saying of John Lilburne, 146. His plea for the continuance of the Long Parliament, ii, 231 Massacre of English Protestants in Ire- land, in 1641, i. 126-133. £100 ordered, by the Council of State, to be paid to Mr. Thomas Waring, " for a book containing several examinations of the bloody massacry \dc\ in Ire- land," ii. 71 Matchlocks, proportion of, to flintlocks, i. 68 Milton, John, appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State, i. 47. Ordered that he shall have lodgings in Whitehall, 172. A warrant issued to him to view the books and papers of Mr. Clement Walker, ihid. Ordered to prepare an answer to the book of Salmasius, ii. 72. Thanked by the Council for this, 270. Labours of, ii. 284, note\ 480, note Monk, George, General, some points of resemblance between him and Crom- well, i. 326-328. Commands a bri- gade of foot at Dunbar, 364, 366, 367. Stirling Castle surrenders to, ii. 214. Takes Dundee by storm, 215. Ap- pointed one of the Generals of the Fleet, 381. Character of, 275, 276, 481 Montrose, Marquis of, i. 278-280. Mili- tary genius of, 281. His last expe- dition, 290, 291. Defeated and taken, 292. His cruelties at Aberdeen, 293 -295. His character, 295-297. His house at Old Montrose, 297-299. His sentence and execution, 300-305. His lenity in 1639, 306-309 Morley, Colonel Herbert, nominated a MUL member of the second Council of State, i. 179. One of the tellers for the Noes on the question of a New Par- liament, ii. 233. One of the com- missioners sent to the fleet after the Battle of Dungeness, ii. 378 Mulgrave, Edmund, Earl of, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37 ; but not re-elected in Februarv 16|§, i. 178 Muskerry, Lord, ii, 5 Musketeers, proportion of, to pikemen, i. 66, 67 lyrAVAL abuses, ii. 228, 229 ll Naval tactics, " breaking the ene- my's line," not a discovery of the 18th century, ii. 306, 307, 308, and notes ; and see Clerk, Mr., Penn, Sir W. Pepys, and Rodney, Lord Navigation Act, the, passed by the Par- liament, ii. 224. Policy of, i. 101, 102; ii. 224, note Navy, the affiiirs of, i. 49-52. Increase ^ of the pay of officers, and improve- ^« ment of the seamen's food, 50, 51; ii. 228, 229. Abuses in the passing of accounts, and paying of seamen's wages, ii. 227-229. Distinction be- tween the Committee of the Navy and the Commissionerwofthe Navy, i. 49, note, intimate of the charge of the fleet for 1650, 175. Committee of the, ii. 29, 79, 268. Importance of, in 1651, 46, 47. ReconsTriictTon of, 57, 58. Increase of, 71. Thirty frigates ordered to be built, 356. 1652, the great naval epoch of England, -305. 3a6 " - -- -> Netherlanders, causes of the change in the conduct of the, between 1585 and 1651, ii. 5, 6 Nevill, Henry, a member of the Long Parliament and Council of State, one of those who opposed Cromwell's usurpation and tyranny to the last, ii. 443, 444. Brought an action against the Sheriff of Berkshire (who had acted by Cromwell's order), for foul practices at the last return for that county, 444, note. Contrivance of Oliver St. John, the Cliief Justice^ to render the verdict of the jury j£ ' that case null and of no effect, in | K K OVE / order to gratify his master Cromwell, ibid. Nobility, the English, effect of the go- vernment of the Stuarts in degradini;, i. 3 ; of the government of the Tu- dors, by giving the titles of the great historical families to "horseleech" lawyers and court minions, ii. 17. At the beginning of the 17th century, though new and humble in their ori- gin, they displayed the insolence of a conquering caste, i. 13. Great change between 1603 and 1649, 14. Some of, who had the best means of knowing the virtues of kingship, were members of the Government called the Com- monwealth, ii. 126, 129. The old Eng- lish nobility, 237, 238. The new Eng- lish nobility, 239, 240 Nobility, the ancient English, wherein it differed from the ancient Scottish nobility, i. 263, 264 Nobility, the ancient Scottish, were un- derstood to hold lands granted to their ancestors for ser\iees done against foreign invaders, and hence the roots of the titles to their lands were entwined with many heroic me- mories, i. 264, 265. But the roots of the titles of the Scottish nobility to the Church property in Scotland, the whole of which they seized, were en- twined with memories of a very differ- ent kind, i. 265, 266, 277, 383 ; ii. 241 'CONNELLY, Lieutenant - Colonel Owen, i. 117, note O'Neale, Owen Roe MArt, the Council of State gave Colonel Monk no autho- rity to treat with, i. 117, note O'Neal, Sir Phelim, i. 128. His cruel- ties to the English in 1641, i. 130, note Oeyras Bay, Blake's fleet anchored in, ii. 86. Called at that time by the English the "Bay of Weires," ii. 83 and fwte 2 Orrery, Earl of (Lord Broghill), his Me- moirs quoted, ii. 5, fiote, and 252, note. See Broghill Overton, Richard, his pamphlet entitled " Martin Mar-Priest," and more of his, abundantly dispersed among the sol- diers, i. 83, 84. The author, together 2 500 INDEX. OXF with Lieutenant-Colonel John Lil- burne, Mr. William Walwyn, and Mr. Tliomas Prince, of an *' Agreement of the People," bearing date May 1 , 1 649, 90-94 ; and of " The Second Part of England's New Chains Discovered," 71 OxfoKl, University of, men distinguished in the Civil War of the 17th century educated at, ii. 241, 242 PAMPHLETS, great influence of, on the soldiers of the Parliamentary army, i, 83, 84. E. Overton's " Martin Mar-Priest," 84. John Lil- burne's " England's New Chains Dis- covered," i. 70, 71. His "Impeachment of Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, Esquires," 156, 157. His " Legal Fun- damental Liberties of England," 158, 159, 210, 211, 213. His " Sulvy Libertate," 214, 215. His "Agree- ment of the People," 216. His "Outcry of the Young Men and Apprentices of London," 217-220. His " Preparative to a Hue-and-Cry after Sir Arthur Haselrig," 220, 221, note Parliament, the Long, composition Joi the English peerage at the opening of, i. 2, 3. Of the House of Com- mons, 4, 5. Abolishes the House of Peers and the office of King, 15-18. Causes of their dislike of nobility and kingship, 16-18. Errors com* mitted by, 20-22. Number of mem bers composing, in 1649-1653, 23. Call the government a commonwealth, 25. Their reasons for not dissolving; their treatment of the "Agreement of the People," 31, 32. Tyranny of, 69, 70, 150 and note. Their new law of treason, 143. Appoint an extra- ordinary tribunal for the trial of John Lilburne, 142. Their style with foreign Powers, "The Pag^- ment of the Commonwealth of Sg- land," 178. Their Puritan legislation, 180-182. Pleas for, ii. 230, 231'. Policy of, much sounder than that 'of Cromwell, 348, 349. Endeavour to countermine Cromwell by drafting soldiers into the fleet, 436. Calum- niated by Cromwell, 440, 441. Proof rOR of the falsehood of Cromwells' charges against, 441, 442. Deter- mine on an immediate dissolution, 445, 446. Meeting of, on the 20th of April 1653, 456, 457. Violent ex- pulsion of, by Cromwell, 461-464. Departure of, 466 Parliament, " A Free,'' cry for, ii. 174 175 Parliament, a New, petition for, i. 149- 153. Question of, ii. 232, 233 Pay, of the Parliamentarj^ army, ii. 41 2- 414. Extra, to two regiments " out of the General's (Cromwell's) contino-en- cies," 415 Pembroke, Philip, Eari of, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Had the best means of know- ing the character of the Court of the Stuarts, ii. 126, 129, 130 Penn, Sir William, Admiral, story told by, of Prince Kupert's cruelty, ii. 63, 64. His unsuccessful pursuit, of Ru- pert, 95, 96. His testimony that the English fought in line whenever thev beat the Dutch, 306 Pepys, his description of the Cabinet Council of Charles II., and of the inefficiency of the Royalists in the naval service, ii. 304. His report of Sir W. Penn's statement as \.q> jightinq in line under the Commonwealth, and ''promiscuously, to our utter and de- monstrahle ruin," under Charles II 306 Peters, Hugh, proposed the burning of all the old recoKla of England, i. 39 Petition for a New Parliament, i. 149- 153 Pickering, Sir Gilbert, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Algernon Sydney's character of, ii. 132 Pikemen, proportion of, to musketeers, i. 66, 67 Popham, Edward, Admiral and Colonel, i. 50, 175; ii. 57, 58. Instructions to, ii. 83. Death of, 176 Portland, Battle of, ii. 396, 397. First day's battle, 398, 399. Second day's battle, 400. Third day's battle, 401, 402. Results of, 403-405. Efifect of, 406, 407 Portugal, King of, protects Prince Ru- pert, ii. 84, 85. A treaty of peace concluded with, on the conditions in- INDEX. 501 PRE SAI sisted on by the Commonwealth of England, 88, 89 Presbyterians, diiference between them and the Independents, as regarded military efficiency, i. 272-274. Scot- tish, 266-277. Proportion of, to In- dependents, in the Parliamentary army and navy, ii. 50. Character of the expulsion of the Presbyterians from ttie Parliament by the Inde- pendents, as compared with Crom- well's expulsion of the Independents, 455 Pressing of seamen, i. 53-59. See Com- missions, Pkess-Warrants Press-warrants, the, rigour of, shown by certain warrants of protection, ii. 79, 80, 383 Previous Question, the, meaning of the term, i. 179 Prideaux, Edmund, Attorney-General at Lilburne's trial, his misstatements of law and fact, i. 236-244 Prisoners, the, disposal of, after the Battle of Dunbar, i. 378-384 ; ii. 204. After the Battle of Worcester, ii. 203- 214. Good treatment of the Dutch prisoners, ii. 363, 364 Eurefoy, William, Colonel, nominated a /^ member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Treats Baxter in an imperious manner ; the remarkable terms in which he spoke of Cromwell, i. 75. John liilburne's exception to Colonel Purefoy as a witness against him 221, 222 Puritanism in the 16th and 17th cen- turies, ii. 11, 12. The Divine Right of Kings party sought to brand with the name of Puritan all men who objected to "crimes natural, un- natural, and preternatural, committed by Divine Right," 8, 12 Puritan Legislation, i. 179-181 Puritan Rebellion, twofold character of the, i. 184 QUE^N CATHERINE DE'MEMCt, character of, ii. 9, 10 ^ Queen Elizabeth, folly of, in the selec- tion of a successor, i. 183. Fascinated y by the idea of the divinity of king- ^' ship, ii. 8 and note. Tyranny of, 14. Council of, compared with the Council of State of the Commonwealth, 55, 56. Intemperate and capricious pro- ceedings of, in the business of the Netherlands, 1 85. Her inefficient and tardy preparations for the Spanish in- vasion, ibid. Her inhuman neglect of her soldiers, ibid. Her government at once imperious and feeble, 186 Queen Henrietta Maria, i. 132; ii. 2, 4, note. See Henkietta Maria Queen of Navarre, Margaret de Valois, character of, ii. 10 Question of a New Parliament, ii. 232, 233 Question, the Previous, meaning of the term, i. 179 REDUCTION of garrisons, i. 115 Xt Regiment, ordinary strength of a regiment of foot, i. 113; of horse, ibid. Retrenchment of garrisons, ii. 421 Rodney, Lord, his description of the manoeuvres of outflanking and of breaking the enemy's line in answer to those who claimed for Mr. Clerk the idea of breaking the enemy's line as a new discovery, ii. 306, 307, and note Rolle, Henry, Lord Chief Justice of* the Upper Bench," nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37 Rupert, Prince, ii. 60-62. Story told by Admiral Penn of his cruelty, 63, 64. Escapes from Kinsale Harbour, 65. Enters the Tagus, and is pro- tected by the King of Portugal, 84, 85. His device for destroying Blake, 86. Escapes from the Tagus with his ships, 88. His fleet destroyed by Blake, 90-92. His luck in escaping from Cromwell on land;-*!*^- Blake at sea, 92-'94. His pretension to courage coflipai'ed with the courage of Blake, Cromwell, and Harrison, 94. Penn's unsuccessful pursuit of, 95, 96 Ruyter, Michael de, joined with Do Witt in the command of the Dutch fleet, ii. 346. Defeated by Blake in the Battle of the North Foreland, 349- 356 ; also in the Battle of Portland, 397-403 / s I* '! T. JOHN, Oliver, Lord Chief Justice of "the Common Bench," nominated 502 INDEX. SAI a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Sent ambassador to Holland, ii. 108. Career and cha- racter of, 108-112. Insulted in Hol- land by the Royalists, 1 12, 1 1^" Re- called a^d Thanked by Parliament, 123-125. His speech to the Dutch commissioners at taking leave, 124. An example of the way in which, as Chief Justice, he sacrificed the rights of the people, and violated the laws of England, "to gratify his master Crom- well," 444 note. Supported Crom- well's plot against the Parliament, 442 Salisbury, William, Earl of, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37; one of the peers who had the best means of knowing the character of the Court of the Stuarts, li. 126. Present at the last meeting of the Council of State, ii. 475 Scilly Isles, the. Royalist pirates in, ii. 98-102. Surrendered to Blake, 103, /I I Scotland, state of aifairs in, i. 252, 253. Falsification of the history of, exem- plified in Scott's account of the sale of the King to the English Parlia- ment, 253 ft scq. The Laird of Law- ers, 254, 255. The Scottish Par- liament, 256, 258, 259. The power of the nobility in Scotland the cause of the poverty and democrat ical form of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, 259-262. Difference between the English and Scottish feudal aristo- cracies, 263, 264. The whole of the Church property in Scotland seized by the nobility, 265, 266. Scottish Presbj-terians, 266, 267. Scottish Presbyterian clergy-, 268-272. Their credulity in regard to witches and hobgoblins, 276, 277 and note. Their pretensions to superhuman power, 267. Their intolerance compared with that of Laud, 270, 271. Srate of parties in, 282, 283. Charles II. pro- claimed King in, 283, 284. Ruptu^ of, with the English Parliament, 284, 285. The Scots' commissioners sent liome by land, 286-289. The Scot- tish armies, how raised and how com- posed, 319-323. Scottish village^'" 339-341. State of parties in, after the Battle of Dunbar, i. 387, 388 Scott (or Scot) Thomas, reports from SOV the committee appointed to nominate a Council of State, i. 36. Called by John Lilburne " their Secretary of State," 188. Had charge of the secret service, ibid, and ii. 23 note ; and also performed the duties of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 116 note. His plea for the continuance of the Long Parliament, ii. 231. His last words in Parliament, 474 note; on the scaffold, 411 Seal, the Great, broken in pieces in the face of the House, i. 25. An Act passed for establishing the new Groat Seal to be the Great Seal of England, ibid. Senescallus Anglise, in modem language the Lord High Steward, the highest officer in the State, being, as the King's representative, chief administrator of justice, and leader of the armies in war, i. 8, 9. The judicial part of his functions given to the Chief Justiciary, the administrative part to the Lord Steward of the King's Household, 10. Confusion arising from deriving the Lord High Steward from the Chief Justiciary, 10 note. To the Carlo- vingians and Plantagenets", this office served as a steppingstone to the throne, 13 Severn, the River, important battles fought on, ii. 187-189 Shaftesbury, Earl of. See Cooper, Sir ■A.. A. Sharpe, Archbishop, was at first for the " Engagement," but, finding it not a politic game, brought to the Stool of Repentance all his parishioners who had shown the least inclination that way, i. 270 Shetland Isles, the, storm among, sepa- rates the English and Dutch fleets when about to engage, ii. 342, 343 Skippon, Philip, Major-General, nomi- nated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Letter sent to, by the Council of State, for keeping the peace at Guildhall upon the trial of John Lilburne, i. 143 Smectymnus, formation of the word, i. 82, note 1 Soldiers, foot, sent to serve on board the fleet, ii. 302, 391 Sovereign, meaning of the word, i. 7 and note INDEX. 503 SPA ^ Spain, relations of the English Common- wealth with, i. 99, 100. An ambas- sador from the King of, declares the substance of his embassy to be to express the King of Spain's great desire of a peace and good corrcv' , spondence with the Common wealth/f England, ii. 288. The Parliamfnt insist upon justice being done upon the murderers of Mr. Ascham, 288, 289. /See Ambassador, Spanish Steward, Lord High. See Senescallus Anglic. Steward, Lord, of the King's household, court and functions of, i. 11 Stirling Castle surrendered, ii. 214 Stool of Repentance, declared by the old Earl of Eglinton to be " the best seat in the Kirk," i. 269. Archbishop Sharpe at first for the " Engagement," but, finding it not a politic game, brought all who had inclined that way to the Stool of Repentance, 270 Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl oL' effects of his government of IrelaniJ; i. 131-133. Character of, as - traitor, ii. 171, 177 'Y Style and title of the Government, " Tl(e Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, i. 178 Suzerain, effects of the modem military despotisms in destroying the union of the civil with the military character, and in changing " suzerain " into " sovereign," i. 7-12 Sweden, Christina, Queen of, why she TWT said to ^Vhitelock, " These Holland- ers are lying fellows," ii. 388 note. See GusTAvus Adolphus Sydney, Algernon, significance of the fact that the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Lisle, and Algernon Sydney were Commonwealth men, ii. 129, 130 Character of, 130-138. His opposi- tion to Cromwell, Bradshaw, and others, in regard to the King's trial, and Cromwell's answer to him, 134, 135. Was present when Cromwell expeUed the Parliament, 460-463 TAXATION, pressure of, i. 61. Taxes le\ned by parties of horse, 62. Re- markable illustration of, 104, note Thomson, Captain William, chief leader of the Levellers, i. 90, 91. Slain, . after a brave defence, 94 Thurloe, John, secretary to St. John and Strickland, the ambassadors to Hol- land, ii. 108. Appointed secretary to the Council of State on the death of Walter Frost the elder, ii. 299. Salary of, ibid. Account of the collec- tion of State Papers which bears his name, ii. 314, note Title and style of the Government, " The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England," i. 178 Traditions, local, an example of the way m which stories so called often origi- nate, i. 332, 333 Treason, new law of, a blunder of the Parliament and Council of State, i. 143. Made, what by the English law was merely libel, high treason, 155, 156 Trial of Lieutenant-Colonel John Lil- burne, i. 191 et seq. See Lilburne, John Tromp, Martin Harpertz, ii. 311, 312. First meeting of Blake with, 315. Is defeated by Blake off Dover, 317, 318, 322. Tromp and Blake among the Shetland Isles, when preparing for action, separated by a sudden tempest, 340-343. Defeats Blake in the Battle of Dungeness, 375. Is defeated by Blake in the Battle of Portland, 397-403 Twj'sden, Sir Roger, testimony of, against the Long Parliament, ii. 423, 424. Does not affect the integrity of Ireton, 604 INDEX. / TYR Vane, Blake, Scot, Sydney, Ludlow, and many others, 425, 426 Tyranny of the Parliament and Council of State, i. 69, 70, 150 and note. Dif- ference between the tyranny of the Council of State and that of the Staf Chamber, 163 Tyranny of the Tudors and Stuarts, or Divine-Right tyranny, i. 16, 17, 18 ; ii. 11, 15, 16. WHI y UNION flag, the (that is. Saint G^e's cross and Saint Andrew'r cros/ joined together), a proclamation of Charles I., in 1634, prohibits any but King's ships from carrying, ii^ 58, note Union, the, of England and Scotland, and the abolition of monarchy in Scotland, enacted by the Parliament of England, ii. 225 / YANE, Sir Henry, Junr., nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. His fanaticism, 83 and note. His genius as a statesman, and his weight in the Council of State, 99. His public-spirited conduct as Trea- surer »ft!T?r?^Ty777%rwo?e, 176 and note. Tlfe most activie and able mem- ber of the Cotmnittee of the Nav}-, ii. 29, 73, 79, 81, 269, 389, 390, 396. In regard to his connection with the I Committee of the Navy, and with the ; Committee for Irish and Scottish ■ Affairs, might be considered as Secre- > tary of State for War, 117, noUt Imputed timidity of, 168-170. Treat- ment of, by Cromwell, on the 20th of April 1653, 463, 464. Answer of, to an application to him to join Crom- well's Council of State, " that he would defer his share in the reign of »aints till he should go to heaven," 478, 7iote. "Words from his prayer on the morning of his execution, 477. His solenin appeal to God and man upon the scaffold, 426. His answer to his friends, who tried to persuade him to endeavour to save his life by making his submission to the King, or giving some thousands of pounds for life, 479, note 2 Vane, Charles (brother of Sir Henry V^ane), resident from the Common- I ving wealth of England with the King of Portugal, ii. 84, 87, note Vend6me,the Duke of, defeated by Blake, ii. 347, 348. Minute of the Council of State, jespecting a letter of, 384 WALKER, Clement, a scurrilous and mendacious writer, i.95, 172,173 Walker, Sir Edward, cited as an autho- ,''' rity by Hume, for assertions made without any authority, i. 344, 7iote, 348 and note Warrants to press seamen, i. 58; ii. 302, 323, 324. See Press-warrants Warwick, Earl of, superseded as Lord High Admiral, i. 49 Wauton (or Walton), Valentine, nomi- nated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. One of the commissioners sent to the fleet after the Battle of Dungeness, ii. 378 Weires, Bay of. See Oeyras Bay Wellesley, the Marquess, the opinion of, that 13 was an inconveniently large number for an executive council, dis- proved by the fact of the efficient action of the Council of State of the Commonwealth, i. 120-122 Welsh, John, one of the Scotch Presby- terian clergy, who arrogated to them- selves some of the powers of the Hebrew Prophets, i. 277, note Wexford, storm of, i. 139 Whalley, Colonel of the Trusted Regi- ment, to which Richard Baxter was two years chaplain, i. 74-76. Baxter's account of some of Whalley's troopers, who were, according to Baxter, not orthodox, 77 Whitehall, the Council of State remove from Derby House, and hold their sittings at, i. 101. Lodgings in, for members of the Council of State, 171, 172. "The Broad Place at White- hall," ii. 157, 158 ; a body of cavalry, " mounted in their defensive arms," to stand at, when the Spanish ambas- sador is conducted to an audience, 288 Whitelock, Bulstrode, appointed one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, i. 25. Nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37. Why Christina, Queen of Sweden, said to him " These Hollanders are /^ INDEX. 505 "WID lying fellows," ii. 388, 7iote. Inac- curate statement of, 459 and note. Present at the meeting at Cromwell's lodgings, 449-457 Widdrington, Sir Thomas, i. 24, 25 ; ii. 449, 457 Witches. The Council of State, in answer to an application from the Sheriff of Cumberland, for special assistance in the matter of witchcraft, reply that they can give him no directions con- cerning the discovery or punishment of witches, but refer him to the usual course of law, i. 274. The judges sent from England to administer jus- tice in Scotland, found so much malice and so little proof against sixty persons accused of witchcraft at the last cir- cuit, that none were condemned, ii. 226 Witt, de, substituted for Tromp in the command of the Dutch fleet, ii. 345, 346. Defeated by Blake, 349-356 Worcester, Battle of, ii. 10 c^ s9c^. ZEA Scotch students among the prisoners, 201. Disposal of prisoners taken at the, 203-214 Worshippers of success, the, ii. 410, 41 1 ; of Cromwell, answer to, 431 Wylde, John, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, nominated a member of the first Council of State, i. 37 . YORK, James, Duke of, insults the ambassador of the Commonwealth of England in the park at the Hague, ii. 113. Remarkable for the hardness of his heart and the softness of his brains, ibid. Anecdote, illustrative of the quality of his brains, ibid, note ZEAL of the people in England in favour of the Parliament, and against the King, manifested in Au- gust 1651, ii. 151, 172. Contrast between 1651 and 1660, 173 l.OXOON rUINTEI> UV S POTT IS WOOD K AND CO. N K \v-)sT II I : KT 8y i; a k k • o 1 / T \- , . ^J c\ w » 1 ri '\ I /) i> I \ I; !1 f h / V J \ MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF RECENT WORKS A NEW SERIES OF THE WELLINGTON DESPATCHES; CIVIL AND POLITICAL. Edited by His Son. Vol. I.-The Conghess of Verona. 8vo. 20s. . EARL GREY'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH KING WILLIAM IV., from 1830, to the Passing of The Reform Act, 1832. Edited by HIS SON. 2 vols. 8vo. 30s. MADAGASCAR EE VISITED UNDER A NEW REIGN, AND THE Revolution which Followed. By EEV. W. ELLIS. AVith Illustrations. 8vo. 16s. KING GEORGE THE THIRD'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD NORTH, 1768-83. Elited, with an Introduction and Notes by W. BODHAM DONNE. 2 vols. 8vo. 32s. 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