tjjA' Ifila '.-> m ^?!SS "Iffve t^e/i Btioh I /(ff afe faunim^ ef a, tltUtp, is- iMf, Cebty" 'Y^ILIE«¥]Mn¥EI^SI[irY«' o ILIIIBI^iai^T • DEPOSITED BY THE LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY STUDENT'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND VOL. II. WORKS BY SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603-1642, 10 vols, crov^n Svo. 6s. each. A HISTORY OF THE GREAT CIVIL WAR, 1642-1649. (3 vols.) Vol. I. 1642-1644. With 24 Maps. Svo. 211. Vol. II; 1644-1647. With 21 Maps. Svo. 24.;. THE FIRST TWO STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOLUTION, 1603-1660. 4 Maps. Fcp. Svo. 2j. ed. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648. With a Map, Fcp. Svo. 2i. 6 .V "I**WMllliniir 1*1*.- ft Lr pi .r !ii[pii;;iil# V • ' I HK JJi. iiiiiiiiiiiiiii?^;-, ^' H-^ Mf 'Y "'^r^f^'^^ '\- h I" I '- II /- - 374 HENRY VIII. AND WOLSEY 1526-1527 peace was signed between France and England. In February 1526 Charles set Francis at liberty on his promising to abandon to him large tracts of French territory. As soon as he was out of Spain Francis declared that, without the consent of his subjects, such promises were not binding on him. An Italian league, jealous of Charles's power, gathered round the Pope, Clement VIL, to oppose him. In May 1527 the exiled Duke of Bourbon, who was now one of Charles's generals, took Rome by assault He was himself slain as he mounted the wall, but his followers took prisoner the Pope, and sacked Rome with horrible barbarity. Wolsey was too worldly-minded to be shocked at the Pope's misfortunes ; but he had much to fear from the enormous extension of the Emperor's power. For some weeks he had been negotiating a close alliance with France on the basis of a marriage between Henry's only sur viving child, Mary, and the worn-out volujjtuary Francis. Sud denly the scheme was changed to a proposal for a marriage between Mary, who was ten years old, and the second son of Francis, who was but six. The bargain was concluded, and for a time there was some thought of carrying it out. At all events when the news of the sack of Rome arrived, England and France were already in close alliance. Wolsey's position was, to all outward appearance, CHAPTER XXV THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY. 1527 1534 LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VIII., 1509-1547 Henry seeks for a divorce ... j,j_ His suit before a Legatine Com t ,„„ FaU of Wolsey ... . . ' ' ^^ The clergy acknowledge Henry to be Supreme Head of the Church of England J „„ The first Act of Annates . . . . " ijL The king's marriage to Anne Boleyn and the Act of ' Appeals .... jj^ Cranmer's sentence of divorce j„- The final separation from Rome j--. t I. The Papacy and the Renascence.— The Renascence alone could not make the world better, and in many respects it made it worse. The respect which it paid to humanity, which was its I492-IS2I CORRUPTION OF THE PAPACY 375 leading characteristic, alUed itself in More with a reverence for God, which led him to strive to mellow the religious teaching of the Middle Ages, by fitting it for the needs of the existing world. Too many threw off" all religious restraints, and made it their first thought to seek their own enjoyment, or the triumphs of their own intel lectual skill. Sensual delights were pursued with less brutal direct ness, but became more seductive and more truly debasing by the splendour and gracefulness of the hfe of which they formed a part. In Italy the Popes swam with the current. Alexander VI. (1492 — 1503) gave himself up to the most degrading vices. Julius II. (1503 — 1513) was a passionate warrior struggling for the extension of his temporal possessions. Leo X. (1513 — 1521) was a polished lover of art, perfectly indifferent to religious duty. " Let us enjoy the Papacy," he said when he was elected, " since God has given it to us." Amidst the lust of the fiesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the Popes became as other Italian princes, no better and no worse. Spiritual guidance was no longer to be expected of them. 2. Wolsey and the Papacy. — By Wolsey and his master the Papacy was respected as a venerabte and useful institution, the centre of a religious organisation which they believed to be of divine origin, though when it came in conflict with their own projects they were quite ready to thwart it. In 1521 Leo X. died, and Wolsey, having some hopes, as he had had on a previous occasion, of being himself elected, asked Charles V. to send troops against Rome to compel the cardinals to choose him, offering, in that case, to pay the expenses of the armament. Charles refused to do anything ofthe kind, and Clement VII. (see p. 373), a shifty politician, was elected in the place of Leo. X. 3. Wolsey's Leg'atine Powers. — It is unlikely that Wolsey was much disappointed. His chief sphere of action was England, where since 1518 he had held unwonted ^thority, as in that year he had been appointed Legate a latere • by Leo X. at Henry's request, and the powers of a Legate a latere were superior even to those of War- ham, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Wolsey was therefore clothed with all the authority of king and Pope combined. His own life was, indeed, very far from the ideal of Christianity. In his diplo macy he revelled in deceit, and he was the father of two illegitimate children ; but for all that he had that respect for religious order which often hngers in the hearts of men who break away from the • i.e. a Legate sent from the Pope's side, and therefore having power to speak almost with full Papal authority. 376 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1521 precepts of religion, and he was too great a statesman to be blind to the danger impending over the Church. The old order was changing, and Wolsey was as anxious as More, though from more Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1503-1532, showing the ordinary episcopal dress, with the mitre and archiepiscopal cross : from a painting belonging to viscount Dillon, dated 1527. worldly motives, that the change should be effected without violence. He knew that the Church was wealthy, and that wealth tempted plunderers, and he also knew that, with some bright ex- 1515-1524 THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION 377 ceptions, the clergy were ignorant, and even when not absolutely dissolute were remiss and easy-going in their lives. He was, therefore, anxious to make them more worthy of respect, atjd, with the consent of king and Pope, he began in 1524 to dissolve several small monasteries, and to apply their revenues to two great colleges, the one founded by him at Oxford and the other at Ipswich. He hoped that without any change of doctrine or organisa tion the Church would gradually be purified by improved education, and would thus once more command the respect of the laity. 4. Henry VIII. and the Clergy. — With Wolsey's obj'fect Henry, being himself well educated and well read, fully sympathised. For many years there had been a tacit understanding between the king and the Pope, and now that both the king and the Pope supported Wolsey's action there seemed to be less danger than ever of any disturbance of the friendly relations between Church and State. Yet though Henry was on good terms with the Pope, he had made up his mind that whenever there was a conflict of juris diction in ecclesiastical matters his own will, and not that of the clergy, was to be predominant As early as in 1515, when a question of this kind was moved, Wolsey asked on behalf of the clergy that it might be referred to the Pope. "We," said Heniy proudly, " are by God's grace king of England, and have no su;^erior but God ; we will maintain the rights of the crown like our predecessors ; your decrees you break and interpret at your pleasure, but we will not consent to your interpretation of them any more than our prede cessors have done."' Henry VIIL, in short, took up the position which Henry II. had assumed towards the clergy of his day, and he was far more powerful to give effect to his views than Henry II. had ever been. Such an act of self-assertion would probably have caused a breach with the great Popes of the middle ages, such as Gregory VII. or Innocent III. Leo X. was far too much a man of the world to trouble himself about such matters. | 5. German Lutheranism.— Before many years had passed the beginnings of a great religious revolution which appeared in Germany served to bind Henry and Leo more closely together. Martin Luther, a Saxon friar, had been disgusted by the proceed ings of a hawker of indulgences, who extracted small sums from the ignorant by the sale of the remission of the pains of purgatory. What gave world-wide importance to Luther's resistance was that he was not only an eloquent preacher of morality, but the con vinced maintainer of a doctrine which, though not a new one, had long been laid aside. He preached justification by faith, and the C C 378 TH& BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 15I7 Tower of Fuuntains Abbey church ; built by Abbot Huby, 1494-1526 1517-1521 HENRY AND LUTHER 379 acceptance of his teaching implied even more than the acceptance of a new doctrine. For centuries it had been understood that each Christian held intercourse with God through the sacraments and ordinances of the Church. His individuality was, as it were, swallowed up in the vast community to which he belonged. Luther taught each of his hearers that the important thing was his faith, that is to say his immediate personal relation with God, and that the intervention of human beings might, indeed, be helpful to him, but could be no more. Such a doctrine touched all human activity. The man who in religion counted his own individual faith as the one thing necessary was likely to count his own indi vidual convictions in social or political matters as worth more to him than his obedience to the authority of any govemment. In Luther's teaching was to be found the spirit of political as well as of religious liberty. This side of it, however, was not likely to reveal itself at once. After a time Luther shook off' entirely the claims Sf the Papacy upon his obedience, but he magnified the duty of obeying the princes who gave him their support in his struggle with the Pope. 6. Henry's Controversy with Luther. — Luther, when once he was engaged in controversy with the Papacy, assailed other doc trines than those relating to justification. In 1521 Henry, vain of his theological learning, wrote a book against him in defence of the seven sacraments. Luther, despising a royal antagonist, replied with scurrilous invective. Pope Leo was dehghted to have found so influential a champion, and conferred on Henry the title of Defender of the Faith. If Henry had not been moved by stronger motives than controversial vanity he might have remained the Pope's ally till the end of his life. 7. Queen Catharine and Anne Boleyn. — It was a great dis appointment to Henry that he had no surviving male children. England had never been ruled by a queen, and it was uncertain whether Henry's daughter, Mary, would be allowed to reign. Henry had already begun to ask himself whether he might not get rid ot his wife, on the plea that a marriage with his brother's wife was unlawful, and this consideration had the greater weight with him because Catharine was five years older than himself and was growing distasteful to him. When in 1521, in his book against Luther, he assigned a divine origin to the Papacy, he told More of a secret reason for this exaltation of the Pope's power, and it is possible that this reason was his desire to obtain from the Pope a divorce under the pretext that it would secure a peaceful sucees- 38o THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1522 sion. At all events his scruples regarding his marriage with Catharine were quickened in 1522 by the appearance at court of Anne Boleyn, a sprightly black-eyed flirt in her sixteenth year, who took his fancy as she grew into womanhood. Flirt as she was, she knew her power, and refused to give herself to him except Catharine of Aragon from a painting in the Naiional Portrait Gallery. in marriage. The king, on his part, being anxious for a legitimate son, set his heart on a divorce which would enable him to ftiarry Anne. Wolsey, knowing the obstacles in the way, urged him to abandon the project ; but it was never possible to turn Henry from his course, and Wolsey set himself, in this as in all things else, to 1525 COUGHTON COURT 38" V. '¦ ^V ^'^ The Gatehouse of Coughton Court, Warwickshire ; built about 1530. 382 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1525-1529 carry out his master's wishes, though he did so very reluctantly. Moral scruples had little weight with Wolsey, but in 1525, when he learnt the king's design, there were strong political reasons against its execution, as England was in alliance with Catharine's nephew, the Emperor, Charles V., and a divorce would be certain to en danger the alliance. 8. Henry's Deraand for a Divorce. 1527-1528. — Two years later, in 1527, as Henry was veering round towards a French alli ance (see p. 374), he had no longer much reason to consider the feelings of the Emperor. On the other hand, the strong position which Charles occupied in Italy after the sack of Rome made it improbable that Clement VII. who was then Pope, and who thought more of his political than of his ecclesiastical position, would do anything to thwart the Emperor. An attempt made by Henry in 1527 to draw Clement to consent to the divorce failed, and in 1528 Wolsey sent to Rome his secretary, Stephen Gardiner, an adroit man of business, to induce Clement to appoint legates to decide the question in Henry's favour. Clement, anxious tb please all parties, appointed Wolsey and another cardinal, Campeggio, as his legates, but took care to add that nothing done by them should be valid until it had received his own approval. 9. The Legatine Court. 1529. — The court of the two legates was opened at Blackfriars in 1529. Before proceeding to business they tried hard to induce either Henry to abstain from asking for a divorce or Catharine to abstain from resisting his demand. In such a matter Catharine was as firm as the self-willed Henry. Even if she could consent to leave the throne, she could not, if she retained any sense of womanly dignity, acknowledge that she had never been a wife to Henry, or suffer her daughter to be branded with illegitimacy. When king and queen were at last cited to appear Catharine knelt before her husband. She had, she said been his true and obedient wife for twenty years, and had done nothing to deserve being put to open shame. As it was, she ap pealed to Rome. The queen's cause was popular with the masses, who went straight to the mark, and saw in the whole affair a mere attempt to give a legal covering to Henry's lust. The legates re fused to consider the queen's appeal, but when they came to hear arguments on the merits of the case they were somewhat startled by the appearance of the aged Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, one of the holiest and most learned prelates of the day, who now came voluntarily, though he knew that Henry's wrath was deadly, to support the cause of Catharine. Campeggio took advantage of I529-IS30 FALL AND DEATH OF WOLSEY 383 the strong feeling which was growing against the king to interpose delays which he knew to be well-pleasing to Clement, and before these delays were at an end Clement annulled all the proceedings in England and revoked the cause to Rome. Most probably he was alarmed at the threats of the Emperor, but he had also reasons of his own for the course which he took. Henry did not ask for a divorce on any of the usual grounds, but for a declaration that his marriage had been null from the beginning. As, however, his marriage had been solemnised with a Papal dispensation, Clement was asked to set aside the dispensation of one of his predecessors, a proceeding to which no Pope with any respect for his office could reasonably be expected to consent. 10. The Fall of Wolsey. 1529 — 1530.- — Henry was very angry and made Wolsey his victim. Wolsey's active endeavours to pro cure the divorce counted as nothing. It was enough that he had failed. He was no longer needed to conduct foreign affairs, as Henry cared now only for the divorce, and raised no objection when Charles and Francis made peace at Cambrai without con sulting his interests. The old nobility, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, who as Earl of Surrey had been the victor of Flodden, had long hated Wolsey bitterly, and the profligate courtiers, tOr gether with the friends and relatives of Anne, hated him no less bitterly now. Before the end of the year proceedings under the Statute of Praemunire (see pp. 258, 382) were taken against him on the ground that he had usurped legatine powers. It was notorious that he had exercised them at the king's wish, and he could have produced evidence to show that this had been the case. In those days, however, it was held to be a subject's duty not to contest the king's will, and Wolsey contented himself with an abject supplica tion for forgiveness. He was driven from his offices, and all his goods and estates seized. The college which he had founded at Ipswich was sold for the king's use, and his college at Oxford, then known as Cardinal College, was also seized, though it was after wards refounded under the name of Christchurch by the robber king. Wolsey was reduced to extreme poverty. In 1530 he was allpwed to return to the possession of the archbishopric of York ; but he imprudently opened communications with the French ambassador, and harmless as they were, they gave a handle to his enemies. Henry ordered him to be charged with treason. The sufferings of his mind affected his body, and on his way to London he knew that he was a dying man. " Father Abbot," he said, in taking shelter in Leicester Abbey, " I am come hither to leave my 384 THE BREACH WITH TIIE PAPACY 1529 bones among you." " If I had served my God," he acknowledged as he was passing away, " as diligently as I have done my king. He would not have given me over in my grey hairs." , ^r *¦ --¦¦¦" ' ¦* jj£ ^f^ /¦'SI :^y7^-- '-' -?i / ^=^ iLf _«.. a- -I 1' ^ 1529-1530 AN ATTACK ON THE CLERGY 385 II. The House of Commons and the Clergy. 1529. — No king ever felt the importance of popularity like Henry, and the compas sion which had been freely given to Catharine by the crowd, on her appearance in the Legatine Court, made it necessary for him to find support elsewhere. It had been Wolsey's policy to summon Par liament as seldom as possible. It was to be Henry's policy to sum mon it as frequently as possible. He no longer feared the House of Lords, and either he or Wolsey's late servant, Thomas Crom well, an able and unscrupulous man, who rose rapidly in Henry's favour, perceived the use which might be made of the House of Commons. By his influence the king could carry the elections as he pleased, and when Parliament met in 1529 it contained a packed House of Commons ready to do the king's bidding. The members were either lawyers or country gentlemen, the main supports ofthe Tudor monarchy, and Henry strengthened his hold upon them by letting them loose on the special abuses which had grown up in the ecclesiastical courts. Lawyers and country gentlemen were very much what they had been in the fifteenth century, without large pohtical ideas or fine spiritual perceptions ; but now that they were relieved of the oppression of the great nobles they turned upon the clergy, who claimed fees and dues which they dishked paying, and who used the powers of the ecclesiastical tribunals to exact heavy payments for moral and spiritual offences. 12. The Universities Consulted. 1530. — Henry had as yet no thought of breaking with the Pope. He wanted to put pressure on him to make him do what he had come to regard as right. In 1530 he sent to the universities of Europe to ask their opinion on the question whether a marriage with a brother's widow was contrary to the law of God. The whole inquiry was a farce. Wherever Henry or his allies could bribe or bully the learned doctors, an answer was usually given in the affirmative. Wherever the Em peror could bribe or bully, then the answer was usually given in the negative. That the experiment should have been tried, how ever, was a proof of the strength of the spirit of the Renascence. A questions of morals which the Pope hesitated to decide was submitted to the learning of the learned. 13. The Clergy under a Pramunire. 1530— 1531.— Towards the end of 1530 Henry charged the whole clergy of England with a breach of the Statute of Praemunire by their submission to Wolsey's lega tine authority. A more monstrous charge was never brought, as when that authority was exercised not a priest in England dared to offend the king by resisting it. When the Convocation of Canter- 386 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1S31-1S32 bury met in 1531, it offered to buy the pardon of the clergy by a grant of 100,000/., to which was afterwards added 18,000/. by the Convocation of York. Henry refused to issue the pardon unless the clergy would acknowledge him to be supreme head of the Church of England. 14. The King's Supreme Headship acknowledged by the Clergy. 1531. — The title demanded by Henry was conceded by the clergy, with the qualification that he was Supreme Head of the English Church and clergy so far as was allowed by the law of Christ. The title thus given was vague, and did not bar the acknowledgment of the Papal authority as it had been before exercised, but its interpretation would depend on the will of the stronger of the two parties. As far as the Pope was concerned, Henry's claim was no direct invasion of his rights. The Pope had exercised authority and jurisdiction in England, but he had never de clared himself to be Supreme Head of the Church either in Englapd or anywhere else. Henry indeed alleged that he asked for nothing new. He merely wanted to be known as the supreme authority in the relations between the clergy and the laity. Nevertheless it was a threat to the Pope, who might well fear lest the clergy, after giving way to the assumption of a title which implied authority over themselves, might give way to the widening of that same authority over matters on which the Pope's claims had hitherto been undoubted. 15. The Submission of the Clergy. 1532.— Everything done by Henry at this crisis was done with a view to the securing of his purposed divorce. In the Parliament which sat in 1532 the Com mons were again let loose upon the clergy, and Henry, taking their side, forced Convocation ' to sign a document known as the submission of the clergy. In this the clergy engaged in the first place neither to meet in Convocation nor to enact or execute new canons without the king's authority, and, secondly, to submit all past ecclesiastical legislation to examination with a view to the removal of everything prejudicial to the royal prerogative. The second article was never carried into effect, as the first was enough for Henry. He was now secure against any attempt of the clergy in Convocation to protest against any step that he might take about the divorce, and he was none the less pleased because he 1 There were two Convocations, of the two provinces of Canterbury and York, but the former was so much raore important that it is usually spoken of simply as Convocation. -1 529- 1 532 MORE AND THE PROTESTANTS 387 had incidentally settled the question of the relations between the clerical legislature and the Crown. 16. Sir Thomas More and the Protestants. 1529— 1532.— The submission of the clergy cost Henry the services of the best and Sir Thomas More, wearing the collar of SS ; from an original portrait painted by Holbein in 1527, belonging to Edward Huth, Esq. wisest of his statesmen. Sir Thomas More had been appointed Chancellor on Wolsey's fall in 1529. When More wrote the Uto pia, Luther had not yet broken away from the Papacy, and the tolerant principles of the author of that book had not been put to the test. Even in the Utopia More had confined his tolerance 388 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 1532-1533 to those who argued in opposition to the received religion without anger or spite, and when he came to be in ofiice he learnt by practical experience that opposition is seldom carried on in the spirit of meekness. Protestantism, as the Lutheran tenets began ' to be called in 1529, spread into England, though as yet it gained a hold only on a few scattered individuals. Here and there thought ful men, dissatisfied with the teaching given to them and with the lives of many of their teachers, embraced the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith. Even the best of them could hardly be ex pected to treat with philosophic calm the doctrines which they had forsaken ; whilst some of their converts took a pleasure in reviUng the clergy and the common creed of the vast majority of English men. With many again the doctrine of justification by faith slipped into the condemnation of the merit of good works, and even into a light estimation of good works themselves. For this bitterness of speech and mind More had no tolerance, and while he pursued his antagonists with argument and ridicule, .he also used his authority to support the clergy in putting down what they termed heresy by the process of burning the obstinate heretic. 17. Resignation of Sir Thomas More. 1532.— More had no ground for fearing that the increase of the king's authority over the clergy would at once encourage revolt against the Chiuxh. Henry was a representative Englishman, and neither he nor the House of Commons had the least sympathy with heresy. They wanted to believe and act as their fathers had done. More, however, was sufficiently prescient to foresee that a lay authority could not for ever maintain this attitude. Laymen were certain to be moved by the current of thought which prevailed in their age, and it was only, he believed, the great Papal organisation which could keep them steady. Though Henry had not yet directly attacked that organisation, he might be expected to attack it soon, and, in 1532, More retired from all connection with Henry's government rather than take part in that attack. 18. The First Act of Annates. 1532. — Having secured himself, as it were, in the rear by the submission of the clergy, Henry pro ceeded to deal with the Pope. He still wished if possible to. win him to his side, and before the end of 1532 he obtained from Parlia ment an Act of Annates. Annates were the first-fruits or first year's income of ecclesiastical benefices, and by this Act the first- fruits of bishoprics, which had hitherto been paid to the Pope, were to be kept back. The Act was not, however, to come into force till the king had ratified it, and Henry refused for a time to ratify 1533 ARCHBISHOP CRANMER 389 it hoping to reduce Clement to submission by suspending over his head a threat upon his purse. 19. The King's Marriage and the Act of Appeals. 1533.— Henry, however, found that Clement was not to be moved, and his patience coming at last to an end, he was secretly married to Anne Boleyn on January 25, 1533. Now that he had reluctantly given up hope of obtaining a favourable decision from the Pope, he resolved to put an end to the Papal jurisdiction in England, Otherwise if he obtained a sentence in an English ecclesiastical court declaring his marriage with Catharine to be null from the beginning, his injured wife might appeal to the superior court of the Pope. He accordingly obtained from Parliament the Act of Appeals; declaring that the king held the supreme authority in England, and that as under him all temporal matters were to be decided by temporal judges, and all spiritual matters by spiritual judges, no appeals should hereafter be suffered to any authority outside the realm. Henry was capable of any meanness to serve his ends, but he also knew how to gain more than his immediate ends by connecting them with a large national policy. He almost made men forget the low design which prompted the Act of Appeals by fixing their eyes on the great object of national inde pendence. 20. Archbishop Cranmer and the Court at Dunstable. 1533. — Henry found a convenient instrument for his personal as well as for his national policy in Thomas Cranmer, whom he appointed Arch bishop of Canterbury in the spring of 1533. Cranmer was intel lectually acute, and took a worthy part in the further development of the English Church ; but he was morally weak, and inclined to carry out orders whatever they might be, especially if they came from a king as strong-willed as Henry. He had already throvim himself as an active agent into the cause of Henry's divorce, and he was now prepared as archbishop to give effect to his arguments. In March Convocation was half persuaded, half driven to declare Catharine's marriage to be void, and in May Cranmer, sitting at Dunstable in his archiepiscopal court, pronounced sentence against her. In accordance with the Act of Appeals the sentence was final, but both Henry and Cranmer feared lest Catharine should send her counsel to make an appeal to Rome, and they were there fore mean enough to conceal from her the day on which sentence was to be given. The temporal benefits which the Pope derived from England were now to come to an end as well as his spiritual jurisdiction, and in July the king ratified the Act of Annates 390 THE BREACH WITH THE PAPACY 21. Frith and Latimer. 1533.— When a man of special intel lectual acquirements like Cranmer could descend to the trick which he had played at Dunstable, it was time that some one ' should be found who, in the stedfastness of his faith, would refuse to truckle to the king, and would maintain the rights of individual conscience as well as those of national independence. The teach ing of Zwingh, a Swiss reformer, who held that the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was a mere sign of the Body and Blood of the Redeemer, was beginning to influence the English Protestants, and its reception was one more reason for the mass of Englishmen to send to prison or the stake those who maintained what was, in their eyes, so monstrous a heresy. Amongst the noblest of the persecuted was John Frith, who. whilst he stoutly held to the behef that the doctrine of transubstantiation was untrue, begged that men should be left ' to think thereon as God shall instil in any man's mind, and that neither part condemn other for this matter, but receive each other in brotherly love, reserving each other's infirmity to God.' Frith was in advance of his time as the advocate of religious hberty as well as of a special creed, and he was burnt ahve. Henry meant it to be understood that his supreme headship made it easier, and not harder, to suppress heresy. He might have succeeded if he had had merely to deal with a few heroes like Frith. That which was beyond his control was the sapping process of the spirit of the Renascence, leading his bishops, and even himself, to examine and explain received doctrines, and thus to transform them without knowing what they were doing. Hugh Latimer, for instance, a favourite chaplain of the kirlg, was, indeed, a preacher of righteousness, testing all things rather by their moral worth than by their con formity to an intellectual standard. The received doctrines about Purgatory, the worship of the saints, and pilgrimages to their images seemed to him to be immoral, and he plainly said so in his sermons ; but he as yet wished to purify opinion, not to change it altogether, and in this he had the support of the king. 22. Completion of the Breach with Rome. 1533 — 1534. — Before 1533 was over Henry appealed from the Pope to a General Council. Clenient not only paid no heed to his appeal, but gave sentence in favour of Catharine. When Parliament met in 1534, therefore, Henry was obliged to strengthen his position of hostility to the Pope. He procured from it three Acts. The first of these was a second Act of Annates, which conferred on him absolutely not only the first-fruits of bishoprics which had been the subject of 1534 COMPLETE SEPARATION 391 the conditional Act ol Annates in 1532 (see p. 388), but also the first-fruits of all the beneficed clergy, as well as a tenth of each year's income of both bishops and beneficed clergy, all of which payments had been hitherto made to the Pope. Incidentally this Act also regiilated the appointment of bishops, by ordering that the king should issue a congS d'dlire to the chapter of the vacant see, together with a letter missive compelling the choice of his nominee. The second was an Act concerning Peter's pence, abolishing all minor payments to the Pope, and cutting away all interference of the Pope by transferring his right to issue licences and dispensations to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The third confirmed the submission of the clergy and enacted that appeals from the courts of the Archbishop should be heard by commis sioners appointed by the King, and known as the delegates of Appeals. It was by these Acts that the separation .between the Churches of England and Rome was finally effected. They merely completed the work which had been done by the great Act of Appeals in 1533. The Church of England had indeed always been a national Church with its own ecclesiastical assemblies, and with ties to the Crown which were stretched more tightly or more loosely at various times. It had, however, maintained its connection with the Continental Churches by its subordination to the Pope, and this subordination had been made real by the subjection of its courts to appeals to Rome, and by the necessity of recurring to Rome for permission to do certain things prohibited by English ecclesiastical law. All this was now at an end. The old supremacy of the king was sharpened and defined. The jurisdiction of the Pope was abolished. Nominally the English ecclesiastical authorities became more independent; more capable of doing what seemed to them to be best for the Church of the nation. Such at least was the state of the law. In practice the English ecclesiastical authorities were entirely at Henry's bidding. In theory and in sentiment the Church of England was still a branch of the Catholic Church, one in doctrine and in discipline with the Continental Churches. Practically it was now, in a far more un qualified sense than before, a national Church, ready to drift from its moorings and to accept new counsels whenever the tide of opinion should break strongly upon it. 392 CHAPTER XXVI THE ROYAL SUPREMACY, 1534— .1547 LEADING DATES Reign of Henry VIII., 1509-1547 The Acts of Succession and Supremacy . . 1534 Execution of Fisher and More .... 1535 Dissolution of the smaller monasteries and the Pilgrim age of Grace . . . 1536 Destruction of relics and images . . . 1538 The Six Articles and tlie Act granting to the king the greater monasteries ... . 1539 Fall of Cromwell ... 1540 Henry VIII. king of Ireland . . 1541 Solway Moss . . 1542 Deathof Henry VIII. . . 1547 I. The Act of Succession. 1534. — In September 1533 Anne had given birth to a daughter, who was afterwards Queen Elizabeth. In 1534 Parliament passed an Act of Succession. Not only did it declare Anne's marriage to be lawful and Catharine's unlawful, and consequently Elizabeth and not Mary to be heir to the crown, but it required all subjects to take an oath acknowledging their approval of the contents of the Act. More and Fisher professed themselves ready to swear to any succession which might be autho rised by Act of Parliament ; but they would not swear to the il legality of Catharine's marriage. It was on this point that Henry was most sensitive, as he knew pubhc opinion to be against him, and he threw both More and Fisher into the Tower. In the year before the language held in the pulpit on the subject of Henry's marriage with Anne in his wife's lifetime had been so strong that Cranmer had forbidden all preaching on the subject of the king's laws or the succession to the throne. Of the clergy, the friars were still the most resolute. Henry now sent commissioners to visit the friaries, and those in which the oath was refused were summarily suppressed. 2. The Acts of Treason and Supremacy. 1534. — In 1534 Parlia ment also passed a new Act of Treasons which made it high treason to wish or practise harm to the king, the queen, and their heirs, to use words denying their titles, or to call the king a 'heretic, schis matic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown.' Later in the same '534 PERSECUTION 393 year, but in a fresh session. Parliament passed the Act of Supre macy, which confirmed the title of Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England, a title very similar to that to which the king had obtained the qualified assent of the clergy in 1531 (see p. 386). From that time anyone who denied the king to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England was liable to a traitor's death ' 3. The Monks of the Charterhouse. 1534.-It can hardly be doubted that Henry's chief adviser in these tyrannical measures was the able and unscrupulous Cromwell. It was Cromwell's plan . to exalt the royal autho rity into a despotism by means of a subser vient Parliament. He was already Henry's secretary ; and in 1535 was appointed the king's Vicar-General in ecclesiastical matters. He w-as quite ready to , push the Acts of Parlia ment which had re- cenll)' been passed to their extreme conse quences. His first ob ject was to get rid, of the Friars Observant, who had shown them selves most hostile to what they called in ; plainness of speech the king's adultery. All tlieir houses were suppressed, and some of the inmates put to death. Then Cromwell fell on the London Charterhouse,* the in mates of which had been imprisoned in the year before simply for : a refusal to take the oath of the Act of Succession, though they had not uttered a word against the king's proceedings. They could now be put to death under the new Treason Act, for denying the king's supremacy, and many of them were accordingly executed after the usual barbarous fashion, whilst others perished of starvation or oi diseases contracted in the filthy prisons in which they were confined. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. 1504-1535 ; from a drawing: by Holbein in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle. 1 The Charterhouse here means the house of the Carthusians. II. D D 394 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY iS3S-i536 "I profess," said the Prior, Houghton, " that it is not out of obstinate malice or a mind of rebellion that I do disobey the king, but only for the fear of God, that I offend not the Supreme Majesty ; because our Holy Mother the Church hath decreed and appointed otherwise .than the king and Parliament hath ordained." -Houghton and his fellows were as truly martyrs as Frith had been. They at least had sown no seeds of rebellion, and they died because a tyrannical king insisted on ruling over consciences as well as over bodily acts. 4. Execution of Fisher and More. 1535.- Fisher and More were the next to suffer on the same charge, though their sentences were commuted to death by beheading. More preserved his wit tO' the last " I pray you," he said as he mounted the scaffold, " see me safe up, and for my coming down I will shift for myself" After he had knelt to place his head on the block, he raised it again to move his beard aside. " Pity," he muttered, " that should be cut that has not committed treason." 5. The Dissolution of the Smaller Monasteries. 1536. — Money never came amiss to Henry, and Cromwell now rooted himself firmly in his master's favour by pointing out to him fresh booty. The English monasteries were rich and weak, and it was easy to trump up or exaggerate charges against them. Cromwell sent commissioners to inquire mto their moral state (1535), and the commissioners, who were as unscrupulous as himself, rushed round the monasteries in such a hurry that they had no time to make any real inquiry, but neverthelees returned with a number of scanda lous tales. These tales referred to some of the larger monasteries as well as the smaller, but, when Parliament met in 1536, Henry con tented himself with asking that monasteries having property worth less than 200/. a year should be dissolved, and their estates given to himself, on the ground that whilst the smaller ones were dens of vice the larger ones were examples of virtue. Parliament granted his request, and the work of spoliation began. There can be no doubt that vice did exist in the monasteries, though there was not so much of it as the commissioners asserted. It would have been indeed strange if innocence had been preserved in communities living in enforced celibacy, with no stress of work to occupy their thoughts,. and with the high ideals of their profession neglected or cast aside. On the other hand, the monks were easy landlords, were hospitable to the stranger and kindly to the poor, whilst neither the king him self nor those to whom he gave or sold the lands which he acquired cared for more than to make money. The real weakness of the monks lay in their failure to conciliate the more active minds of the 1536 A NEW QUEEN 395 age, or to meet its moral needs. The attack upon the vast edifice of Henry's despotism in Church and State could only be carried on successfully by the combined effort of men like the scholars ofthe Renascence, whose thoughts were unfettered, and Of those who, like the I^rotestants, were full of aggressive vigour, and who substi tuted for the duty of obedience the duty of following their own con victions. 6, The Execution of Anne Boleyn. 1536. — Before the end of 1536 there was a new queen. Henry became tired of Anne, as he had been tired of . 1 Catharine, and on a series of monstrou's charges, so mon-. trous as to be hard'\ credible, he had hci tried and executed Her unpardonable crime was probabl> that her only livin., child was a daughtei and not a son The day after Anne >- death H enry marrii. < 1 a third wife, Jam Seymour. As Catha rine was now dead, there could be no doubt of the legiti macy of Jane's off spring, but to make assurance doubly sure, a new Parlia ment passed an Act settling the succession on Jane's children, and declaring both Mary and Ehzabeth illegitimate. 7. The Ten Articles. 1536.-11 is probable that when Henry took the title of Supreme Head he intended to maintain the doctrines and practices ofthe Church exactly as he found them. In 1536 the clergy were crying out not merely against attacks on their faith, but against the ribaldry with which these attacks were often conducted. One assailant, for instance, declared the oil used in extreme unction to be no more than the Bishop of Rome's grease or butter, and Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane Seymour, afterwards Duke of Somerset, known as ' the Protector," at the age of z8 (i535); 1507-1552: from a painting at Sudely Castle. 396 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1536 another that it was of no more use to invoke a saint than it was to whirl a stone against the wind. Many of the clergy would have been well pleased with mere repression. Henry, however, and the bishops whom he most trusted wished repression to be accompanied with reasonable explanations of the doctrines and practices en forced. The result was seen in the Ten Articles which were drawn up by Convocation, and sent abroad with the authority of the king. There was to be uniformity, to be obtained by the circulation of a written document, in which the old doctrines were stripped of much that had given offence, and their acceptance made easy for educated men. Of the seven sacraments, three only, Baptism, Penance, and the Sacrament of the Altar, were explained, whilst the other four — those of Marriage, Orders, Confirmation, and Extreme Unction^ were passed over in silence. On the whole the Ten Articles in some points showed a distinct advance in the direction of Luther anism, though,,there was also to be discerned, in fh^nj an equally distinct effort to explain rather than to reject' the creed of the mediasval Church. 8. The Translation of the Bible authorised. ; 1536. — ^^The, same tendency to appeal to educated intelligence showed itself in the sanction given by the king and Cromwell in 153^1 to a translation of the Bible which had been completed in 1535 by Miles Coverdale, whose version of the New Testament was founded on an earher one by Tyndale. It is probable that Henry, in authorising the cir culation of this version, thought ofthe support which he might derive from the silence of the Bible on the Papal claims. The circulation of the Bible was, however, likely to work in a direction very different from that of the Ten Articles. The Ten Articles were intended to promote unity of belief. The Bible, once placed in the hands oi) everyone who could read, was likely to promote diversity. It would be the storehouse in which Lutherans, Zwinglians, and every divergent sect would find weapons to support their own special ideas. It would help on the- growth of those individual opinions which were springing up side by side with the steady forward progress of the clergy of the Renascence. The men who attempted to make the old creed intellectually acceptable and the men who proclaimed a new one, under the belief that they were recurring to one still older, were together laying the foundations of English Protestantism. 9. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 1536— 1537.— Slight as these changes were, they were sufficient to rouse suspicion that further change was impending. The masses who could neither read nor write were stirred by the greed ahd violence witt which the disso- 1536-1538 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 397 lution of the smaller monasteries was carried on, and by the ces sation of the kindly relief which these monasteries had afforded to the wants of the poor. A rumour spread that when Cromwell had despoiled the monasteries he would proceed to despoil the parish churches. In the autumn of 1536 there was a rising in Lincolnshire, which was easily suppressed, but was followed by a more formid- abla rising in Yorkshire. The insurgents, headed by Robert Aske, called it the Pilgrimage of Grace, and bore a banner embroidered with the five wounds of Christ. They asked among other things for the restoration of the monasteries, the punishment of Cromwell and his chief supporters, the deprivation of the reforming bishops, tbe extirpation of heresy, and the restoration of the Papal authority in a modified form. Their force grew so large that the Duke of Norfolk, who was sent to disperse it, did not venture to make the attempt, and the king found himself obliged to issue a general pardon and to promise that a Parliament should meet in the North for the redress of grievances. On this the insurgents returned home. Early in 1537 Henry, who had no intention of keeping his word, took advantage of some new troubles in the North to declare that his engagement was no longer binding, and seized and ex ecuted, not merely the leaders, but many of the lesser supporters of the insurrection. Of the Parliament in the North nothing'more was heard, but a Council of the North was established to keep the people of those parts in order, and to execute justice in the king's name. 10. Birth of a Prince. 1537.— In 1537 Jane Seymour gave birth to a boy, who was afterwards Edward VI. Henry had at last a male heir of undoubted legitimacy, but in a few days his wife died. 1 1. The Beginning of the Attack on the Greater Monasteries. 1537 — 1538. — The failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace brought in fresh booty to Henry. Abbots and priors who had taken part in it, or were accused of doing so, were hanged, and their monas teries confiscated. Where nothing could be proved against the greater monasteries, which had been declared by Parliament to be free from vice, their heads were terrified into an appearance of voluntary submission. Cromwell had his spies and informers everywhere, and it was as easy for them to lie as to speak the truth. In 1537 and 1538 many abbots bowed before the storm, and, con fessing that they and their monks had been guilty of the most de grading sins, asked to be allowed to surrender their monasteries to the king. Cromwell's commissioners then took possession, sold the bells, the lead on the roof, and every article which had its price, and left the walls to serve as a quarry for the neighbourhood. 398 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1538 The lands went to the king. It not unfrequently happened that Henry promoted to ecclesiastical benefices those monks who had been most ready to confess themselves sinners beyond other men. There is no doubt that the confessions were prepared beforehand to deceive contemporaries, and there is therefore no reason why they should deceive posterity. 12. Destruction of Relics and Images. 1538. — The attack on the monasteries was accompanied by an attack on rehcs and such images as attracted more than ordinary reverence. The explana tion of the zeal with which they were hunted down is in many cases to be found in the gold and jewels with which they were adorned. Some of them were credited with miraculous powers. The figure of the Saviour on the rood at Boxley, in Kent, moved its head and eyes. A phial at Hales, in Worcestershire, contained a- substance which had been brought from Germany in the thirteenth century, and was said to be the blood of the Saviour. Pilgrims thronged in numbers to adore, and their offerings brought in no small profit to the monks who owned such treasures. What was fondly believed by the common people was derided by critical spirits, and Henry was well pleased to destroy all reverence for anything which brought credit to the monks. The rood of Boxley was exhi bited in London, where the Bishop of Rochester pulled the wires which caused its motions, and the blood in the phial of Hales was declared to be no more than a coloured gum. An ancient wooden figure, worshipped in Wales under the name of Darvel Gathern, served to make a fire which burned Friar Forest, who maintained that in spiritual things obedience was due to the Pope and not to the king. Instead of hanging him under the Treason Act (see p. 392) Henry had him burnt as a heretic. It was the first and only time when the denial of the royal supremacy was held to be heresy. When war was made against superstition, the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury could hardly be allowed to escape. Thomas was a saint who hadbearded a king, and his shrine, which had attracted such crowds of pilgrims that the marks which they left as they shuffled forward on their knees towards it are still to be seen on the stone floor, was smashed, and the bones of the saint burnt. Shrines were usually covered with gold, and jewels, and all shrines shared the fate of that of St. Thomas.' The images in parish churches, 1 Shrine? were receptacles above ground of the bodies of saints. That of Edward the Confessor at Westminster was rebuilt by queen Mary, and that of St. Alban at St. Albans in recent times. These two are the only shrines now to be seen in England. 1 538-1 539 SUPPRESSION OF RESISTANCE 399 not being attractive to the covetous, and being valued by the people for ordinary purposes of devotion, were still left untouched. 13. The Trial of Lambert. 1538. — Henry's violence against monasticism and superstition made him extremely anxious to show his orthodoxy. The opinion held by Zwingli, the reformer of Ziirich, that the Body and Blood of Christ were in no way present in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was now spreading in England, and those who held it were known as Sacramentaries. One of these, John Lambert, was tried before Henry himself. Henry told Lambert scornfully that the words of Christ, ' This is My Body,' settled the whole question, and Lambert was condemned and burnt. 14. The Marquis of Exeter and the Poles. 1538. — Amongst the descendants of the Duke of Clarence was Reginald Pole.' He had been scandalised by the divorce, had left England, had been made a Cardinal in 1536, and had poured out a torrent of invective against the wickedness of Henry. In the end of 1538 Henry, having been informed that some of Pole's kinsfolk had been muttering dis- satisfaction, sent them to execution together with his own cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, the son of his mother's sister. 15. The Six Articles. 1539. — Cruel and unscrupulous as Henry was, he was in many respects a representative Englishman, sympathising with the popular disgust at the spread of ideas hitherto unheard of. In a new Parliament which met in 1539 he obtained the willing consent of both Houses to the statute of the Six Articles. This statute declared in favour of: (i) the real presence of 'the natural Body and Blood of Christ ' in the Lord's Supper ; (2) the sufficiency of communion in one kind ; (3) clerical celibacy ; (4) the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity ; (5) private masses ; and (6) auricular confession. Whoever spoke against the first was to be burnt ; whoever spoke against the other five was to suffer im prisonment and loss of goods for the first offence, and to be hanged 1 Genealogy of the Poles:— Richard, Duke of York I Edward IV. Elizabeth = John Pole, Duke George, Duke of I of Suffolk Clarence John Pole, Edmund Pole, Richard Pole = Margaret, Countess of Earl of Lincoln, Earl of Suffolk I Salisbury killed at Stoke I (see p. 347) , Reginald Pole 400 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY'"'' 1539-1540 for the second. By those who suffered from the Act it was known as ' The Whip with Six Strings.' Cranmer, who was a married archbishop, was forced to dismiss his wife. Bishops Latimer and Shaxton, whose opinions had gradually advanced beyond the line at which Henry's orthodoxy ended, were driven from their sees ; but the number of those put to death under the new Act was not great. 16. Completion of the Suppression of the Monasteries. 1539 — 1540. — So completely was the statute of the Six Articles in accord ance with, public opinion, that Henry had no difficulty in obtaining the consent of Parliament to an Act giving to his proclamations the force of law, and to another Act securing to him the whole of the monasteries whether they had been already suppressed or not. Before the end of 1540 not a single monastery was left. Three abbots, those of Glastonbury, Colchester, and Reading, had been hanged the year before after the mere semblance of a trial. The disappearance of the abbots from the House of Lords made the lay peers, for the first time, more numerous than the ecclesiastical members of the House. The lay peers, on the other hand, were reinforced by new creations from amongst Henry's favourites, whom he had enriched by grants of abbey lands. The new. peers and the more numerous country gentlemen who had shared in the spoil were interested in maintaining the independence of the English Church, lest the Pope, if his jurisdiction were restored, should insist on their disgorging their prey. Of that which fell into the hands of the king, a small portion was spent on the foundation' " of five new bishoprics, whilst part of the rest was employed on shipbuilding and the erection of fortifications on the coast, part in meeting the general expenditure of the Crown. 17. Anne of Cleves and the Fall of Cromwell. 1539—1540.— In all that had been done Cromwell had been the leading spirit.. It had been his plan to erect an absolute despotism, and thereby to secure his own high position and to enrich himself as well as his master. He was naturally hated by the old nobility and by all who suffered from his extortions and cruelty. In the summer of 1539 he was eager for an alliance with the German Protestants against the Emperor Charies V., and suggested to Henry a fourth marriage with a German princess, Atine of Cleves. Holbein a great German painter settled in England, was sent to take a por trait ofthe lady, and Henry was so pleased with it that he sent for her to make her his wife. When she arrived'he found her anything but good-looking. In 1540 he went through the marriage ceremony I540-I543 HENRY VIIL AND IRELAND 401 with her, but he divorced her shortly afterwards. Fortunately for herself, Anne made no objection, and was allowed to hve in England on a good allowance till her death. For a time Cromwell seemed to be as high as ever in Henry's good opinion, and was created Earl of Essex. Henry, however, was inwardly annoyed, and he had always the habit of dropping ministers as soon as their unpopularity brought discredit on himself Cromwell was charged with treason by the Duke of Norfolk. A Bill of attainder' was rapidly passed, and Cromwell was sent to the scaffold without being even heard in his own defence. 18. Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. 1540 — 1543. — In 1540 Henry married a fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Norfolk, who was her uncle, gained the upper hand at court, and was supported by Gardiner (see p. 382), now Bishop of Winchester, who was strongly opposed to all further ecclesiastical innovations. Those who denied the king's supremacy were sent to the gallows, those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation to the stake. In 1541 the old Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole, and the daughter of the brother of Edward IV., was executed in the belief that she had favoured an abortive conspiracy. Before the end of 1^40 Henry discovered that his young wife had, before her marriage, been guilty of incontinency, and in 1541 she was beheaded. In 1543 Henry married a sixth, wife, Catherine Parr, who actually survived him. 19. Ireland. 1534. — Henry's masterful rule had made him many enemies abroad as well as at home, and he was therefore constantly exposed to the risk of an attack from the Continent. In the face of such danger he cpuld no longer allow Ireland to remain as disorganised as it had been in his father's reign and in the early years of his own, lest Ireland should become the stepping-stone to' an invasion of England. In Ireland the Celtic, chiefs ' maintained " their ' independence, carrying on destructive wars with one another, both they and their followers being inspired 1 A Bill of attainder wS,s brought into one or other of the Houses of Parlia ment, and became law, like any other Act of Parliament, after it liad passed both Houses and received the Royal assent. Its object was condemnation to death, and, as the legislative powers of Parliament were unlimited, it need not be supported by the production of evidence, unless Parliament chose to ask for it. Henry VIII. preferred this mode of getting rid of ministers with whom he was dissatisfied to the old way of impeachment ; as in an impS&ch- ment (see p. 262) there was at least the semblance of a judicial proceeding, the ¦ Commons appearing as accusersj and the Lords as judges. 402 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY IS34^IS36 with a high spirit of tribal patriotism, but without the slightest idea of national union. The Anglo-Norman- lords ruhng a Celtic population were quite as quarrelsome and even more oppressive than the Celtic chiefs, whilst the inhabitants of the English Pale (see p. 265), ruled over by what was only in name a civilised government, were subjected alike to the oppressive exactions of the authorities at Dublin and to the plundering of the so-called' ' Irish enemies,' from whom these authorities were unable to pro tect them. The most powerful of the Anglo-Norman lords was still the Earl of Kildare (see p. 347), who, whenever he bore the title of Lord Deputy, unblushingly used the king's name in wreaking vengeance on his private enemies. 20. The Geraldine Rebellion. 1534 — 1535. — In 1534 Henry sum moned Kildare to England and threw him into the Tower. On a rumour of Kildare's death his son. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald — Silken Thomas, as he was called in Ireland — rose against the king. The Geraldines, as the Fitzgeralds were sometimes called, had often frightened kings by rebelling, but this time they failed in their object. In 1535 the Lord Deputy Skefifington brought heavy guns and battered down the walls of the great Geraldine castleg at Maynooth. One by one all the males of Kildare's family, with the exception of two boys, were captured and put to death. 21. Lord Leonard Grey. 1536-1539. — Lord Leonard Grey • became Lord Deputy in 1536. The Irish Parhament which met in that year was still only a Parliament of the English Pale, but its acts showed that Henry intended, if possible, to rule all Ireland. On the one hand the royal supremacy was declared. On the othei v hand an Act was passed which showed how little was, in those days, understood of the difficulties standing in the way of the assimila tion of two peoples at different stages of civilisation. The native Irish were ordered to be exactly as the English. They were to use the English language, to adopt the English dress, and to cut their hair after the English fashion. It was to be in the Church as it was to be in the State. No one was to receive any ecclesiastical preferment who did not speak English. Such laws naturally could not be put in force, but they served as indications of the spirit of the Government Even more obnoxious was the conduct of the Archbishop of Dublin, George Browne, a mere creature of Henry and Cromwell. The assertion of the royal supremacy, in deed, if it had stood alone, would have made little difference in the church-life of Ireland. Browne, however, persisted, in obedience to orders from England, in destroying relics and images which 1 536 THE REFORMA TION IN IRELAND 403 were regarded by the whole population with the deepest reverence. The doubting spirit of the Renascence found no echo in Ireland, because that country was far behind England in education and \ . tt •»¦* .»J ^!^ -ftl. B' Jt."C" « I, » " *^ • F»< ? • . f^ King Henry VIII. : from a picture belonging to the Earl of Warwick. 404 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1539-1542 culture. It would have been of less consequence if these unwise proceedings had been confined to the English Pale. Lord Leonard Grey was, however, a stern warrior, and carried his arms successfully amongst the Irish tribes. When he left Ireland in 1539 a large part of the Celtic population had been compelled to submit to Henry, and that population was even less prepared than were the inhabitants of the Pale for violent alterations of religious ceremonial. 22. Henry VIIL King of Ireland. 1541. — In 1541 a Parlia ment at Dublin acknowledged Henry to be king of Ireland. Hitherto he had been but Lord of Ireland. As that title had been granted by Pope Adrian IV. to Henry II. (see p. 152), Henry VIII. wished to have a new one which should mark his complete inde pendence of Rome. This Parliament was the first attended by the native chiefs, and the assumption of tbe new title therefore indicated a new stage in Irish history. Unfortunately Henry bent himself to conciliate the chiefs rather than their tribes. He gave to the chiefs English titles — the O'Neill, for instance, becoming Earl of Tyrone, and O'Brien, Earl of Thomond — whilst he hoped to win their support by dissolving the monasteries, and by giving them a share in the plunder. All this Henry did in the hope that the chiefs would use their influence to spread English habits and English law amongst a people who were attached to their own ways. For the time he gained what he wanted. As long as. the plunder of the abbeys was to be had the chiefs kept quiet When that had been absorbed both chiefs and people would revolt against a Government which wanted to bring about, in a few years, a complete change in their mode of life. It is indeed useless to regret that Henry did not content himself with forcing the tribes to keep peace with one another, whilst allowing them gradually to grow in civilisation in their own fashion. There are often things which it would be well to do, but which no government can do. In the first place Henry had not money enough to enforce peace the whole revenue of Ireland at that time being no more than 5,000/. a year. In the second place he was roused to futile efforts to convert Irishmen into Englishmen because he was in constant dread of the intervention in Ireland of his -Continental enemies. 23. Solway Moss. 1542.— Henry was probably the more dis trustful of a possibly independent Ireland because an actually independent Scotland gave him so much trouble. In Scotland there had been no Wars of the Roses, and the warlike nobility still resembled petty kings in their own districts. ¦ James V., the son ot I532-I544 HENRY VIII. AND SCOTLAND 405 Henry's sister Margaret, strove to depress the nobles by allying himself with the Church and the Commons. Scotland was always ready to come to blows with England, and the clergy urged James to break with a king of England who had broken with the Pope. From 1532 to 1534 there had been actual war between the king doms. Even after peace was restored James's attitude was con stantly menacing. In 1542 war broke out again, and the Duke of Norfolk crossed the Tweed and wasted the border counties of Scot land. Then James launched an army across the Border into Cum berland. His distrust of the nobles, however, made him place at the head of it a mere court favourite, Oliver Sinclair. The Scottish army was harassed by the horsemen of the English border, and as night was drawing on was suddenly assailed by a small English party. Having no confidence in Sinclair, the whole multitude fled in a panic, to be slain oi- captured in Solway Moss. James's health I y Angel of Henry VIII. 1543. broke down under the evil tidings. As he lay sick news was brought to him that his wife had given birth to a child. Hearing that the child was a girl, and remembering how the heiress of the Bruces had brought the crown to the House of Stuart (see p. 295), he was saddened by the thought that the Stuart name. also would come to an end. " It came with a lass," he murmured, " and it will go with a lass." In a few days he died, and his infant daughter, the Queen of Scots, received the name of Mary.^ 24. War with Scotland and France. 1542 — 1546. — Henry, anxious to disarm Scottish hostility, proposed a marriage between his son Edward and the young queen. The proposal was rejected, and an alliance formed between Scotland and France. In 1544 Henry, having formed an alliance with Charles V., who was now at war with France, invaded France and took Boulogne after a 1 James's foreboding was not realised, because Mary married a Stuart. 4o6 THE ROYAL SUPREMACY >S44 long siege— thus enlarging the English possessions in the neighbourhood of Calais— whilst Charles concluded a peace with Francis at Crepy and left his ally in the lurch. In the same year Henry sent Lord Hertford, Jane Seymour's brother, to invade 1544 THE SIEGE OF BOULOGNE Part of the siege of Boulogne by Henry VIII., 1544, showing military operations : from anengraving made by Vertue for the Society of Antiquaries from the now destroyed painting at Cowdray House. 4oS THE ROYAL SUPREMACY- 1544 1 544- 1 546 THE ENGLISH LITANY 409 Scotland. Hertford burnt every house and cottage between Berwick and Edinburgh, took Edinburgh itself, and burnt the town. In 1546 peace was made between England and France, in which Scotland was included. The war had been expensive, and in 1544 Parliament had come to Henry's help by enacting that he need not repay a loan which he had gathered, yet even then Henry had had recourse to the desperate remedy of debasing the coinage. Armour as worn in the reign of Henry VIII. : from the hrass of John Lymsey, 1545, in Hackney Church. Margaret, wife of John Lymsey: from her brass in Hackney Church showing the costume of a lady circa 1545. 25. The Litany and the Primer. 1544— IS4S-— In iS44, when Henry was besieging Boulogne, Cranmer ordered prayers to be offered for his success. In the true spirit of the Renascence he wished these prayers to be intelligible, and directed that they should be in English. In the same year he composed the Enghsh Litany, intended to be recited by priests and people going m pro cession. This Litany was the foundation-stone of the future^Book II. E B 410- THE ROYAL SUPREMACY 1 545- 1 545 of Common Prayer. It was issued in 1544 together with a Primer, or book of private prayer, also in English. In the public services the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were to be in English, the remainder being left in Latin as before. 26. The Last Days of Henry VIII. 1545— 1547.— When once ram Hf 1 1 — '¦""*'™^- fe. ' ' ... •?, Thomas Howardj third Duke of Norfolk, 1473 (?)-i554 : from the picture by Holbein at Windsor Castle. inquiring intelligence is let loose on an antiquated system, it is hard to say where the desire of making alterations will stop, and there are reasons to believe that Henry was contemplating further changes. There were two parties at court, the one anxious to resist further change, headed, amongst the temporal lords, by the Duke of 'S4S-IS47 LAST DAYS OF HENRY VIIL 411 Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, and amongst the bishops by Gardiner ; the other, desiring doctrinal innovations, especially if money was to be got by them, headed by the Earl of Hertford. In 1545 an Act had been, passed for the dissolution of chantries, hospitals, and free chapels. The chantries had been founded for the maintenance of priests to say mass for the souls of the founders, and it was convenient for those who sought to divert this main tenance to their own use to believe that it was wrong to pray for the dead. In the end of 1546 Henry was taken ill, and, feeling himself to be dying, ordered the arrest of Norfolk and Surrey on charges of treason. It is probable- that Henry turned against Norfolk and Surrey because he thought Hertford, as the uncle of the young Prince of Wales, more likely to be faithful to the future king. On January 27, 1547, Surrey was executed. His father was to liave suffered on the 28th. Before he reached the scaffold, Heniy died, and he was conducted back to prison. Henry, before his death, had done something to provide against the danger of a disputed succession. An Act of Parliament, passed in 1544, had given back to Mary and Elizabeth the places in the line of inherit ance to which they would have- been entitled if no doubt had ever been cast on the legitimacy of their birth,' and had authorised Henry to provide by will for the future occupancy of the throne in case of the failure of his own descendants. In accordance with this Act he left the crown, in case of such failure, to the descendants of his younger sister Maiy, leaving out those of his elder sister Margaret, with whose son, James V., he had had so much reason to be displeased. ' Genealogy of the children of Henry VIII. : — (i) Catharine = Henry VIII. = (2) Anne = (3) Jane Seymour = (4) Anne of of Arragon I 1 Boleyn I Cleves I I I =(5) Catherine Mary Elizabeth Edward VI. Howard (1553-1558) (1558-1603) (1547-1553) =(6) Catherine Parr E E : 412 EDWARD VL iS47-iS48 CHAPTER XXVII EDWARD VI. AND MARY EDWARD VI., 1547—1553- MARY, 1553— 1SS8- LEADING DATES Somerset's Protectorate ... . IS4> First Prayer Book of Edward VI. . 1549 Fall of Somerset . . 1549 Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. . . 1SS« Death of Edward VI. and accession of Mary . 1553 - Mary's marriage with Philip . . .... I554 * Submission to Rome and re-enactment of the heresy , laws . ¦ 1554 Beginning of the persecution . 1555 ^ War with France ... . 1557 Loss of Calais and death orMary . . 1558 I. Somerset becomes Protector. 1547. — The new king, Ed ward VI. , was but a boy, and Henry had directed that England should be governed during his son's minority by a body composed of the executors of his will and other councillors, in which neither the partisans of change nor the partisans of the existing order should be strong enough to have their own way. The leading innovators, pretending to be anxious to carry out his wishes, asserted that he had been heard to express a desire that they should be made peers or advanced in the peerage, and should receive large estates out of the abbey lands. After gaining their object, they set aside Henry's real plan for the government of the realm, and declared Hertford (who now became Duke of Somerset) to be Protector. ,A council was formed, from which Gardiner and the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley were excluded as likely to take part against them. 2. The Scotch War. 1547— 1548.— Somerset was as greedy of Church property as the greediest, but he was covetous also of popularity, and had none of that moderating influence which Henry, with all his faults, possessed. He had always too many irons in the fire, and had no sense of the line which divides the possible from the impossible. His first thought was to intervene in Scot land. For some time past Protestant missionaries had been at tempting to convert the Scottish people, but most of them had been caught and burnt Cardinal Beaton, the Archbishop of St. 1S46-IS47 CRANMER AND THE CHURCH 413 (Andrews, had lately burnt George Wishart, a noted Protestant. In 1546 the Cardinal was murdered in revenge by a party of Pro testants, who seized on the castle of St. Andrews. A French fleet, however, recaptured the castle, and Somerset, who had sent no help to the Protestants in St. Andrews, marched into Scotland in the hope of putting an end to all future troubles between the kingdoms by marrying the young Queen of Scots to Edward. He carried with him a body of foreign mercenaries armed with the improved weapons of Continental warfare, and with their help he defeated and slaughtered the Scotch army at Pinkie Cleugh, burnt Holyrood and Leith, and carried destruction far and wide. Such rough wooing exasperated the Scots, and in 1548 they formed a close alliance with Henry II., who had succeeded Francis I. as king of France, and sent their young queen across the sea, where she was married to Henry's eldest son, the Dauphin Francis. Somerset had gained nothing by his violence. 3. Cranmer's Position in the Church of England. 1547. — Somerset's ecclesiastical reforms were as rash as his political enter prises. Cranmer had none 0/ that moral strength which would have made some men spurn an alliance with the unscrupulous politicians of the time. He was a learned student, and through long study had adopted the principle that where Scripture was hard to understand it was to be interpreted by the consent of the writers of the first ages of Christianity. As he had also convinced himself that the writers of the first six centuries had known nothing of the doctrine of transubstantiation, he was now prepared to reject it — though he had formerly not only believed it, but had taken part in burning men who denied it. It is quite possible that if Henry had been still alive Cranmer would have been too much overawed to announce that he had changed his opinion. His exact shade of belief at this time is of less importance than the method by which he reached it. In accepting the doctrines and practices of the existing Church till they were tested and found wanting by a combination of human reason and historical study of the scrip tures, interpreted in doubtful points by the teaching of the writers of the early Church, Cranmer more than any one else preserved the continuity of the Church of England, and laid down the lines on which it was afterwards to develop itself There was, therefore, a great gulf between Cranmer and the advanced Protestants, who, however much they might differ from one another, agreed in drawing inferences from the Scripture itself, without troubling themselves whether these inferences conformed in any way to the 414 EDWAR'D Vt. 1547 earher teaching. This gulf was constantly widening as time went on, and eventually split English Protestantism into fractions. 4. Ecclesiastical Reforras. 1547- 1548.- In 1547 a fresh blovir was struck at the devotions of the people. In the churches—by the order of the Government — there was much smashing of images and of painted glass bright with the figures of saints and angels. , Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Cantejrbi^ry, 1533-1356 : from a painting dated 1547, at Jesus College, Cambridge. Gardiner, who protested that the Government had no authority to alter religion till the kirig was of age, was sent to prison as the easiest mode of confuting him. As Parliaments were usually packed in those days, it does not follow that the nation was eao-er for changes because Parliament ordered them. There was, how ever, no difficulty in filling the benches of the House of Commons with men who profited by the plunder of the Church, and when I54S-I549 PROGRESS QF IHE REFORMATION 415 Parliament met, it showed itself innovating enough. It repealed all the statutes giving special powers to Henry VIII. and all laws against heresy. It also passed an Act vesting in the reigning king the whole of the chantries and other hke foundations which Henry had been permitted to take, but which he had left untouched. Cranmer, indeed, would have been glad if the money had been devoted to the relief of the poorer clergy, but the grasping spirit of the laymen was too strong for him. So violent was the race for wealth that the Act decreed the confiscation even of the endow ments of lay corporations, such as trading companies and guilds, on the excuse tliat part of their funds was applied to religious purposes. It was soon, however, found that an attempt to enforce this part of die Act would cause resistatice, and it was therefore abandoned. In 1548 the Government issued orders abolishing a great variety of Church practices, and, in consequence of the opposition offered by the clergy to these sudden measures ordered that no sermons should be preached except by a few licensed preachers. 5. The First Prayer Book of Edtvard VI. iS49.^In 1549 Parliament authorised the issue of a Prayer Book. in English, now known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. The same Par liament also passed an Act permitting the marriage of the clergy. 6. The Insurrection in the West. 1549.- Somerset's own brother. Lord Seymour of Sudley, was sent to the block by this Parliament. He had spoken rashly against the Protector's govern ment, but it has been thought by some that his main fault was his strong language against the rapacity with which Church property was being divided amongst the rich. That rapacity was now reaching its height. The Protector had set an evil example in order to raise the palace which, though it has since been rebuilt, still bears the name of Somerset House. He had not only seized on a A-ast amount of ecclesiastical propert)-, but had pulled down a parish church and had carted off the bones of the dead from their graves. The Reformers themselves, men of the study as most of them were, had gone much farther than the mass of the people were prepared to follow. In 1549 an insurrection burst out in Devon and Cornwall for the restoration of the old religion, which was only suppressed with difficulty. 7. Ket's Rebellion. 1549. — Another rising took place in Nor folk, lieaded by Ket, a tanner. Ket's rebellion was directed not so much against ecclesiastical reforms, as against civil oppression. The gentry, who had been enriching themselves at the expense of 4i6 EDWARD VL IS49 the clergy, had also been enriching themselves at the expense of the poor. The inclosures against which More had testified were multiplied, and the poor man's claims were treated with contempt. Ket gathered his followers under a tree, which he called the Oak of Reformation, on Mouselwld Hill, outside Norwich, and sent them to pull down the palings of the inclosures. The Earl of Warwick — the son of that Dudley who, together with Empson, had been the object of popular hatred in the reign of Henry VII. (see p. 357) — dispersed the insurgents with great slaughter ; but it was noted that both here and in the West the Government was driven to use the bands of German and Italian mercenaries which Somerset had gathered for the war in Scotland. It was the first time since the days of John (see p. 182) that foreign troops had been used to crush an English rising. 8. The Fall of Somerset. 1549. — Somerset no longer pleased any single party. His invasion of Scotland had led to a war with, France, and to carry on that war he had found it necessary to debase the coinage still further than it had been debased by Henry VIII. All the disturbance of trade, as well as the disturbance of religion, was laid to his door. At the same time he was too soft hearted to satisfy his colleagues in the .Council, and had shown himself favourable to the outcry against inclosures. Accordingly, before the end of 1549 his colleagues rose against him, and thrust him into the Tower. The Protectorate was abolished. Hence forth the Council was to govern, but the leading man in the Council was Warwick. 9. Warwick and the Advanced Reformers. 1549. — Religion was a matter to which Warwick was supremely indifferent. It was an open question when he rose to power whether he would protect the men of the old religion or the advanced reformers. He chose to protect the advanced reformers. Even before Somerset's fall Cranmer had been pushing his inquiries still farther, and was trying to find some common ground with Zwinglian (see p. 399) ind other reformers, who went far beyond Luther. Foreign preachers, such as Bucer and Peter Martyr, were introduced to teach religion to the English, as foreign soldiers had been intro duced to teach them obedience. Bishops were now appointed by the king's letters-patent, .without any form of election. Gardiner and Bonner, refusing to 'accept the new , state of things, were deprived of their sees of Winchester and London, and Ponet and Ridley set in their places. Ridley's character and attainments were as distinguished as Ponet's were contemptible. Hooper was 1548-155 1 WARWICK S ADMINISTRATION 417 made Bishop of Gloucester. For some time he hung back, refusing to wear the episcopal vestments as being a mark of Antichrist, but at last he gave way, and was consecrated in them, but he cast them off as soon as the ceremony was over. 10. Latimer's Sermons. 1548—1550. — Latimer took little part in the changes of doctrine and worship, but he lashed from the pulpit the vices of the age, speaking plainly in the presence of the Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, 1550-1553 : from t Nations Portrait Gallery. court of its greed and oppression. It was not enough, he said, for sinners to repent : let them make restitution of their ill-gotten gains, in 1550 the courtiers became tired of his reproofs, and he was no longer allowed to preach before the king. II. Warwick and Somerset. 1550 — 1552.- In 1550 Warwick was compelled to make a peace with France, and gave up Boulogne as its price. In 1551 he was very nearly drawn into war with the Emperor on account of his refusal to allow mass to be celebrated 4iS EDWARD VL i5Si-i552 in the household of the king's sister, Mary. Finally, however, he gave way, and peace was maintained. There was a fresh issue of base money, and a sharp rise of prices in consequence. Now that • there were no monasteries left to plunder, bishoprics were stripped of their revenues, or compelled to surrender their lands. Hooper was given the ecclesiastical charge of the see of Worcester in addition to that of Gloucester, but he was driven to surrender all the income of the bishopric of Gloucester. The see of Durham was not filled up, and before the end of the reign it was suppressed by Act of Parliament, and ceased to have a legal existence till it . was restored by Edward's successor. So unpopular did Warwick become that Somerset began to talk as though he might supplant his supplanter. His rash words were carried to tlie young king, who had for some time shown an interest in public affairs, and who now took the part of Warwick, whom he created Duke of Northumberland, against his own uncle. Somerset was arrested, and in 1552 was tried and beheaded. 12. The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1552 In 1552 Parliament authorised the issue of a revised Prayer Book, known as the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. The first book had been framed by the modification of the old worship under the influence of Lutheranism. The second book was composed; under the influence ofthe Swiss Reformers. The tendency of the two books rnay be gathered from the words ordered to be employed- in the administration of the bread in the Communion. In the first Prayer Book they had been : "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto ever lasting life." In the second they were. "Take and eat this in* remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." There were some who urged that the Communion should no longer be received kneeling. It was significant that their leaders were foreigners — John Alasco a Pole, and John Knox, a Scot, who was hereafter to be the father of a Scottish reformation more drastic than that of England; Cranmer withstood them successfully. The dispute marked the point beyond which the spirit of the Renascence refused to go. In the midst of his innovations Cranmer preserved not only a reverent spirit, but an admiration for the devotional style of the prayers of the medieval Church, which he therefore maintained even in the midst of the great changes made, mainly at least by himself, in the second Prayer Book. Happily, amidst these disputations, there was one point on which both parties could combine— namely'. 15SO-I5SI FOUNDATION OF GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS 419 on the encouragement of education. The reign of Edward VI. is marked by the foundation of grammar-schi^ls— too scantily carried out, but yet in such a measure as to mark the tendencies of an age which was beginning to replace the mainly ecclesiastic education of the nionasterie;s by the more secular education of modern times. 13. The Forty-two Articles. 1553.- Edward was now a pre- King Edward VI. : from a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq. cocious youth, taught by much adulation to be confident in his own powers. He had learnt to regard all defection from Protestant orthodoxy as a crime. The statute which repealed the heresy laws did not altogether stop the burning of heretics, as the lawyers dis covered that heresy was punishable by the common law. In 1550 Joan Bocher was burnt for denying the Incarnation, and in 1551 Van Parrjs, a Fleming, was burnt on the same charge. The persecution. 420 EDWARD VL 1553 however, was much more restricted than in the preceding reign. Few persons were pftnished, and that only for opinions of an abnormal character. In 1553 forty-two articles of faith, after wards, in the reign of Elizabeth, converted into thirty-nine, were set forth as a standard of the Church's belief by the authority of the king. So completely did the reforming clergy recognise their entire dependence on the king, that by a slip ofthe pen Hooper once wrote of ' the king's majesty's diocese of Worcester and Gloucester.' 14. Northumberland's Conspiracy. iSS3-— A religious system built up solely on the will of the king, was hardly likely to survive him. By this time it was known that Edward was smitten with consumption, and could not live. Northumberiand cared little for religion, but he cared much for himself He knew that Mary was, by Henry's will sanctioned by Act of Pariiament, the heiress of the throne, and that if Mary became queen he was hardly likely to escape the scaffold. He was daring as well as unscrupulous, and he persuaded Edward to leave the crown by will to Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, the younger sister of Henry VIII. He secured (as he hoped) Lady Jane's devotion by marrying her to his own son. Lord Guilford Dudley. As Lady Jane was a convinced Protestant, Edward at once consented. His father, he thought, had left the crown by will in the case of the failure of his own heirs (see p. 411), and why should not he ? He had been taught to think so highly of the kingship that he did not remember that his father had been authorised by Act of Parliament to will away the crown in the case of his children's death without heirs, whereas no such authority had been given by Pariiament to himself. He forced — by com mands and entreaties — the councillors and the judges to sign the will. Cranmer was the last to sign, and was only moved to do so by the sad aspect of his suffering pupil. Then Edward died, assured that he had provided best for the Church and nation. 15. Lady Jane Grey. 1553. — On July 10 Lady Jane Grey, a pure-minded, intelligent girl of sixteen, was proclaimed queen in London. She was a fervent Protestant, and there were many Protestants in London. Yet, so hated was Northumberland, that even Protestants would have nothing to say to one who had been advanced by him. Lady Jane passed through the streets amidst a dead silence. All England thought as London. In a few days Mary^ was at the head of 30,000 men. Northumberland led against her what troops he could gather, but his own soldiers threw their caps in the air and shouted for Queen Mary. On the 19th Mary ISS3 MARYS FIRST PARLIAMENT 421 was proclaimed queen in London, and the unfortunate Jane passed from a throne to a prison.' 16. Mary restores the Mass. 1553. — Mary, strong in her popularity, was inclined to be merciful. Amongst those who had combined against her only Northumberland and two others were executed — the miserable Northumberland declaring that he died in the old faith. Mary made Gardiner her Chancellor. Some of the leading Protestants were arrested, and many fled to the Continent. The bishops who had been deprived in Edward's reign were rein stated, and the mass was everywhere restored. The queen allowed herself to be called Supreme Head of the Church, and at first it seemed as though she would be content to restore the religious system of the last year of Henry's reign, and to maintain the ecclesiastical independence of the country. 17. Mary's First Parliaraent. 1553. — By taking this course Mary would probably have contented the great majority of her subjects, who were tired of the villainies which had been cloaked under the name of Protestantism, and who were still warmly at tached to the religion of their fathers. She was, however, anxious to restore the authority of the Pope, and also to marry Philip, the eldest son of her cousin, the Emperor Charles V. It was natural that it should be so. Her mother's life and her own youth had been made wretched, not by Protestants, but by those who, without being Protestants, had wrought the separation from Rome in the days of Henry, at a time when only the Pope's adherents had main tained the-legitimacy of her own birth and of her mother's marriage. In subsequent times of trouble Charles V. had sympathised with 1 Genealogy of the Greys : — Henky VII. (1485-1509) Henry vni. (1509-1547) Margaret = James IV. Mary of Scotland m. (i Louis XII. of France = (2) Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk Frances = = Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk Jane Grey = Guilford Dudley Catharine Grey Mary Grey 422 MARY 1553 her, and it was by his intervention that she had been allowed to continue her mass in her brother's reign. Mary also wished to restore to the Church its lands. On the other hand, when Parlia- Queen Mary Tudor : from a painting by Lucas de Heere, dated 1554, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries. ment met it appeared that her subjects wished neither to submit to Rome, nor to surrender the property of which they had deprived the Church, though they were delighted to, restore, the worship and X5S4 THE SPANISH MARRIAGE 423 practices which had prevailed before the death of Henry VIII. Parliament, therefore, authorised the re-establishment of the mass, and repealed the Act allowing the clergy to marry, but it presented a petition against a foreign marriage. Although the hatred of- Spain which grew up a few years later was hot yet felt. Englishmen did not wish their country to become a dependent province on any foreign monarchy whatever. Mary dissolved Parliament rather than take its advice. 18. Wyatt's Rebellion. 1554.— The result was an insurrection, the aim of which was to place Mary's half-sister, Elizabeth, on the throne. Lady Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, was to raise the Midlands and Sir Thomas Wyatt to raise Kent. Suffolk failed, but Wyatt, with a large following, crossed the Thames at Kingston, and pushed on towards the City. His men, however, were for the most part cut off in an engagement near Hyde Park corner, and it was with only three hundred followers that he reached Ludgate — to find the gate closed against him. ' 1 have kept touch,' he said, and suffered himself to be led away a prisoner. Mary was no longer merciful. Not only Suffolk and Wyatt, but the innocent Lady Jane and her young husband, Guilford Dudley, were sent to the block. Elizabeth herself was committed to the Tower. She fully believed that she was to die, and sat herself down on a wet stone, refusing for some time to enter. In many ways she had shown that she bore no goodwill to her sister or her sister's plans, but she had been far too prudent to commit to writing any words expressing sympathy with Wyatt. Being far too popular to be safely put to death on any testimony which was not convincing, Ehzabeth was before long removed from the Tower and placed at Woodstock, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, but was after a few months allowed to retire to Hatfield. 19. The Queen's Marriage. — A Parliament which met in April 1554 gave its consent to Mary's marriage, but it would not pass Bills to restore the old statutes for the persecution of heretics. Though it was now settled that the queen was to marry Phih'p, yet never was a wooer so laggard. For some weeks he would not even write to his betrothed. The fact was that she was twelve years older than himself, and was neither healthy nor good-looking. Philip, however, loved the English crown better than he loved its wearer, and in July he crossed the sea and was married at Winchester to the queen of England. Philip received the title of king, and the names of Philip and Mary appeared together in all official docu ments and their heads on the coins. 424 MARY 1 554-1 555 20. The Submission to Rome. 1554. — After the marriage a new Parliament was called, more subservient than the last In most things it cemphed with Mary's wishes. It re-enacted the statutes for the burning of heretics and agreed to the reconciliation of the Church of England to the see of Rome, but it would not sur render the abbey lands. Only after their possession had been confirmed did it give its consent to the acknowledgment of the Pope's authority. Then Cardinal Pole (see p. 399), who had been sent to England as the Pope's legate, was allowed to receivje the submission of England. The queen, the king, and both Houses knelt before him, confessed their sin . of breaking away from the Roman see, and received absolution from his mouth. To Mary the moment was one of inexpressible joy. She had grieved over the separation from Rome as a Sin burdening her own conscience, and she believed with all her heart that the one path to happiness, temporal and eternal, for herself and her realm, was to root out heresy, in the only way in which it seemed possible, by rooting out the heretics. 21. The Beginning of the Persecution. 1555. — It was not only Mary who thought it meet that heretics should be burnt. John Rogers, who was the first to suffer, had ih the days of Edward pleaded for the death of Joan Bocher (see p. 419). He was followed to the stake by Bishop Hooper, who was carried to Gloucester, that he might die at the one of his two sees whicli he had stripped of its property to enrich the Crown (see p. 418). He and many another died bravely for their faith, as More and Forest had died for theirs (see pp. 394, 398). Rowland Taylor, for instance (a Suffolk clergyman), was condemned in London to be burnt, and sent to his own county to die. As he left his prison in the dark of the early morning he found his wife and children waiting for him in the street He was allowed to stop for a moment, and knelt down on the stones, repeating the Lord's Prayer with his family. " Farewell, my dear wife," he said, as soon as he had risen from his knees ; " be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall stir up a father for my children." " Thanked be God," he exclaimed when he at last reached the village where his voice had once been heard in the pulpit, and where now the stake rose up amidst the faggots which were to consume him, " I am even at home ! " After he had been tied to the stake a wretch threw a faggot at his face. " O friend," he said gently, " I have harm enough : what needed that ?" The flames blazed up around his suffering body, and Rowland Taylor entered into his rest. I5S6 DEATHS OF RIDLEY AND LATIMER 425 Bishops Ridley and Latimer were burnt at Oxford, on the spot where the Martyrs' Memorial now stands. " Be of good comfort. Master Ridley, and play the man," cried Latimer, when the fire was lighted at his feet. « We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." 22. Death of Cranmer. 1556. — Cranmer would have accom panied Ridley and Latimer to the stake, but as he ajone of the Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, 1535-39, burnt 1555; from the National Portrait Gallery. three had been consecrated a bishop in the days when the Pope's authority was accepted in England, it was thought right to await the Pope's authority forthe execution of his sentence. In 1556 that autho rity arrived. Cranmer's heart was as weak as his head was strong, and he six times recanted, hoping to save his life. Mary specially detested him, as having sat in judgment on her mother (see p. 389), and she was resolved that he should die. Finding his recantation useless, he recovered his better mind, and renounced his recantation. n, J F 426 MARY 1556-1558 " I have written," he said, " many things untrue ; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first burnt." He was hurried to the stake, and when the flames leapt up around him held his right hand steadily in the midst of them, that it might be ' the first burnt.' 23. Continuance of the Persecution. 1556-1558. — Immediately after Cranmer's death Pole became Archbishop of Canterbury. The persecution lasted for two years more. The number of those who suffered has been reckoned at 277. Almost all of these were burnt in the eastern and south-eastern parts of England. It was there that the Protestants were the thickest. New opinions always flourish more in towns than in the country, and on this side of England were those trading towns, from which communication with the Protestants of the Continent was most easy. Sympathy ' with the sufferers made these parts of the kingdom more strongly Protestant than they had been before. 24. The Queen's Disappointment. 1555 — 1556. — Mary was a sorrowful woman. Not only did Protestantism flourish all the more for the means which she took to suppress it, but her own domestic life was clouded. She had longed for an heir to carry on the work which she believed to be the work of God, and she had even imagined herself to be with child. It was long before she abandoned hope, and she then learnt also that her husband — to whom she was passionately attached — did not love her, and had never loved anything in England but her crown. In 1555 Philip left her. He had indeed cause to go abroad. His father, Charles V., was broken in health, and, his schemes for making himself master of Germany having ended in failure, he had resolved to abdicate. Charles was obliged to leave his Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand ; and the German electors, who detested Philip and his Spanish ways, insisted on having Ferdinand as Emperor. Charles could, however, leave his western possessions to his son, and in 1556 he completed the surrender of them. Mary's husband then became Philip II. of Spain, ruling also over large territories in Italy, over Franche Comtd, and the whole of the Netherlands, as well as over vast tracts in America, rich in mines of silver and gold, which had been appropriated by the hardihood, the cruelty, and the greed of Spanish adventurers. No prince in Europe had at his command so warlike an army, so powerful a fleet, and such an abounding revenue as Philip had at his disposal. Philip's in crease of power produced a strong increase of the anti-Spanish feeling in England, and conspiracies were formed against Mary, J557-1558 I DEATH OF MARY 427 who was believed to be ready to welcome a Spanish invading army. 25. War with France and the Loss of Calais. 1557-1558. — In 1557 Philip was at war with France, and, to please a husband who loved her not, Mary declared war against Philip's enemy. She sent an English army to her husband's support, but though Philip gained a crushing victory over the French at St Quentin, the English troops gained no credit, as they did not arrive in time to take part in the battle. In the winter, Francis, Duke of Guise, an able French warrior, threatened Calais. Mary, who, after wringing a forced loan from her subjects in the summer, had spent it all, had little power to help the governor. Lord Wentworth, and persuaded herself that the place was in no danger. Guise, however, laid siege to the town. The walls were in disrepair and the garrison too small for defence. On January 6, 1558, Guise stormed Calais, and when, a few days afterwards, he also stormed the outlying post of Guisnes, the last port held by the English in France fell back into the hands of the French. Calais was now again a French town, after having been in the hands of strangers for 211 years. 26. Death of Mary. 1558. — The loss of Calais was no real misfortune to England, but it was felt as a deep mortification both by the queen and by her people. The people distrusted Mary too much to support her in the prosecution of the war. They were afraid of making Philip more powerful. Mary, hoping that Heaven might yet be gracious to her, pushed on the persecution, and sent" Protestants in large numbers to the stake. Philip had visited her the year before, in order to persuade her to join him against France, and she again fancied herself to be with child. Her husband had once more deserted her, and she now knew that she was suffering — without hope — from dropsy. On November 17 she died, sad and lonely, wondering why all that she had done, as she believed on God's behalf, had been followed by failure on every side — by the desertion of her husband and the hatred of her subjects. Happily for himself, Pole too died two days afterwards.^ 1 The 19th is the date of Machyn's contemporary diary ; but other authori ties raake it the 17th or i8th. 428 CHAPTER XXVIII THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT IN CHURCH AND STATE 1558—1570 LEADING DATES Reign of Elizabeth, 1558— 1603 Accession of Elizabeth 1558 The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity 1559 The Treaty of Edinburgh . ¦ 1560 Mary Stuart lands in Scotland 1561 End of the Council of Trent . . 1563 Marriage of Mary and Darnley . 1565 Murder of Darnley 1567 Escape of Mary into Englarnd. . 1568 The rising in the North . . . 1569 Papal excommunication of Elizabeth .... 1570 I. Elizabeth's Difiiculties. 1558. — Elizabeth, when she received the news of her sister's death, was sitting under an oak in Hatfield Park (see p. 423). "This," she exclaimed, " is ' the Loird's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.'' Her life's work was to throw down all that Mary had attempted to build up, and to build up all that Mary had thrown down. It was no easy task that she had undertaken. The great majority of her subjects would have been well pleased with a return to the system of Henry VIII. — that is to say, with the retention of the mass, together with its accompanying system of doctrine, under the protection of the royal supremacy, in complete disregard of the threats or warnings of the Pope. Eliza beth was shrewd enough to see that this could not be. On the one hand, the Protestants, few as they were, were too active and intelligent to be suppressed, and, if Mary's burnings had been unavailing, it was not likely that milder measures would succeed. On the other hand, the experience of the reign of Edward VI. had shown that immutability in doctrine and practice could only be secured by dependence upon the immutable Papacy, and Elizabeth had made up her mind that she would depend on no one but herself. She would no more place herself under the Pope than she would place herself under a husband. She cared nothing for theo logy, though her inclinations drew her to a more elaborate ritual ' than that which the Protestants had to offer. She was, however, ^ '55S-I559 ECCLESIASTICAL UNITY 429 intensely national, and was resolved to govern so that England might be great and flourishing, especially as her own greatness would depend upon her success. For this end she must establish national unity in the Church, a unity which, as she was well aware, could only be attained if large advances were made in the direction of Protestantism. There must be as little persecution as possible, but extreme opinions must be silenced, because there was a danger lest those who came under their influence would stir up civil war in order to make their own beliefs predominant. The -first object of Elizabeth's government was internal peace. 2. The Act of Uniformity and Supremacy. 1559. — Elizabeth marked her intentions by choosing for her secretary Sir William Cecil, a cautious supporter of Protestantism, the best and most faithful of her advisers. As Convocation refused to hear of any change in the Church services, she appointed a commission com posed of divines of Protestant tendencies, who recommended the adoption, with certain alterations,' of the second Prayer Book of Edward VI. Elizabeth's first Parliament, which met in 1559, passed an Act of Uniformity forbidding the use of any form of public prayer other than that of the new Prayer Book. The same Pariiament also passed a new Act of Supremacy, in which the title of Supreme Head of the Church was abandoned, but all the ancient jurisdiction of the Crown over ecclesiastical persons was claimed. This Act imposed an oath in which the queen was acknowledged to be the Supreme Governor of the Realm ' as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things as temporal' ; but this oath, unlike that imposed by Henry VIIL, was only to be taken by persons holding office or taking a university degree, whilst a refusal to swear was only followed by loss of office or degree. The maintenance of the authority of any foreign prince or prelate was to be followed by penalties increased upon a repetition of the offence, and reaching to a traitor's death on the third occasion. 3. The new Bishops and the Ceremonies. 1559 — 1564. — All the bishops except one refusing to accept the new order of things, new ones were substituted for them, the old system of election by the chapters on a royal congd d'dlire being restored (see pp. 391, 415). Matthew Parker, a moderate man after Elizabeth's own heart, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Very few of the old clergy who had said mass in Mary's reign refused to use the new Prayer ' The most noteworthy of these alterations was the amalgamation of the forms used respectively in the two Prayer Books of Edward VI. at the ad ministration of the Communion (see p. 418). 430 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1559-1564 Book, and as Elizabeth prudently winked at cases in which persons of importance had mass said before them in private, she was able to hope that, by leaving things to take their course, a new genera tion would grow up which would be too strong for the lovers of the old ways. The main difficulty of the bishops was with the Protestants. Many of those who had been in exile had returned with a strengthened belief that it was absolutely unchristian to adopt any vestments or other ceremonies which had been used in the Papal Church, and which- they, therefore, contumeliously described as rags of Antichrist A large number even of the bishops sympathised with them, and opposed them only on the ground that, though it would have been better if surplices and square caps had been prohibited, still, as such matters were in different, the queen ought to be obeyed in all things indifferent. To Ehzabeth refusal to wear the surphce was not only an act of insubordination, but likely to give offence to lukewarm supporters of the Church system which she had established, and had, therefore, a tendency to set the nation by the ears. In Parker she found a tower of strength. He was in every sense the successor of Cranmer, with all Cranmer's strength but with ' none of Cranmer's weakness. He fully grasped the principle that the Church of England was to test its doctrines and practices by those of the Church of the first six hundred years of Christianity, and he, therefore, claimed for it cathohcity, which he denied to the Church of Rome; whilst he had all Cranmer's feehng for the maintenance of external rites which did not directly imply the existence of beliefs repudiated by the Church of England. 4. Calvinism.— The returning exiles had brought home ideas even more distasteful to Elizabeth than the rejection of ceremonies. The weak point of the Lutherans in Germany, and of the reformers in England, had been their dependence upon the State. This de pendence made them share the blame which fell upon rulers who, like Henry VIIL, were bent on satisfying their passions, or, like Northumberland, on appropriating the goods of others. Even Elizabeth thought first of what was convenient for her government, and secondly, if she thought at all, of the quest after truth and purity. In Geneva the exiles had found a system in full working order . which appeared to satisfy the cravings of their minds. It had been founded by a Frenchman, John Calvin, who in -4536 had published The Institution of the Christian Religion;- in which he treated his subject with a logical coherence which -impressed itself on all Protestants who were in need of a definite creed. He had soon after- 1559 CALVINISM 431 wards been summoned to Geneva, to take charge ofthe congrega tion therej and had made it what was extensively believed to be, a model Church. With Calvin everything was rigid and defined, and he organised as severely as he taught. He established a discipline which was even more efficacious than his doctrine. His Church proclaimed itself, as the Popes had proclaimed themselves, to be independent ofthe State, and proposed to uphold truth and right irre spective ofthe fancies and prejudices of kings. Bishops there were to be none, and the ministers were to be elected by the congregation. The congregation was also to elect lay-elders, whose duty it was to enforce morahty of the strictest kind ; card-playing, singing profane songs, and following after amusements on the Sunday — or Sabbath as it was called in Geneva — being visited with excommunication. The magistrates were expected to inflict temporal penalties upon the offender. This Presbyterian system, as it was called, spread to other countries, especially to countries like France, where the Protestant congregations were persecuted by the Government. In France a final step was taken in the Presbyterian organisation. The scattered congregations elected representatives to meet in synods or assemblies, and the French Government, in this way, found itself confronted by an ecclesiastical representative republic. 5. Peace with France. 1559. — It was this Calvinistic system which was admired by many of the exiles returning to England, but which Elizabeth detested as challenging her own authority. Her only chance of resisting with success lay in her power of appealing to the national instinct, and of drawing men to think more of unity and peace at home than of that search after truth which inevitably divides, because all human conceptions of truth are necessarily imperfect, and are differently held by different minds. To do this she must be able to show that she could main tain her independence of foreign powers. Though her heart was set on the recovery of Calais, she was obliged in 1559 to make peace with France, obtaining only a vague promise that it might be restored at a future time. Shortly afterwards peace was made between France and Spain at Citeau Cambresis. Elizabeth was aware that, though neither Philip II. of Spain nor Henry II. loved her, neither of them would allow the other to interfere to her detri ment. She was therefore able to play them off one against the other. Her diplomacy was the diplomacy of her time. Elizabeth like her contemporaries, lied whenever it suited her to lie, and made promises which she never intended to perform. In this spirit she treated the subject of her marriage. She at once rejected Philip, 43^ THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT IJSO who, though he was her brother-in-law, proposed to marry her immediately after her accession, but when he suggested other candidates for her hand, she listened without giving a decided answer. It was convenient not to quarrel with Philip, but it would be ruinous to accept a husband at his choice. 6. The Reformation in Scotland. 1559. — Philip was formidable to Elizabeth because he might place himself at thehead of the English Catholics. Henry was formidable because the old alliance between France and Scotland, confirmed by the recent marriage of the Dau phin with Mary Stuart, made it easy for him to send French troops by way of Scotland into England. Early in Elizabeth's reign, however, events occurred in Scotland which threatened to sever the links between that country and France. The Regent, Mary of Guise — mother of the absent queen and sister of the Duke of Guise, the French conqueror of Calais, and leader of the French Catholics — was hostile to the Protestants not only by cofiviction, but because there had long been a close alliance between the bishops and the Scottish kings in their struggle with the tur bulent nobles. The wealth of the bishops, however, great according to the standard of so poor a country, tempted the avarice of the nobles, and their profligacy, openly displayed, offended all who cared for morality. In 1559 a combination was formed amongst a large number of the nobles, known as the Lords of the Congrega- r tion, to assail the bishops. John Knox, the bravest and sternest of Calvinlsts, urged them on. The Regent was powerless before them. The mass was suppressed, images destroyed, and monas teries pulled down. Before long, however, the flood seemed about to subside as rapidly as it rose. The forces of the lords consisted of untrained peasants, who could not keep the field when the labours of agriculture called them home, and rapidly melted away. Then the Lords of the Congregation, fearing disaster, called on Elizabeth for help. 7. The Claims of Mary Stuart. 1559. — Elizabeth was decided enough when she could see her way clearly. When she did not she was timid and hesitating, giving contradictory , orders and making contradictory promises. She detested Calvinism, and regarded rebellion as of evil example. She especially abhorred Knox, because in her sister's reign he had written a book against The Monstrous Regimen of Women, disbelieving his assertion that she was herself an exception to the rule that no woman was fit to govern. It is therefore almost certain that she would have done nothing for the Lords of the Congregation if France had done I559-1560 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 433 nothing for the Regent. Henry II. , however, was killed by an accidental lance-thrust which pierced his eye in a tournament, and on the accession of his son as Francis II., Mary 'Stuart, now queen of France, assumed the arms and style of queen of England.' The life-long quarrel between Elizabeth and Maiy could hardly be staved off. Not only did they 'differ in religion, but there was also between them an irreconcilable political antagonism closely con nected with their difference in religion. If the Papal authority was all that Mary believed it to be, Ehzabeth was a bastard and a usurper. If the national Church of England had a right to in depehdent existence, and the national Parliament of England to independent authority, Mary's challenge of Elizabeth's title was an unjustifiable attack on a sovereignty acknowledged by the con stitutional authorities of the English nation. 8. The Treaty of Edinburgh. 1560. — In spite of Cecil's urgency Elizabeth was slow to assist the Scottish rebels. For some months Mary of Guise had been gathering French troops to her support, and she at last had a foreign army at her command powerful enough to make her mistress of Scotland, and to form the nucleus of a larger force which might afterwards be sufficiently powerful to make her mistress of England. This was more than Elizabeth could bear, and in January 1560 she sent her fleet with troops to the help of the Lords of the Congregation. The French retreated into Leith, where they were besieged by the allied forces. In June the Regent died, and in July Leith surrendered; By a treaty signed at Edinburgh the French agreed to leave Scotland, and to acknowledge Elizabeth's title to the English crown. In December Francis II. died, and as his brother, who succeeded him as Charles IX., was too young to govern, his mother, Catherine de Medicis, acted as regent. Catherine was jealous of the Duke 01 Guise, and also of his niece, Mary Stuart, the widow of her eldest 1 Genealogy of the last Valois kings of France : — Francis I. 1515-1547 Henry II. = Catherine de Medicis XS47-IS59 Francis II. Charles IX. Henry HI. Francis, Duke 1559-1560 1560-1574 Duke of ofAlencon, Anjou, king afterwards of France , . Duke of Anj ou 1574-1589 434 ^-^-^ ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1561 son.' Mary, finding no longer a home in France, was driven for refuge to her own unruly realm of Scotland. 9. Scottish Presbyterianism. 1561. — The Scots had not failed to profit by the cessation of authority following on the death of Mary of Guise. They disclaimed the authority of the Pope and made it punishable to attend mass, the penalty for the third offence being death. The English Reformation had been the work of the king and of the clergy of the Renascence, and had, therefore, been carried on under the form of law. The Scottish Reformation had been the revolutionary work of the nobility and of the Calvinistic clergy. In England the power of the State had been strengthened. In Scotland it was weakened. Almost from the beginning the nobles who had taken part in the revolution showed signs of dis agreement. A few of them were earnest Protestants, but there were more who cared only for political or personal ends. " I have hved many years," said the aged Lord Lindsay; "now that it hath pleased God to let me see this day ... I will say with Simeon, ' Now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.' " Hey then ! " said Maidand of Lethington sarcastically, when he heard tha.t the clergy claimed to govern the Church and own its property in the place of the bishops, " we may all bear the barrow now to build the house of the Lord." Knox organised the Church on a democratic and Presbyterian basis with Church Courts com posed of the. minister and lay elders in every parish, with repre sentative Presbyteries in every group of parishes, and with a repre sentative General Assembly for all Scotland. Like a prophet of old, Knox bitterly denounced those who laid a finger on the Church's discipline. The nobles let him do as he would as far as religion was concerned, but they insisted on retaining nominal bishops, not 1 Genealogy of the Guises ; — Claude, Duke of Guise Francis, Duke Mary = James V. of Guise, of Guise, killed at died in Dreux, 1563 1560 king of Scotland I I I , Henry Charles, Louis, Catyinal Mary Stuart, Duke of Guise, Duke of of Guise, Queen of Scots murdered in 1588 Mayenne raurdefed in 1588 1561 MARY AND ELIZABETH 435 to rule the Chujrch, but to hold the Church lands and pass the rents over to themselves. 10. Mary and Elizabeth. 1561.— In August 1561 Mary landed in Scotland, having come by sea because Elizabeth refused to allow her to pass through England unless she would renounce her claim to the English crown. Mary would perhaps have yielded if Elizabeth would have named her as her successor. Elizabeth would do nothing of the kind. She had a special dislike to fixing on any one as her successor. About this time she threw into prison Lady Catherine Grey for committing the offence of marrying with out her leave. Lady Catherine was the next sister of Lady Jane Grey, and therefore Elizabeth's heir if the will of Henry VIII. in favour of the Suffolk line (see p. 410) was to be held binding. Ehzabeth no doubt had a political object in showing no favour to either of her expectant heirs. By encouraging Catherine's hopes A ' milled ' half-sovereign of Elizabeth, 1562-1568. she would drive her Catholic subjects to desperation. By en couraging Mary's she would drive her Protestant subjects to des peration. Yet there was also strong personal feeling to account for her conduct. She was resolved never to marry, however much her resolution might cost her. Yet she too was a very woman, hungry for manly companionship and care, and, though a politician to the core, was saddened and soured by the suppression of her womanly nature. To give herself a husband was to give herself a master, yet she dallied with the offers made to her, surely not from political craft alone. The thought of marriage, abhorrent to her brain, was pleasant to her heart, and she could not lightly speak the positive word of rejection. Even now, in the vain thought that she might rule a subject, even if she became his wife, she was toying with Lord Robert Dudley, the handsome and worthless son of the base Northumberland. So far did she carry 436 THE ELIZABE2HAN SETTLEMENT 1562-1564 her flirtations that tales against her fair fame were spread abroad, but marry him she never did. Her treatment of the Lady Catherine was doubtless caused far less by her fear of the claims of tbe Suffolk line than by her reluctance to think of one so near to her as a happy wife, and as years grew upon her she bore hardly' on those around her who refused to live in that state of maidenhood which she had inflicted on herself. II. The French War. 1562 — 1564. — Elizabeth and Mary were not merely personal rivals. The deadly struggle on which . they had entered was a European one, and the success or failure of the Catholic or the Protestant cause in some Continental country might determine the future history of Britain. In 1562 a civil war broke out between the French Protestants — or Huguenots,' as they were usually called in France— and their Catholic fellow-subjects. The leaders of the Huguenots obtained Elizabeth's aid by offering her Havre, which she hoped to exchange for Calais. The Huguenots were, however, defeated at the battle of Dreux, though Guise, who commanded the Cathohcs, was in the moment of victory shot dead by an assassin. In 1563 peace was patched up for a time between the French parties, but Elizabeth refused to surrender Havre, till a plague broke out amongst the English garrison, and drove the scanty remnants of it back to England. In 1564 Elizabeth was forced to make peace without recovering Calais. The war thus ended was the only one in which she ever took part except when absolutely no alternative was left to her. 12. End of the Council of Trent. 1563. — If Rome was to be victorious she must use other than carnal weapons. The main cause of the growth of Protestantism had been the revolt of honest minds against the profligacy of the Popes and the clergy. The Popes had after a long time learnt the lesson, and were now as austerely moral as Calvin himself They had of late busied them selves with bringing the doctrines of the Church into a coherent whole, in order that they might be referred to with as much cer tainty as the Institution of Calvin was referred to by the Calvinist. This work was accomplished by an ecclesiastical council sitting at Trent, and composed mainlyof Spanish and Italian prelates. The Council, having completed its task, broke up in 1563. 13. The Jesuits.— The main instruments of the Popes to win back those who had broken loose from their authority were the ' Probably from Eidgenossen, the name of the Swiss Confederates, because the first Protestants who appeared at Geneva came from Switzerland, and no French-speaking mouth could pronounce such a word as ' Eidgenossen. ' 1540-1565 THE JESUITS 437 members of the Society of Jesus, usually known as Jesuits. The society was founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight who, having been incapacitated by a wound for a military career, had devoted himself to the chivalry of religion. The members of the society which he instituted were not, like the monks, to devote themselves to setting an example of ascetic self-denial, nor, like the friars, to combine asceticism with preaching or well-doing. Each Jesuit was to give himself up to winning souls to the Church, whether from heathenism or from heresy. With this end, the old soldier who established the society placed it under more than military discipline. The first virtue ofthe Jesuit was obedience. He was to be in the hands of his superior as a stisk hi thehJind of a man. Hewag,|j*/ do as he was bidden, -ew^^Sw^^lenSe^^^KMrtTIavhe vrasbidden to commit mortal sin. What was hardest, perhaps, of all was that he was not allowed to judge his own character in choosing his work. He might think that he was admirably qualified to be a missionary in China, but if his superior ordered him to teach boys in a school, a schoolmaster he must become. He might belie\e himself to be a great scholar and fitted by nature to impart his knowledge to the young, but if his superior ordered him to go as a missionary to China, to China he must go. Discipline volun tarily accepted is a great power in the world, and this power the Jesuits possessed. 14. The Danger frora Scotland. 1561 — 1565. — Whilst the opposing forces of Calvinism and the reformed Papacy were laying the foundations of a struggle which would split western Europe in twain, Elizabeth was hampered in her efforts to avert a dis ruption of her own realm by the necessity of watching the proceedings of the Queen of Scots. If in Elizabeth the politician predominated over the woman, in Mary the woman predominated over the pohtician. She was keen of sight, strong in feeling, and capable of forming far-reaching schemes, till the gust of passion swept over her and ruined her plans and herself together. After her arrival in Scotland she not only acknowledged the new Calvin istic establishment, but put down with a strong hand the Earl of Huntly, who attempted to resist it, whilst on the other hand she insisted, in defiance of Knox, on the retention of the mass in her own chapel. It is possible that there was in all this a settled design to await some favourable opportunity, as she knew that there were many in Scotland who cherished the old faith. It is possible, on the other hand, that she thought for a time of making the best of her uneasy position, and preferred to be met 438 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1565-1566 with smiles rather than with frowns. Knox, however, took care that there should be frowns enough. There was no tolerant thought in that stern heart of his, and he knew well that Mary would in the end be found to be fighting for her creed and her party. Her dancing and light gaiety he held to be profane. The mass, he said, was idolatry, and according to Scripture the idolater must die.- There was in Scotland as yet no broad middle class on which Mary could rely, and, feeling herself insulted both as a queen and as a woman, she took up Knox's challenge. She had but the weapons of craft with which to fight, but she used them admirably, and before long, with her winning grace, she had the greater •numbjr of the nobilitj at her feet._ ^ , ^ 15. The' Oarnley Marriage.' 1565. — The sense of mental superiority could not satisfy a woman such as Mary. Her life was a lonely one, and it was soon known that she was On the look-out for a husband. The choice of a husband by the ruler of Scotland could not be indifferent to Elizabeth, and in 1564 Elizabeth offered to Mary her own favourite Dudley, whom she created Earl of Leicester. Very likely Elizabeth imagined that Leicester would be as pleasing to Mary as he was to herself Mary could only regard the proposal as an insult. In 1565 she married her second cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.' Elizabeth, was alarmed, taking the marriage as a sign that Mary intended to defy her in everything, and urged the Scottish malcontents, at whose head was Mary's illegitimate brother, the Earl of Murray, to rebel. Mary chased them into England, where Elizabeth protested loudly and falsely that she knew nothing of their conspiracy. 16. The Murder of Rizzio. 1566. — Mary had taken a coarse- minded fool for her husband, and had to suffer from him all the tyranny which a heartless man has it in his power to inflict on a woman. Her heart craved for affection, and Darnley, who plunged * Genealogy of Mary and Darnley : — (i) Jaraes IV. =Margaret Tudor=(2) Archibald Douglas, 1488-1513 I I Earl of Angus Mary of Guise= James V. Matthew Stuart, = Margaret Douglas I 1513-1543 Earl of Lennox 1 Francis 11.= Mary = Henry Stuart, King of 1542- I Lord Darnley France 15^ I % I James VI . 1567-1625 1566-1567 THE MURDER OF DARNLEY 439 without scruple into the most degrading vice, believed, or affected to believe, that his wife had sacrificed her honour to David Rizzio, a cultivated Italian who acted as her secretary, and carried on her correspondence with the Continental powers. A league for the mur der of Rizzio — such things were common in Scotland — was formed between Darnley and the Protestant lords. On March 9, 1566, they burst into Mary's supper-room at Holyrood. Rizzio clung to his patroness's robe, but was dragged off and slain. Murray with his fellow-conspirators came back to Scotland. Mary, however, with loving looks and words, won over the husband whom she despised, broke up the confederacy, and drove most of the con federates out of the country. 17. The Murder of Darnley. 1567. — On June 19 Mary gave birth to a son, afterwards James VI. of Scotland, and James I. of England. His birth gave strength to the party in England which was anxious to have Mary named heiress of the crown. Whatever little chance there was of Elizabeth's consent being won was wrecked through a catastrophe in which Mary became involved. Mary despised her miserable husband as thoroughly as he deserved. He at least, weak as water, could give her no help in her struggle with the nobles. Her passionate heart found in the Earl of Both- well one who seemed likely to give her all that she needed — a strong will in a strong body, and a brutal directness which might form a complement to her own intellectual keenness. Mary and Bothwell were both married, but Bothwell at least was not to be deterred by such an obstacle as this. The evidence on Mary's conduct is conflicting, and modern enquirers have not succeeded in coming to an agreement about it. It is possible that she did not actually give her assent to the evil deed which set her free ; but it can hardly be doubted that she at least willingly closed her eyes to the preparations made for her husband's murder. Whatever the truth as to her own complicity may be, it is certain that on February 10, 1567, Darnley was blown up by gunpowder at Kirk o' Field, a lonely house near Edinburgh, and slain by Bothwell, or by Bothwell's orders, as he was attempting to escape. Bothwell then obtained a divorce from his own wife, carried Mary off— not, as was firmly believed at the time, against her will— and married her. 18. The Deposition and Flight of Mary. 1567— 1568.- Maiy, in gaining a husband, had lost Scotland. Her subjects rose against her as an adulteress and a murderess. At Carberry Hill, on June 15, 1567, her own followers refused to defend her, and she was forced to surrender, whilst Bothwell fled to Denmark, remaining 440 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1567-1569 in exile for the rest of his life. Mary was imprisoned in a castle on an island in Loch Leven, and on July 24 she was forced to abdicate in favour of her son. Murray acted as regent in the infant's name. On May 2, 1568; Mary effected her escape, and rallied to her side the family of the Hamiltons, which was all- powerful in Clydesdale. On May 13 she was defeated by Murray . at Langside, near Glasgow. Rid ing hard for the Solway Firth, she threw herself into a boat, and found herself safe in Cum berland. She at once appealed to Elizabeth, asking not for pro tection only, but for an EngUsh army to replace her on the throne of Scotland. 19. Mary's Case before Eng lish Commissioners. 1568 — 1569. Elizabeth could hardly replace her rival in power, and was still less inclined to set her at liberty, lest she should go to France, and bring with her to Scotland another French army. After innumerable changes of mind Elizabeth appointed a body of commissioners to consider the case against Mary. Before .them Murray produced certain letters contained in a casket, and taken after Bothwell's flight. The cas ket letters, as they are called, were alleged to be in Mary's" handwriting, and, if genuine, place out of doubt her guilty passion fcr Bothwell, and her connivance in her husband'.s Silver-gilt standing cup made in London in 1569-70, and given to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Parker, 1568-1570 THE RISING IN THE NORTH 441' murder. They were acknowledged by the commissioners, with the concurrence of certain English lords who were pohtically partisans of Mary, to be in her hand. Mary —either, as her adversaries allege, because she knew that she was guilty, or as her supporters allege, because she was afraid that she could not obtain justice— withdrew her advocates, and pleaded with Elizabeth for a personal interview. This Elizabeth refused to grant, but on the other hand she denied the right of the Scots to depose their queen. Mary remained virtually a prisoner in England. She was an interesting prisoner, and in spite of all her faults there were many who saw in her claim to the English crown the easiest means of re-establishing the old Church and the old nobility. 20. The Rising in the North. 1569. — The old Church and the old nobility were strongest in the North, where the Pilgrimage of Grace had broken out in 1536 (see p. 397). The northern lords, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, longed to free Mary, to proclaim her queen of England, and to depose Elizabeth. They were, however, prepared to content themselves with driving Cecil from power, with forcing Elizabeth to acknowledge Mary as her heir, and to withdraw her support from Protestantism. Mary, according to this latter plan, was to marry the Duke of Norfolk, the son of that Earl of Surrey who had been executed in the last days of Henry VIII. (see p. 411). On October 18 Elizabeth, suspecting that Norfolk was entangling himself with the Queen of Scots, sent him to the Tower. Northumberland and Westmorland hesitated what course to pursue, but a message from the Queen requiring their presence at Court decided them, and they rose' in insurrec tion. On- November 14, with the northern gentry and yeomanry at their heels, they entered Durham Cathedral, tore in pieces the English Bible and Prayer Book, and knelt in fervour of devotion whilst mass was said for the last time in any one ofthe old cathedrals of England. Elizabeth sent an army against the earls. Both of them were timorous and unwariike, and they fled to Scotland before the year was ended, leaving their followers to the vengeance of Elizabeth. Little mercy was shown to the insurgents, and cruel executions fol lowed this unwise attempt to check the progress of the Reformation. 21. The Papal Excommunication. 1570.— Ehzabeth, it seemed for all her triumph over the earis, had a hard struggle still before her. In January 1570 the regent Murray was assassinated by Hamilton, of Bothwellhaugh, and Mary's friends began again to raise their heads in Scotland. In April Pope Pius V. excommuni cated Ehzabeth and absolved her subjects from their allegiance. IL GG '442 THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT 1570 In May, a fanatic named Felton affixed the Pope's bull of excom munication to the door of the Bishop of London's house. Felton was eventually seized and executed, but his deed was a challenge which Elizabeth would be compelled to take up. Hitherto she had trusted to time to bring her subjects into one way of thinking, knowing that the younger generation was likely to be on her side. She had taken care to deal as lightly as possible with those who shrank from abandoning the religion of their childhood, and she had recently announced that they were free to belipve what they would if only they woiild accept her supremacy, The Pope had now made it clear that he would not sanction this compromise. English men must choose between him and their queen. On the side of the Pope it might be argued with truth that with Elizabeth on the throne it would be impossible to maintain the Roman Catholic faith and organisation. On the side of the queen it might be argued that if the Papal claims were admitted it would be impossible to maintain the authority of the national government. A deadly conflict was imminent, in which the liberty of individuals would suffer whichever side gained the upper hand. Nations, like per sons, cannot attend to more than one important matter at a time, and the great question at issue in Elizabeth's reign was whether the nation was to be independent of all foreign powers in ecclesi astical as well as in civil affairs. CHAPTER XXIX ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT. 1570— 1587 LEADING DATES Reign of Elizabeth, 1558—1603 The Execution of the Duke of Norfolk . . 15JJ The foundation of the Dutch Republic . 1572 The arrival of the Jesuits . .' . . . jrgo The Association . j-g. Babington's Plot lege Execution of Mary Stuart 1587 I. The Continental Powers. 1566—1570.-11 the Catholic powers of the Continent had been able to assist the English Catholics Elizabeth would hardly have suppressed the rising in the North. It happened, however, that neither in the Spanish Nether- 1 566-1 570 FRANCE, SPAIN, AND SCOTLAND 443 lands nor in France were the governments in a position to quarrel with her. In the Netherlands Philip, who burnt and slaughtered Protestants without mercy, was in 1566 opposed by the nobility, and in 1568 he sent the Duke of Alva, a relendess soldier, to Brussels with a Spanish army to establish the absolute authority of the king and the absolute authority of the Papacy. In 1569 Alva believed himself to have accomplished his task by wholesale executions, and by the destruction of the constitutional privileges of the Netherlanders. His rule was a grinding tyranny, rousing both Catholics and Protestants to cry out for the preservation of their customs and liberties from the intruding Spanish army. Alva had therefore no men to spare to send to aid the English Catholics. In France the civil war had brokeh out afresh in 1568, and in 1569 the Catholics/ headed by Henry, Duke of Guise, the son of the murdered Duke Francis (see p. 436), and by Henry, Duke of Anjou, the brother of the young king, Charles IX., won victories at Jarnac and Moncontour. Charles and his mother took alarm lest the Catholics should become too powerful for the royal authority, and in 1570 a peace was signed once more, the French king refusing to be the instrument of persecution and being very much afraid of the establishment of a Catholic government in England which might give support to the Catholics of France. Accordingly in 1570, France would not interfere in England if she could, whilst Spain could not interfere if she would. 2. The Anjou Marriage Treaty and the Ridolfi Plot. 1570 — 1571. — For all that, Elizabeth's danger was great. In 1570 she had done her best to embroil parties in Scotland lest they should join against herself The bulk of- the nobility in that country had thrown themselves on the side of Mary, and were fighting against the new regent, Lennox, having taken alarm at the growth of the popular Church organisation of Knox and the Presbyterians, who sheltered themselves under the title of the little James VI. At home Elizabeth expected a fresh outbreak, and could not be certain that Alva would be unable to support it when it occurred. Cecil accordingly pleaded hard with her to marry the frivolous Duke of Anjou. He thought that unless she married and had children, her subjects would turn from her to Mary, who, having already a son, would give them an assured succession. If she was to many, an alliance with the tolerant Government of France was better than any other. Elizabeth indeed consented to open negotiations for the marriage, though it was most unlikely that she would ever really make up her mind to it. The English Catholics, in conse- GG 3 444 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1566-1571 quence, flung themselves into the arms of the king of Spain, and in March 1571, Ridolfi, a Florentine banker residing in England, who" carried on their correspondence with Alva, crossed to the Nether lands to inform him that the great majority of the lay peers had invited him to send 6,000 Spanish soldiers to dethrone Elizabeth and to put Mary in her place. Norfolk, who had been released from the Tower (see p. 441), was then to become the husband of Mary, and it was hoped that there would spring from the marriage a long hne of Cathohc sovereigns ready to support the Papal Church. 3. Elizabeth and the Puritans. — Elizabeth's temporising policy had naturally strengthened the Calvinism of the Calvinistic clergy. In every generation there are some who ask not what is expedient but what is true, and the very fact that they aim at truthj in defianie of all earthly considerations, not merely assures them influence, but diffuses around them a life and vigour which would be entirely wanting if all men were content to support that which is politically or socially convenient. Such were the best of the Enghsh Puritans, so called bepause, though they did not insist upon the abolition of Episcopacy or the establishment of the Calvinistic \ discipline (see p. 431), they contended for what they called purity of worship, which meant the rejection of such rites and vestments as reminded them of what they termed the idolatry of the Roman Church. Elizabeth and Parker had from time to time interfered; and some of the Puritan leaders had been deprived of tlieir bene fices for refusing to wear the cap and surplice. 4. Elizabeth and Parliament. 1566. — From 1566 to 1571 Elizabeth abstained from summoning a Parliament, having been far more economical than any one of the last three sovereigns. Early in her reign she had restored the currency, and after the session of 1566 had actually returned to her subjects a subsidy which had been voted to her and which had been already collected. Her reason for avoiding Parhaments was pohtical. Neither of the Houses was likely to favour her ecclesiastical pohcy. The House of Lords wanted her to go backwards— to declare Mary her successor and to restore the mass. The House of Commons wanted her to go forwards— to marry, and have children of her own, and to alter the Prayer Book in a Puritan direction. In 1566, if the House of Commons had really represented the average opinion of the nation, she would have been obliged to yield. That > A subsidy was a tax on lands and goods voted by Parliament to the Crown, resembling in raany respects the modern income-tax. 1 566-1 57 1 ELIZABETH AND PURITANISM 445 it did not was partly owing to the imposition in 1562 of the oath of supremacy upon its members, by which all who favoured the Pope's authority were excluded from its benches, but still more on account of the difficulty of packing a Pariiament so as to suit the queen's moderate ideas. Those who admired the existing Church system were but few. The majority of the nation, even if those who refused to accept the Royal supremacy were left out of account, was undoubtedly sufficiently attached to the old state of things to be favourable at least to Mary's claim to be acknowledged as heir to the throne. To Elizabeth it was of the first importance that the influence of the Crown should be used to reduce the numbers of such men in the House of Commons. If, however, they were kept out, there was nothing to be done but to favour the election of Puritans, or at least ofthose who had a leaning towards Puritanism. The queen, therefore, having to make her choice between those who objected to her proceedings as too Protestant and those who objected to them as not Protestant enough, not unnaturally pre- ferred the latter. 5. A Puritan Parliaraent. 1571. — In 1571 Elizabeth had to deal with a Puritan House of Commons. The House granted supplies, and wanted to impose new penalties on the Roman Catholics and to suppress ecclesiastical abuses. One of the members named Strickland, having ¦ proposed to ask leave to amend the Prayer Book, the Queen ordered him to absent himself from the House. The House was proceeding to remonstrate when Elizabeth, too prudent to allow a quarrel to spring up, gave him permission to return. She had her way, however, and the Prayer Book remained untouched. She was herself a better representative of the nation than the House of Commons, but as yet she represented it only as standing between two hostile parties ; though she hoped that the time would come when she would have a strong middle party of her own. 6. The Duke of Norfolk's Plot and Execution. 1571 — 1572. For the present Elizabeth's chief enemies were the conspirators who were aiming at placing Mary on her throne. In April 1571 Ridolfi reached the Netherlands, and urged Alva to send a Spanish army to England. Alva was cautious, and thought the attempt dangerous unless Elizabeth had first been killed or captured. Philip was consulted, gave his approval to the murder, but after wards drew back, though he ordered Alva to proceed with the invasion. In the meanwhile Cecil, who had just been made Lord Burghley, came upon traces of the plot. Norfolk was arrested, and 446 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1571-1572 before the end of the year everything was known. Though the proposal of a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou had lately broken down, she now, in her anxiety to find support in France against Spain, entered into a negotiation to marry Anjou's brother, the Duke of Alengon, a vicious lad twenty-one years younger than herself Then she was free to act. She drove the Spanish ambassador out of England, and Norfolk was tried and convicted of treason. A fresh Pariiament meeting in 1572 urged the queen to consent to the execution of Mary. Elizabeth refused, but she sent Norfolk to the block. 7. The Admonition to Parliament. 1572. — The rising in the North and the invitation to bring a Spanish army into England could not but fan the zeal of the Puritans. At the beginning of the reign they had contented themselves with calling for the abolition of certain ceremonies. A more decided party now added a demand for the abolition of episcopacy and the establishment of Presby terianism and of the complete Calvinistic discipline. The leader of this party was Thomas Cartwright, a theological professor at Cambridge, the university which had produced the greater number of the reformers, as it now produced the greater number of Puritans. In 1570, Cartwright was expelled from his Professorship. He sym pathised with An Admoitition to Parliament written in 1572 by two of his disciples, and himself wrote A Second Admonition to Parliament, to second their views. Cartwright was far from claiming for the Puritans the position of a sect to be tolerated. He had no thought of establishing religious liberty in his mind. He declared the Presbyterian Church to be the only divinely appointed one, and asked that all Englishmen should be forced to submit to its ordinances. The civil magistrate was to have no control over its ministers. All active religious feeling being enlisted either on the Papal or the Puritanical side, Elizabeth's reformed, but not Puritan, Church seemed likely to be crushed between two forces. It was saved by the existence of a large body of men who cared for other things more than for religious disputes, and who were ready to defend the Queen as ruler of the nation without any special regard for the ecclesiastical system which she maintained. 8. Mariners and Pirates.— Of all Elizabeth's subjects there were none who stood their country in such good stead in the impending conflict with Spain and the Papacy as the mariners. Hardy and reckless, they cared little for theological distinctions or for forms of Church government, their first insdnct being to fill their own purses either by honest trade if it might be, or by piracy if that seemed 1572 WESTWARD HO ! 447 likely to be more profitable. Even before Elizabeth's accession, the Channel and the seas beyond it swarmed with English pirates. Though the pirates cared nothing for the nationality of the vessels which they plundered, it was inevitable that the greatest loss should fall on Spain. Spain was the first maritime power in the world, and her galleons as they passed up to Antwerp to exchange the silks and spices of the East for the commodities of Europe, fell an easy prey to the swift and well-armed cruisers which put out from English harbours. The Spaniards retaliated by seizing English sailors wherever they could lay their hands upon them, sometniies hanging them out of hand, sometimes destroying them with starvation and misery in fetid dungeons, sometimes handing them over to the Inquisition — a court the function of which was the suppression of heresy — in other words, to the torture-room or the stake. 9. West-ward Ho ! — Every year the hatred between the mariners of Spain and England grew more bitter, and it was not long before English sailors angered the king of Spain by crossing the Atlantic to trade or plunder in the West Indies, where both the islands and the mainland of Mexico and South America were full of Spanish settle ments. In those days a country which sent out colonies claimed the sole right of trading with them ; besides which the king of Spain claimed a right of refusing to foreigners an entrance into his American dominions because, towards the end of the fifteenth cen tury, Pope Alexander VI. being called on to mediate between Spain and Portugal, had drawn a line on the map to the east of which was to be the Portuguese colony of Brazil, whilst all the rest of America to the west of it was to be Spanish. From this the Spaniards reasoned that all America except Brazil was theirs by the gift of the Pope— which in their eyes was equivalent to the gift of God. English sailors refusing to recognise this pretension, sailed to the Spanish settlements to trade, and attacked the Spanish officials who tried to prevent them. The Spanish settlers were eager to get negro slaves to cultivate their plantations, and Enghshmen were equally eager to kidnap negroes in Africa and to sell them in the West Indies. A curious combination of the love of gain and of Protestantism sprang up amongst the sailors, who had no idea that to sell black men was in any way wrong. One engaged in this villatious work explained how he had been saved from the perils of the sea by 'Almighty God, who never suffers his elect to perish ! ' There was money enough to be got, and sometimes there would be hard fighting and the gain or loss of all. 448 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1572 10.. Francis Drake's Voyage to Panama. 1572. — The noblest of these mariners was Francis Drake. Sickened by one experience Sir Francis Diake, in his 43rd year from the engraving by Elstracke. of the slave trade, and refusing to take any further part in it he flew at the wealth of the Spanish Government. In 1572 he sailed for Nombre de Dios, on the Atlantic side of the isthmus of IS72-IS76 THE DUTCH STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM 449 Panama. Thither were brought once a year gold and silver from the mines of Peru. In the governor's house Drake found a pile of silver bars. " I have now," he said to his men, " brought you to the mouth of the treasury of the worid." He himself was wounded, and his followers, having little spirit to fight without their leader, were beaten off. " I am resolved," he said somewhat later to a Spaniard, « by the help of God,, to reap some of the golden harvest which you have got out of the earth and sent to Spain to trouble the earth." It was his firm conviction that he was serving God in robbing the king of Spain. Before he returned some Indians showed him from a tree on the isthmus the waters of the Pacific, which no civilised people except the Spaniards had ever navigated. Drake threw himself on his knees, praying to God to give him life and to allow him to sail an English vessel on those seas. II. The Seizure of Brill, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 1572-— Exiles from the Netherlands took refuge on the sea from Alva's tyranny, and plundered Spanish vessels as Englishmen had done before. In 1572 a party of these seized Brill and laid the foundations of the Dutch Republic. They called on Charles IX. of France to help them, and he (being under the influence of Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots) was eager to make war on Spain on their behalf. Charles's mother, Catherine de Medicis, was, how ever, alarmed lest the Huguenots should grow too powerful, and frightened her son with a tale that they were conspiring against him. He was an excitable youth, and turned savagely on the Huguenots, encouraging a fearful butchery of them, which is known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, because it took place on August 24, which was St. Bartholomew's day. Coligny himself was among the victims. 12. The Growth of the Dutch Republic. 1572-1578. — By this time the provinces of Holland and Zeeland had risen against Spain. They placed at their head the Prince of Orange with the title of Stadtholder or Lieutenant, as if he had been still the lieu tenant of the king of Spain whom he resisted. The rebels had but a scanty force wherewith to defend themselves against the vast armies of Spain. Alva took town after town, sacked them, and butchered man, woman and child within. In 1574 Leyden was saved from his attack. Holland is below the sea-level, and the Dutch cut the dykes which kept off the sea, and when the tide rushed in, sent flat-bottomed vessels over what had once been land, and rescued the town from the besiegers. Alva, disgusted at his failure, returned to Spain. In 1576 his successor Requesens died. Spain, with all the wealth 450 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT TS^6-^lt,^% of the Indies pouring into it, was impoverished by the vastness of the work which Philip had undertaken in trying to maintain the power of the Roman Catholic Church in all western Europe. The expenses ofthe war in the Netherlands exhausted his treasury, and on the death of Requesens, the Spanish army mutinied, plundered even that part of the country which was friendly to Spain, and s.acked Antwerp with barbarous cruelty. Then the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands drove out the Spaniards, and bound themselves by the Pacification of Ghent into a con federate Republic. In 1578 Alexander, duke of Parma, arrived as the Spanish governor. He was a great warrior and statesman, and he won over the Catholic provinces of the southern Netherlands to his side. By the Union of Utrecht the Prince of Orange formed a new confederate republic of the seven northern provinces, which were mainly Protestant. 13. Quiet Times in England. 1572-1577. — Tlie Spaniards, were no longer able to interfere in England. Elizabeth was equally safe from the side of France. In 1573 Charles IX. died, and was succeeded by Elizabeth's old suitor Anjou as Henry III. There were fresh civil wars which gave him enough to do at home. In 1573 Elizabeth sent aid to the party of the young king in Scotland, and suppressed the last remnants of Mary's party there. In England she pursued her old policy. Men might think what they would, but they must not discuss their opinions openly. There must be as little preaching as possible, and when the clergy began to hold meetings called prophesyings for discussion on the Scriptures-, she ordered Grindal, who had succeeded Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury, to suppress them, and on his refusal in 1577 suspended him from his office, and put down the prophesyings herself. 14. Drake's Voyage. 1577-1580 — Elizabeth had no sympathy with the heroic Netherlanders, who fought for liberty and conscience, but she had sympathy with the mariners who by fair means or foul brought treasure into the realm. In 1577 Drake sailed for that Pacific which he had long been eager to enter. Passing through the Straits of Magellan, he found himself alone on the unknown ccean with the 'Pelican,' a little ship of 100 tons. He ranged up the coast of South America, seizing treasure where he landed, but never doing any cruel deed. The Spaniards, not thinking it pos sible that an English ship could be there, took the 'Pelican' for one of their own vessels, and were easily caught. At Tarapaca, for instance, Drake found a Spaniard asleep with bars of silver by his gide. At another landing place he found eight ll.nmas laden with' 1547-1580 IRELAND AND THE REFORMATION 451 silver. So he went on, till he took a great vessel with jewels in plenty, thirteen chests of silver coin, eighty pounds' weight of gold, and twenty-six tons of silver. With all this he sailed home by way of the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in England in 1580, being the first commander who had circumnavigated the globe.' The king of Spain was furious, and demanded back the wealth of which his subjects had been robbed. Elizabeth gave him good words, but not a penny of money or money's worth. 15. Ireland and the Reformation. 1547. — Since the death of Henry VIIL the manage ment of Ireland had been increasingly diffi cult An attempt had been made in the reign of Edward VI. to establish the reformed religion. All that was then done had been over- tlirown by Mary, and what Mary did was in turn overthrown by Elizabeth. As yet, however, the orders of the English Government to make re ligious changes in Ireland were of compara tively little importance. The power of the Government did not reach far, and even in the districts to which it extended there was none of that mental preparation for the reception of the new doctrines which was to be found -in England. The Reformation was accepted by very few, except by English officials, who were ready to accept anything to please the Govern ment. Those who dung to the old ways, how ever, were not at all zealous for their failh, and there was as yet no likelihood that any reli gious insurrection like the Pilgrimage of Grace or the rising in the North would be heard of in Ireland. The lives of the Celtic chiefs and (he Anglo-Norman lords were passed in blood- shedding and looseness of life, which made them very unfit to be champions of any religion whatever. 16. Ireland under Edward VI. and Mary. iS47— ^SSS-— The real difficulty ofthe Enghsh Government in Ireland lay in its rela tions with the Irish tribes, whether under Celtic chiefs or Anglo- Norman lords. At the end of the reign of Edward VI. an attempt had been made to revert to the better part of the policy of Henry 1 Magellan died on the way, though his ship completed the voyage round the world. Armour as worn during the reign of Eliza beth : from the brass of Francis Clopton, 1577, at Long Mel ford, Suffolk. 452 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT iS47-i579 VIIL, and the heads of the tribes were entrusted by the government with powers to keep order in the hope that they would gradually settle down into civilisation and obedience. Such a polfcy required almost infinite patience on the part of the Government, and the Earl of Sussex, who was Lord Deputy under Mary, began again -: the old mischief of making warlike attacks upon the Irish which he had not force or money enough to render effectual. It was Mary and not a Protestant sovereign who first sent English colonists to occupy the lands of the turbulent Irish in King's County; | and Queen's County — then much smaller than at present. A war of extermination at once began. The natives massacred the intruders and the intruders massacred the natives, till — far on in Elizabeth's reign — the natives had been all slaughtered or expelled. There was thus introduced into the heart of Ireland a body of . Englishmen who, no doubt, were far more advanced in the arts of life than the Irish around them, but who treated the Irish with utter contempt, and put them to death without mercy. 17. Elizabeth and Ireland. 1558—1578. — From the time of the settlement of King's and Queen's Counties all chance of a peaceable arrangement was at an end. Elizabeth, much as she spent on Ireland, had not money enough to support an army capable of subduing the country, nor had the Irish tribes or lords sufficient trust in one another to unite together in any national resistance. There was, in fact, no Irish nation. Tribe fought against tribe, " and chief with chief, and the English troops, as savage as the Irish, fought against all in turn. Elizabeth attempted to set aside the autho rity of the lords and chiefs, and to give all power to officials of her own ; but she could not make her English officials give protection to the natives. They were apt to treat the Irish as if they were vermin to be destroyed. New attempts at colonisation were made, with the result that the Irish drove out the colonists, and that Ireland was in a more chaotic state than if it had been left to its own disorder. 18. The Landing at Smerwick, and the Desmond Rising. 1579 — 1583. — Elizabeth's servants were the more anxious to subdue Ireland by the process of exterminating Irishmen, because they believed that the Irish would welcome Spaniards if they came to establish a government in Ireland hostile to Elizabeth. On the other hand, the English Catholics, and especially the English Catholic clergy in exile on the Continent, fancied, wrongly, that the Irish were fighting for the papacy, and not for tribal independence, or, rather, for bare life, which tribal independence alone secured. In 1579 Sir James Fitzmaurice, with a party of Italian and other 1579- 1 S8o THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND 453 soldiers, landed at Smerwick under the authority of fhe Pope, but was overpowered and slaughtered by Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy. Then the Earl of Desmond, the head of a branch of the family of Fitzgerald, which was all-powerful in Munster, rose in insurrection. The insurrection was put down by the usual barbarous methods, and Desmond himself was slain in 1583. It is said that in 1582 no less than 30,000 perished — mostly of starvation — in a single year. It is an English witness who tells us of the poor wretches who survived, that 'out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them ; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them.' 19. The Jesuits in England. 1580. — In England the landing of a papal force at Smerwick produced the greater alarm because Parma (see p. 450) had been gaining ground in the Netherlands, and the time might soon come when a Spanish army would be available for the invasion of England. For the present what the Government feared was any interruption to the process by which the new religion was replacing the old. In 1571 there had been an act of Parliament in answer to the Papal Bull of Deposition (see p. 442), declaring all who brought Bulls into the country, and all who "were themselves reconciled to the see of Rome, or who recon ciled others to be traitors, but for a long time no use was made by Elizabeth of these powers. The Catholic exiles, however, had wit nessed with sorrow the gradual decay of their religion in England, and in. 1568 William Allen, one of their number, had founded a college at Douai (removed in 1578 to Reims) as a seminary for missionaries to England. It was not long before seminary priests, as the missionaries were called, began to land in England to revive the zeal of their countrymen, but it was not till 1577 that one of them, Ctithbert Mayne, was executed, technically for bringing in a copy of a Bull of a trivial character, but really for maintaining that Catholics would be justified in rising to assist a foreign force sent to reduce England to obedience to the Papacy. There were, in fact, two rival powers inconsistent with one another. If the Papal power was to prevail, the Queen's authority must be got rid of If the Queen's power was to prevail, the Pope's authority must be got rid of In 1580 two Jesuits, Campion and Parsons, landed. They brought with them an explanation of the Bull of Deposition, which practically meant that no one need act on it till it was convenient to do so. They went about making converts and strengthening the lukewarm in the resolution to stand by their faith. ^ii^ ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1580-1581 20. The Recusancy Laws. 1581. — Elizabeth in her dread of religious strife had done her best to silence rehgious -discussion and even religious teaching. Men in an age of religious contro versy are eager to believe something. All the more vigorous of the Protestants were at this time Puritans, and now the more vigorous of those who could not be Puritans welcomed the Jesuits with joy. Therewere never many Jesuits in England, but for a time they gave life and vigour to the seminary priests who were not Jesuits. In 1581 Parliament, seeing nothing in what had hap pened but a conspiracy against the Crown, passed the first of the acts which became known as the Recusancy laws. In addition to the penalties on reconciliation to Rome and the introduction of Bulls, fines and imprisonmeHt were to be inflicted for hearing_or saying mass, and fines uponJay_recusMtSj--that_is_to say, persons who refused to go to church. Catholics were from this time fre- quentiy subjected to torture to drive them to give information which would lead to the apprehension of the priests. Campion was arrested and executed after cruel torture ; Parsons escaped. If the Government and the Parliament did not see the whole of the causes of the Jesuit revival, they were not wrong in seeing that there was political danger. Campion was an enthusiast. Parsons was a cool-headed intriguer, and he continued from the Continent to direct the threads of a conspiracy which aimed at Elizabeth's life. ., 21. Growing Danger of Elizabeth. 1580 — 1584. — Elizabeth was seldom startled, but her ministers were the more frightened because the power of Spain was growing. In 1580 Philip took possession of Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, whilst in the Netherlands Parma was steadily gaining ground, Elizabeth had long been nursing the idea of the Alengon marriage (see p. 446), and in 1581 it seemed as if she was in earnest about it. She enter tained the Duke at Greenwich, gave him a kiss and a ring, then changing her mind sent him off to the Netheriands, where he hoped to be appointed by the Dutch to the sovereignty of the independeht states. In the spring of 1582 a fanatic, Jaureguy, tried to murder the Prince of Orange at Philip's instigation. Through the summer of that year Parsons and Allen were plotting with Philip and the Duke of Guise, for the assassination of Elizabeth, on the under standing that as soon as Elizabeth had been killed. Guise was to send or lead an army to invade England. They hoped that such an army would receive assistance from Scotland, where the young James had become the tool of a Catholic intriguer whom he made 1583 SCOTLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS 455 Duke of Lennox. Philip, however, was too dilatory to succeed. In August James was seized by some Protestant Lords, and Lennox Hall of Burghley House, Northamptonshire, built about 1580 : from Drummond's Histories of Noble British Families, vol. i. was soon driven from the country. In 1583 there was a renewal of the danger. The foolish Alengon, wishing to carve out a princi pality for himself, made a violent attack on Antwerp and other 456 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1583-1585 Flemish towns which had allied themselves with him, and was consequently driven from the country ; whilst Parma, taking advantage of this split amongst his enemies, conquered most of the towns — Antwerp, however, being still able to resist. He now held part of the coast line, and a Spanish invasion of England from the Netherlands once more became feasible. In November 1583 a certain Francis Throgmorton, having been arrested and racked, made known to Elizabeth the whole story of the intended invasion of the army of Guise. In January 1584 she sent the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, out of England. On June 29 Balthazar Gerard assassinated the Prince of Orange. 22. The Association. 1584 — 1585. — Those who had planned the murder of the Prince of Orange were planning the murder of Elizabeth. In their eyes she was a usurper, who by main force held her subjects from all hope of salvation by keeping them in ignorance ofthe teaching of the' true Church, and they accordingly drew the inference that it was lawful to murder her and to place Mary on her throne. They did not see that they had to do with a nation and not with a queen alone, and that, whether the nation was as yet Protestant or not, it was heart and soul with Elizabeth against assassins and invaders. In November 1584, at the instigation oi the Council, the mass of Englishmen — irrespective of creed^bound themselves in an association not only to defend the Queen, but, in case of her murder, to put to death the person for whose sake the crime had been committed— or, in other words, to send Mary to the grave instead of to the throne. In 1585 this association, with con siderable modifications, was confirmed by Pariiament. At the same time an act was passed banishing all Jesuits and seminary priests, and directing that they should be put to death if they returned. 23. Growth of Philip's Power. 1584-1585.— In the meantime Philip's power was still growing. The wretched Alengon died in 1584, and a far distant cousin of the childless Henry III., Henry king of Navarre, who was a Huguenot, became heir to the French throne. Guise and the ardent Catholics formed themselves into a league to exclude Huguenots from the succession, and placed themselves under the direction of the king of Spain. A civil war broke out once more in 1585, and if the league should win (as at first seemed likely) Philip would be able to dispose of the resources of France in addition to his own. As Guise had now enough to do at home, Phihp took the invasion of England into his own hands. He had first to extend his power in the Netherlands. In August the great port of Antwerp surrendered to Parma, The Dutch had 1586 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 457 offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, and, though she had prudently refused, she sent an army to their aid, but neutralised the gift by placing the wretched Leicester at its head, and by giving him not a penny wherewith to pay his men. In 1586, after an attempt (after Alengon's fashion) to seize the government for himself, Leicester returned to England, having accomplished nothing. What Ehzabeth did not do was done by a crowd of young Englishmen who pressed over to the Netherlands to fight as volun teers for Dutch freedom. The best known of these was Sir Philip Sidney, whose head and heart alike seemed to qualify him for a foremost place amongst the new generation of Englishmen. Unhappily he was slain in battle near Zutphen. As he lay dying he handed a cup of water untasted to another wounded man. ' Thy necessity,' he said to him, ' is greater than mine.' Parma took Zutphen, and the territory of the Dutch Republic — the bulwark of England — was the smaller by its loss. By sea England more than held her own, and in 1586 Drake returned from a voyage to the West Indies laden with spoils. 24. Babington's Plot, and the Trial of Mary Stuart. 1586. — The Spanish invasion being still delayed, a new plot for murdering Elizabeth was formed. A number of young Catholics (of whom Anthony Babington was the most prominent) had been allowed to remain at Court by Elizabeth, who was perfectly fearless. Acting under the instructions of a Jesuit named Ballard, they now sought basely to take advantage of their easy access to her person to assas sinate her. They were detected and executed, and Walsingham, the Secretary of State who conducted the detective department of the government, discovered, or said that he had discovered, evidence of Mary Stuart's approving knowledge of the conspiracy. Elizabeth's servants felt that there was but one way of saving the life of the queen, and that was by taking the life of her whose existence made it worth while to assassinate Elizabeth. Mary was brought to trial and condemned to death on a charge of complicity in Babington's plot. When Parliament met it petitioned Elizabeth to execute the sentence. Elizabeth could not make up her mind. She knew that Mary's execution would save herself and the country from enormous danger, but she shrank from ordering the deed to be done. She signed the warrant for -Mary's death, and then asked Mary's gaoler Paulet to save her from responsibility by murdering his prisoner. On Paulet's refusal she continued her vacillations, till the Council authorised Davison, Walsingham's colleague in the Secretaryship, to send off the warrant without further orders. II. H « 458 ELIZABETH AND THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 1587-1588 25. Execution of Mary Stuart. 1587.— On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded at FOtheringhay. Elizabeth carried out to the last the part which she had assumed, threw the blame on Davison, dismissed him from her service, and fined him heavily. After Mary's death the attack on England would have to be con ducted in open day. It would be no advantage to Philip and (he Pope that Elizabeth should be murdered if her place was to be taken, not by Mary, but by Mary's Protestant son, Jaines of Scotland. CHAPTER XXX ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH. 1587 — 1603 LEADING DATES Reign of Elizabeth, 1558— 1603 Drake singes the King of Spain's beard The defeat ofthe Armada The rising of O'Neill . The taking of Cadiz . Essex arrives in Ireland . Mountjoy arrives in Ireland The Monopolies withdrawn Conquest of Ireland, and death of Elizabeth 1587158S 1594 15961599 1600i6ai 1603 I. The Singeing of the King of Spain's Beard. 1587.— Afei; Mary's execution Philip claimed the crown of England for himself or his daughter the Infanta Isabella, on the plea that he was descended from a daughter of John of Gaunt, and prepared a great fleet in the Spanish and Portuguese harbours for the invasion of England. In attempting to overthrow Elizabetli he was eager not merely to suppress Enghsh Protestantism, but to put an end to Eng lish smuggling and piracy in Spanish America, and to stop the assis tance given by Englishmen to the Netherlanders who had rebelled against him. Before his fleet was ready to sail Drake appeared off his coast, running into his ports, burning his store-ships, and thus making an invasion impossible for that year (1587). Drake,"-? as he said on his return, had singed the king of Spain's beard. 2. The Approach of the Armada. 1588. — The Invincible Armada,' as some foolish Spaniards called Philip's great fleet, set > ' Armada ' was the Spanish name for any armed fleet. THE SPANISH ARMADA 459 out at last in 1588. It was to sail up the Channel to Flanders, and to transport Parma and his army to England. Parma's soldiers were the best disciplined veterans in Europe, while Ehzabeth's were raw militia, who had never seen a shot fired in actual war. If, therefore, Parma succeeded in landing, it would probably go Sir Martin Frobisher, died 1594 : from a picture belonging to the Earl of Carlisle. hard with ;5ngland. It was, therefore, in England's interest to fight the Armada at sea rather than on land. 3. The Ilquipment of the Armada. 1588. — Even at sea the odds were in appearance against the English. The Spanish ships were not indeed so much larger than the largest English vessels as has often beer, said, but they were somewhat larger, and they were H H 2 46o ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588 built so as to rise much higher out of the water, and to carry a greater number of men. In fact, the superiority was all on the English side. In great military or naval struggles the superiority of the victor is usually a superiority of intelhgencej which shows itself in the preparation of weapons as much as in conduct in action. The Spanish ships were prepared for a mode of warfare which had hitherto been customary. In such ships the soldiers were more numerous than the sailors, and the decks were raised higli above the water, in order that the soldiers might command^ with their muskets the decks of smaller vessels at close quarters. The Spaniards, trusting to this method of fighting, had not troubled themselves to improve their marine artillery. The cannon of their largest ships were few, arid the shot which they were capable of firing was light Philip's system of requiring absolute submission in Church and State had resulted in an uninventive frame of mind in those who carried out his orders. He had himself shown how httle he cared for ability in his selection of an admiral for his fleet. That post having become vacant by the death of the best seaman in Spain, Philip ordered the Duke of Medina, Sidonia to takejiis place. The Duke answered — with perfect truth — that he knew nothing, about the sea and nothing about war ; but Philip^ in spite of his candour, bade him go, and go he did. , « 4. The Equipment of the English Fleet. 1588.— Very differ^! was the equipment of the English fleet Composed partly of the queen's ships, but mainly of volunteers from every port, it was commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham, a Catholic by convic tion. The very presence of such a man was a token of a patriotic : fervour of which Philip and the Jesuits had taken no account, but which made the great majority of Catholics draw their swords foi . their queen and country. With him were old sailors like Frobisher, who had made his way through the ice of Arctic seas, or like Drake, who had beaten Spaniards till they knew their own superi ority. That superiority was based not merely on greater skill - as sailors, but on the possession of better ships. Enghsh ship builders had adopted an improved style of naval architectut^hav- ing constructed vessels which would sail faster and be more easily handled than those of the older fashion, and — what was of still greater importance—had built them so as to carry mo(-e and heavien cannon. Hence, the -Enghsh fleet, on board of which the number- of sailors exceeded that of the soldiers, was in reality — if only it could avoid fighting at close quarters— far superior to that of the enemy. The Spanish Armada Fight betw een the Enghsh and Spanish fleets off the Isle of Wight, July 25, 1588 . from tapestry formerly in the House of Lords. 462 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588 5. The Defeat of the Armada. 1588. — When the Armadaj was sighted at the mouth of the Channel, the English commander was playing bowls with his captains on Plymouth Hoe. Drakii refused to break off his amusement, saying that there was time to finish the game and to beat the Spaniards too. The wind was blowing strongly from the south-west, and he recommended Lord Howard to let the Spaniards pass, that the Enghsh fleet might follow them up with the wind behind it When opce they had gone by they were at the mercy of their English pursuers, who kept;but of their way whenever the Spaniards turned in pursuit The superiority of the English gunnery soon told, and, after losing shi^s in the voyage up the Channel, the Armada put into Calais. The English captains sent in fire-ships and drove the Spaniards out. Then came a fight off Gravelines— if fight _ it could be called— in which the helpless mass of the Armada was riddled with English shot. The wind rose into a storm, and pursuers and pursued were driven on past the coast of Flanders, where Parma's soldiers were blockaded by a Dutch fleet. Parma had hoped that the Armada when it came would set him free, and convoy him across to England. As he saw the tall ships of Spain hurrying past before the enemy and the storm, he learnt that the enterprise on which he had set his heart could never be carried out. 6. The Destruction of the Armada. 1588. — The Spanish fleet was driven northwards without hope of return, and narrowly escaipe^ wreck on the flats of Holland. " There was never anything pleased me better," wrote Drake, as he followed hard, " than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind to the northwards. . . . With the grace of God, if we live, I doubt not, ere it be long, so to handle the matter with the Duke "of Sidonia as he shall wish himself !at St Mary Port ^ amongst his orange trees." ^ Before long eveS Drake had had enough. Elizabeth, having with her usual econon^ kept the ships short of powder, they were forced to come back. The Spaniards had been too roughly handled to return home by. the way they came. Round the north of Scotland and the west of Ireland they went, strewing the coast with wrecks. Aboug 120 of their ships had entered the Channel, but only -54 returned. " I sent you," said Phihp to his admiral, " to fight against men, and not with the winds." Elizabeth, too, credited the storms with her success. She struck a medal with the inscription, " God blew with his wind and they were scattered." The winds had done their j ' A place near Cadiz where the Duke's residence was. SIR H^ALIER RALEIGH Sir Walter Rakigh (1552-1618) and his eldest son Walter, at the age of eight ; from a picture, dated 1602, belonging to Sir J. F. Lennard, Bart* 464 ELIZABETHS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588-1596 part, but the victory was mainly due to the seamanship of English mariners and the skill of English shipwrights. 7. Philip II. and France. 1588—1593. — Philip's hopes of con trolling France were before long baffled as completely as his hopes of controlling England. In 1588 Guise, the partisan of Spain, was murdered at Blois by the order of the king in his very presence. In 1589 Henry IIL was murdered in revenge by a fanatic, and the Huguenot king of Navarre claimed the crown as Henry IV. The League declared that no Huguenot should reign in France. A struggle ensued, and twice when Henry seemed to be gaining the upper hand Philip sent Parma to aid the League. The feeling of the French people was against a Huguenot king, but it was also against Spanish interference. When in 1593 Henry IV. declared himself a Catholic, Paris cheerfully submitted to him, and its example was speedily followed by the rest of France. Elizabeth saw in Henry IV. a king whose position as a national sovereign re sisting Spanish interference much resembled her own, and in 1589 and again in 1591 she sent him men and money. ' A close alliance against Spain sprang up between France and England. 8. Maritime Enterprises. 1^89—1596. — It was chiefly at sea, however, that Englishmen revenged themselves for the attack of the Armada. In 1592 Drake and Sir John Norris sacked Corunna but failed to take Lisbon. Other less notable sailors plundered and destroyed in the West Indies. In 1595 Drake died at sea.', In die same year Sir Walter Raleigh, who was alike distinguished as a courtier, a soldier, and a sailor, sailed up the Orinoco in search of wealth. In 1596 Raleigh, together with Lord Howard of Effingham and the young Earl of Essex, who was in high favour with the Queen, took and sacked Cadiz. Essex was generous and impetuous, but intensely vain, and the victory was followed by a squabble between the commanders as to their respective merits. 9. Increasing Prosperity — It was not so much the victories as the energy which made the victories possible that diffused wealth and prosperity over England. Trade grew together with piracy and war. Manufactures increased, and the manufacturers growing in numbers needed to be fed. Landed proprietors, in consequence, found it profitable to grow corn instead of turning their arable lands into pasture, as they had done at the beginning of the century. The complaints about inclosures (see pp. 368, 415) died away. The results of wealth appeared in the show and splendour of the court, where men decked thems'elves in gorgeous attire, but still more in the gradual tise of the general standard of comfort. I588-I596 INCREASE OF COMFORT 46s 10. Buildings.— Even in Mary's days the good food of English men had been the wonder of foreigners. " These English," said a Spaniard, " have their houses of sticks and dirt, but they fare com monly as well as the king." In Elizabeth's time the houses were improved. Many windows, which had, except in the houses ofthe great, been guarded with horn or lattice, were now glazed, and even in the man- siorfe of the nobility large windows stood in striking contrast with the narrow open ings of the build ings of the middle ages. Glass was wel come, because men no longer lived — as they had hved in the days when internal wars were frequent — in fortified castles, where, for the sake of defence, the open ings were narrow and infrequent. Ehzabe- than manor-houses, as they are now termed, sometimes built in the shape of the letter E, in honour, as is some times supposed, of the Queen's name, rose all over the countiy to take the place of the old castles. They had chimneys to carry off the smoke, which, in former days, had, in all but the largest houses, been allowed to escape through a hole in the roof See pp. 466,467,469-471. II. Furniture. — The furniture within the houses underwent a change as great as the houses themselves. When Elizabeth came to the throne people of the middle class were content to lie on a straw pallet, with a log of wood, or at the best a bag of chaff, under their heads. It was a common saying that pillows were fit only A mounted soldier at the end of the sixteenth century : from a broadside printed in 1596. 466 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1580-15 \V^^-V- „ T K ,1 Iff—. i Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire ; built by Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, about 1597. 468 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1580-1583 for sick women. Before many years had passed comfortable bedding had been introduced. Pewter platters and tin spoons re placed wooden ones. Along with these improvements was noticed a universal chase after wealth, and farmers complained that laniilords not only exacted higher rents, but themselves engaged in the sale of the produce of their lands. 12. Growing Strength of the House of Commons. — This in crease of general prosperity could not but strengthen the House of Commons. It was mainly composed of country gentlemen, and it had been the poUcy of the Tudors to rely upon that class as a counterpoise to the old nobility. Many of the country gentlemen were employed as Justices of the Peace, and Elizabeth had gladly increased their powers. When, therefore, they came to fulfil their duties as members of Parliament, they were not mere talkers unac quainted with business, but practical men, who had been used to deal with their own local iffairs before being called on to discuss the affairs of the country. Various causes made their opinions more important as , the reign went on. In the first place, the national uprising against Spain drew with it a rapid increase of Protestantism in the younger generation, and, for this reason, the House of Commons, which, at the beginning of the reign, represented only a Protestant minority in the nation itself (see p. 428), at the end of the reign represented a Protestant majority, and gained strengths in consequence. In the second place, Puritanism tended to de- velope independence of character, whilst the queen was not only unable to overawe the Puritan members of the House, but, unlike her father, had no means of keeping the more worldly-minded in submission by the distribution of abbey lands. 13. Archbishop Whitgift and the Court of High Commission. 1583- — The Jesuit attack in 1580 and 1581 strengthened the queen's resolution to put an end to the divisions which - weakened the Enghsh Church,^ as she was still afraid lest Puritanism, if un checked, might give offence to her more moderately-minded subjects and drive them into the arms of the Papacy^ In 1583, on Grindal's death, she appointed to the Archbishopric of Canterbury Whitgift, who had taken a leading part in opposing Cartwright (see p. 446). Whitgift held that as questions about vestments and ceremonies were unimportant, the queen's pleasure in such matters ought to be the rule of the -Church. ' He was, hpwever, a strict disciplinarian, and he was as anxious as^he queen to force into conformity those clergy who broke the unity of the Church for the sake of what he regarded as mere crotchets of their own, especially l6oi ELIZABEIHAN ARCHITECTURE 469 4 < i ' ^H "I -'•If 470 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1584-1588 as some of them were violent assailants of the established order. In virtue of a clause in the A,ct of Supremacy the queen erected a Court of High Commission. Though many laymen were mem bers of the new Court, they seldom attended its sittings, and it was therefore practically managed by bishops and ecclesiastical lawyers. Its business was to enforce conforinity on the clergy, and under Whitgift it acted most energetically, driving from their livings and committing to prison clergymen who refused to conform, y-^ 14. The House of Commons and Puritanism. 1584.— The severity of the High Commission roused some of the Puritan clergy to attempt — in private meetings — to bring into existence something ,of the system of Presbyterianism, but the attempt was soon aban doned. Few amongst the Protestant laity had any liking for Presbyterianism, which they regarded as oppressive and intolerant, and it had no deep roots even amongst the Puritan clergy. If many members of the House of Commons were attracted to Puritanism, as opposed to Presbyterianism, it was partly because at the time of a national struggle against Rome, they preferred those amongst the clergy whose views were most antEigonistic to those of Rome ; but still more because they admired the Puritans as defenders of morahty. Not only were the Church court? op pressive and meddlesome, but plain men were disgusted at a system in which ignorant and lazy ministers who conformed to the Prayer Book were left untouched, whilst able and energetic preachers who refused to adopt its ceremonies were silenced. 15. The Separatists. — The desire for a higher standard of morality, which made so many support the Puritan demand for a further reformation of the Church, drove others to denounce the Church as apostate. Robert Browne, a clergyman, was the first to declare in favour of a system which was neither Episcopal nor Presbyterian. He held it to be the duty of all true Christians to separate themselves from the Church, and to form congregations apart, to which only those whose religion and morality were beyond question should be admitted. These separatists, as they called themselves, were known as Brownists in common speech. Un fortunately their zeal made them uncharitably contemptuous of those who were less zealous than themselves, and it was from amongst them that there came forth— beginning in 1588— a series of virulent and libellous attacks on the bishops, known as the Mar prelate Tracts, printed anonymously at a secret press. Browneand his followers advocated complete religious liberty — denying the right of the State to interfere with the conscience. The doctrine mdrmmMmmiMM Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire ; built about 1601. 472 ELIZABETH'S YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1588-1593 was too advanced for general acceptance, and' the violence of the Marprelate Tracts gave offence, even to the Puritans. Englishmen might differ as to what sort of church the national church should be, but almost all were as yet agreed that there ought to be one national church and not a number of disconnected sects. In 1593 an act of Parliament was passed imposing punishment on those who attendei-i: conventicles or private religious assemblies, and in the course of the year thrfee of the leading separatists — Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry — were hanged, on charges of sedition. 16. Whitgift and Hooker. — The Church of England would certainly not have sustained itself against the Puritans unless it had found a champion of a higher order than Whitgift. Whitgift maintained its organisation, but he did no more. Cranmer, at the beginning of the Reformation, had declared the Bible as interpreted by the writers of the first six centuries to be the test of doctrine, but this assertion had been met during the greater part of Eliza beth's reign, on the one hand by the Catholics, who asserted that the Church of the first six centuries differed much from the Church of England of their day, and on the other hand by the Puritans, who asserted that the testimony of the first six centuries was irrelevant, and that the Bible alone was to be con sulted. Whitgift had called both parties to obedience, on the ground that they ought to submit to the queen in indifferent matters. , Hooker in the opening of his Ecclesiastical Polity called the Puritans to peace. " This unhappy controversy," he declared, " about the received ceremonies and discipline ofthe Church of England, which hath so long time withdrawn so many of her ministers from their principal work and employed their studies in contentious opposi tions, hath, by the unnatural growth and dangerous fruits thereof, made known to the world that it never received blessing from the Father of peace." Hooker's teaching was distinguished by the importance which he assigned to 'law,' as against the blind acceptance of Papal decisions on the one side and against the Puritan reverence for the letter of the scriptures on the other. . The Puritans were wrong, as he taught, not because they disobeyed l the queen, but because they did not recognise that God revealed Himself in the. natural laws ofthe world as well as in the letter 01 Scripture. « Of law,'' he wrote, " there can be no less acknowledged. ; thai! that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world : all things in heaven and earth do her homage— the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men and creatures of what conditioa! I588-I603 ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 473 soever — though each in different sort and manner, yet all with universal consent— admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.'' It was therefore unnecessaiy, according to Hooker's teaching, to defend certain usages on the ground of their sanction by tradi tion or by Papal authority, as it was unreasonable to attack them on the ground that they were not mentioned in Scripture. It was sufficient that they were fitting expressions of the feelings of reverence which had been implanted by God in human nature itself Coaches in the reign of Elizabeth : from Archaologia 17. Spenser, Shakspere, and Bacon. — With the stately periods of Hooker English prose entered on a new stage. For the first time it sought to charm and to invigorate, as well as to inform the world. In Spenser and Shakspere are to be discerned the same influences as those which made Hooker great. They, too, are filled with reverence for the reign of law. Spenser, in his Faerie Queen, set forth the greatness of man in following the laws which II. 1 1 474 ELIZABETHS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 158S-1603 rule the moral world — the laws of purity and temperance ' and justice ; whilst Shakspere, in the plays which he now began to pour forth, taught them to recognise the penalties which follow hard-on him who disregards not only the moral but also the physical laws of the world in which he lives, and to appraise the worth of William Shakspere : froin the bust on his tomb at Stratford-on-Avon. man by what he is and riot by the dogmas which he accepts. That nothing might be wanting to point out the ways in which future generations were to walk, young Francis Bacon began to dream of a larger science than had hitherto been possible— a science based on a reverent inquiry into the laws of nature. I59S-I599 O'NEILL'S RISING 475 18. Condition of the Catholics. 1588— 1603.— Bacon cared for many matters, and one of his earliest recommendations to Eliza beth had been to make a distinction between the Catholics who would take an oath to defend her against all enemies and those who would not. The patriotism with which many Catholics had taken her side when the Armada appeared ought to have procured the acceptance of this proposal. It is seldom, however, that either men or nations change their ways till long after the time when they ought to change them. Spain and the Pope still threatened, and all Catholics were still treated as allies of Spain and the Pope, and the laws against them were made even more severe during the remainder of the reign. 19. Irish Difficulties. 1583 — 1594. — The dread of a renewal of a Spanish invasion was productive of even greater mischief in Ireland than in England. After the suppression of the Desmond insurrection, an attempt was made to colonise the desolate lands of Munster (see p, 453) with English. The attempt failed, chiefly because — though courtiers willingly accepted large grants of lands — English farmers refused to go to Ireland in sufficient numbers to till the soil. On the other hand. Irishmen enough reappeared to claim their old lands, to rob, and sometimes murder, the few settlers who came from England. The settlers retaUated by acts of violence. All over Ireland the soldiers, left without pay, spoiled and maltreated the unfortunate inhabitants. The Irish, exasperated by their cruelty, longed for someone to take up their cause, and in 1594 a rising in Ulster was -headed by Hugh O'Neill, known in England as the Earl of Tyrone. How bitter the Irish feeling was against England is shown by the fact that the other Ulster chiefs, who usually quarrelled with one another, now placed themselves under O'Neill. 20. O'Neill and the Earl of Essex. 1595- 1600.— In 1595 O'Neill apphed to the king of Spain for help ; but Spain was weaker now than in former years, and though Philip promised help, he died in 1598 without fulfilling his engagenjent, being succeeded by his son, Philip III. In the same year O'Neill utterly defeated an EngUsh army under Bagenal on the Blackwater. All Celtic Ireland rose in his support, and in 1599 Elizabeth sent her favourite, Essex, to conquer Ireland in good earnest, lest it should fall into the hands of the king of Spain. Essex, through mismanagement, failed entirely, and after a great part of his army had melted away he came back to England without leave. On his arrival, knowing Elizabeth's fondness for him, he hoped to surprise her into forgive- 476 ELIZABETHS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1599-1600 ness of his disobedience, and rushed into Elizabeth's presence in his muddy and travel-jstained clothes. 21. Essex's Imprisonment and Execution. 1599— 1601.— The queen, who was not accustomed to allow even her favourites, to run away from their posts without permission, ordered him into confinement. In 1600, indeed, she restored him to liberty, bu- forijade him to come to court. Essex could not brook the.dis- .... — .. , ,'l^ .^ — I' Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, K,G-,, 1567-1601 from a painting^ by ;Van Somei, dated 1599, belonging to the Earl of Essex j grace, especially as the queen made him suffer in his pocket for his misconduct. As she had little money to give away, Elizabe^ was in the habit of rewarding her courtiers by grants of monopoly— that is to say, of the sole right of selhng certain articles, thus enabling them to make a profit by asking a higher price than they could have got if they had been subjected to competition. To Essex she had given a monopoly of sweet wines for a term of 1600-1603 THE MONOPOLIES 47? years, and now that the term was at an end she refused to renew the grant. Early in 1601 Essex— professing not to want to injure the queen, but merely to force her to change her ministers — rode Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603 ; from a painting belonging to the University of Cambridge. at the, head of a few followers into the City, calling on the citizens to rise in his favour. He was promptly arrested, and in the course of the enquiries made into his conduct it was discovered that when 478 ELIZABETHS YEARS OF TRIUMPH 1601 he was in Ireland he had entered into treasonable negotiations with James VI. At his trial. Bacon, who had been most kindly treated by Essex, shocked at-the disclosure of these traitorous proceedings; , turned against him, and, as a lawyer, argued strongly that he had been guilty The EaA was convicted and executed. 22. Mountjoy's Conquest of Ireland. 1600— 1603.— In 1600, after Essex had deserted Ireland, Lord Mountjoy was sent to take his place. He completed the conquest systematically, building forts as places of retreat for his soldiers whenever they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, and from which he could send out flying columns to devastate the country after the enemy had retreated. In 1601 a Spanish fleet and a small Spanish army at last arrived to the help of the Irish, and seized Kinsale. The English forces hemmed them in, defeated the Irish army which came to their support, and compelled tbe Spaniards to withdraw. The horrid work of conquering Ireland by starvation was carried to the end. " No spectacle," wrote Mountjoy's English secreta,ry, " was more frequent in the ditches of the towns, and especially in wasted countries, than to see multitudes of these poor people dead, with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground." In one place a band of ¦women enticed little children to come among them, and murdered them for food. At last, in 1603, O'Neill submitted. Ireland had been conquered by England as it had never been conquered before. 23. Parliament and the Monopolies. 1601. — The conquest of Ireland was expensive and in 1601 Elizabeth summoned Parliament to ask for supplies. The House of Commons voted the money cheerfully, but raised an outcry against the monopohes. Elizabeth knew when to give way, and she announced her intention of can celling all monopolies which could be shown to be burdensome. " I have more cause to thank you all than you me," she said to the Commons when they waited on her to express their gratitude ; "^for had I not received a knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lap of an error, only for lack of true information. I have ever used to set the last judgment-day before mine eyea and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge — to whose judgment-seat I do appeal, that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good. Though you haye had, and may have, many princes, more mighty and wise, sitting in this seat, yet you never had, or ever shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.'' l6oi-i6o3 The wo ric 6f Elizabeth 47^ 24- The Last Days of Elizabeth. 1601— 1603.— These were the last words spoken by Elizabeth to her people. She had many faults, but she cared for England, and, more than any one else, she had made England united and prosperous. She had found it distracted, but by her moderation she had staved off civil war, till the country had rallied round the throne. No doubt those who worked most hard towards this great end were men like Burghley J^ '¦ \ William Cecil, Lord Burghley, K.G., 1520-1591 : turn a painting in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. and Walsingham in the State, and men hke Drake and Raleigh at sea ; but it was Elizabeth who, being what she was, had given to each his opportunity. If either Edward VI. or Mary had been in her place, such men would have found no sphere in which their work could have been done, and, instead of telling of 'the spacious times of great Elizabeth,' the historian would have had to narrate the progress of civil strife and of the mutual conflict of ever-narrowing creeds. The last days of the great queen were gloomy, as far as 48o DEATH OF ELIZABETH 1598-1603 she was personally concerned. Burghley, the wisest of her ministers, died in 1598. In his last days he had urged the queen- to bring to an end the war with Spain, which no longer .served any useful purpose ; and when Essex pleaded for its continuance, the aged statesman opened the Bible at the text, " Bloody and deceit ful men shall not live out half their days," In 1603 Elizabeth her self died at the age of sixty-nine. According to law, the heir to the crown was William Seymour, who, being the son pf the Earl of Hertford and Lady Catherine Grey, inhej^ited the claims of the Suffolk line (see pp. 411, 435). There were, however, douhts about his legitimacy, as, though his parents had been married in due form, the ceremony had taken place in private, and it was believed by many that it had never taken place at all. Elizabeth had always refused to allow her heir to be designated ; but as death approached she indicated her preference for James, as having claim to the inheritance by descent from her own eldest aunt, Margaret (see p. 41 1). " My seat," she said, " hath been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me." "And who," she added, " should that be but our cousin of Scotland ? " 48 1 PART Vt THE PURITAN REVOLUTION. 1603— 1660 CHAPTER XXXI J.VMES I. 1603— 1625 LEADING DATES Accession of James \. '. . . ... 1603 The Hampton Court Conference ... . 1604 Gunpowder Plot , . , 1605 Foundation of Virginia ... 1607 The Great Contract 1610 Beginning of tlie Thirty Years' War . . . , 1618 Foundation of New England 1620 Condemnation of the Monopolies and fall of Bacon . . 1621 Prince Charles's visit to Madrid ... . . 1623 Breach with Spain ... . 1624 Death of James I. . 1625 I. The Peace with Spain. 1603—1604. — At the end of Ehzabeth's reign there had been much talk of various claimants to the throne, but when she died no one thought seriously of any one but James. The new king at once put an end to the war with Spain, though no actual treaty of peace was signed till 1604. James gave his confidence to Sir Robert Cecil, Lord Burghleys second son, whom he continued in the office of Secretary of State, which had been conferred on him by Elizabeth. The leader of the war-party was Raleigh, who was first dismissed from his offices and afterwards accused of treason, on the charge of having invited the Spaniards to invade England. It is most unhkely that the charge was true, but as Raleigh was angry at his dismissal, he may have spoken rashly. He was condemned to death, but James commuted the sentence to imprisonment. 2. The Hampton Court Conference. 1604. — The most im portant question which James had to decide on his accession was 482 JAMES /., 1603-1604 that of religious toleration. Many of the Puritan clergy signed a petition to him known as the Millenary Petition, because it was intended to be signed by a thousand ministers. A conference was held on January 14, 1604, in the king's presence at Hampton Court, in which some of the bishops took part, as well as a deputation of Puritan ministers who were permitted to argue in favour of the demands put forward in the petition. ; The Puritan Clergy had by this time abandoned Cartwi-ight's Presbyterian ideas (see p. 446) and merely asked that those who thought it wrong to wear surplices and to use certain other ceremonies might be excused from doing so, without breaking away from the national church. James listened quietly to them, till one of them used the word Presbytery. He at once flew into a passion/jf' A Scottish Presbytery," he said, "agreeth as well with a monarchy as God with the devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasures cen sure me and my council. . . . Until you find that I grow lazy — let that alone." James ordered them to conform or to leave the ministry. He adopted the motto, " No bishop, no king ! " Like Elizabeth, he used the bishops to keep the clergy from gaining power independent ofthe Crown. ' The bishops were delighted, and oneof them said that'his Majesty spoke by the inspiration of God.' 3. Jaraes and the House or Comraons In 1604 Parliament met. The members ofthe House of Commons had no more wish than James to overthrow the bishops, ' but they thought that able and pious ministers should be allowed to preach even if they would not wear surplices, and they were dis satisfied with the king's decision at Hampton Court. On the, other hand, James was anxious to obtain their consent to a union with Scotland, which the Commons disliked, partly because the king had brought many Scotsmen with him, and had supplied them with English lands and money. Financial difficulties also arose, and the session ended in a quarrel between the king and the House of. Commons. Before the year was over he had deprived of their livings many of the clergy who refused to conform. * Roj'al Arms borne by James I. and succeeding Stuart sovereigns. l6oS-l6o7 ' GUNPOWDER PLOT 483 4. Gunpowder Plot. 1604— 1605.— Not only the Puritans, but the Catholics as well, had appealed to James for toleration. In the first year of his reign he remitted the recusancy fines (see p. 454). As might be expected, the number of recusants increased, pro bably because many who had attended church to avoid paying fines stayed away as soon as the fines ceased to be required. James took alarm, and in February 1604 banished the priests from London. On this, a Catholic named Robert Catesby proposed to a few of his friends a plot to blow up king. Lords, and Commons with gunpowder at the opening of Parliament. The king had two sons, Henry and Charles, and a litde daughter, Elizabeth. Catesby, expecting that the two princes would be destroyed with theii father, intended to make Elizabeth queen, and to take care that she was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Guy Fawkes, a cool soldier, was sent for from Flanders to manage the scheme. The plotters took a house next to the House of Lords, and began to dig through the wall to enable them to carry the powder into the base ment. The wall, however, was nine feet thick, and they, being little used to mason's work, made but little way. In the spring of 1605 James increased the exasperation of the plotters by re-imposing the recusancy fines on the Catholic laity. Soon afterwards their task was made more easy by the discovery that a coal-cellar reaching under the floor of the House of Lords was to be let. One of their number hired the cellar, and introduced into it barrels of powder, covering them with coals and billets of wood. Parliament was to be opened for its second session on November 5, and in the pre ceding evening Fawkes went to the cellar with a lantern, ready to fire the train in the morning. One of the plotters, however, had betrayed the secret Fawkes was seized, and his companions were pursued. All the conspirators who were taken alive were executed, and the persecution of the Catholics grew hotter than before. 5. The Post-nati. i6o6 — 1607.— When another session opened in 1606 James repeated his efforts to induce the Commons to do something for the union with Scotland. He wanted them to esta blish free trade between the countries, and to naturalise his Scottish subjects in England. Finding that he could obtain neither of his wishes from Parliament, he obtained from the judges a decision that all his Scottish subjects born after his accession in England— the Post-nati, as they were called — were legally natu- rahsed, and were thus capable of holding land in England. He had to give up all hope of obtaining freedom of trade. 6. Irish Difficulties. 1603 — 1610. — James was the first English 484 JAMES I . 1603-1610 sovereign who was the master ofthe whole of Ireland. He tried to win the affecdon of the tribes by giving them the protection of Enghsh law agajinst the exactions of their chiefs. Naturally, the chiefs resented the change, while the tribesmen distrusted the interference of Englishmen from whom they had suffered so much. In 1607 the chiefs of the Ulster tribes of O'Neill and O'Donnell-^ known in England as the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell — seeing resistance hopeless, fled to Spain. James ignored the Irish doctrine that the land belonged to the tribe, and confiscated six counties as if they had been the property of the chiefs, according to the feudal principles of English law. He then poured in English and Scottish coloilists, leaving to the natives only the leavings to live on. ' 7. Bate's Case and the New Impositions. 1606 — 1608. -rThe state of James's finances was almost hopeless. Elizabeth, stingy as she was, had scarcely succeeded in making both ends meet, and James, who had the expense of providing for a family, from which Elizabeth had been free, would hardly haye been able to meet his expenditure even if he had been economical. He was, however, far from economical, and had given away lands and money to his Scottish favourites. There was, dierefore, a large deficit, and James wanted all the money he could get. In 1606 a merchant named Bate challenged his right to levy an imposition on currants, which had already been levied by Elizabeth. The Court of Exchequer, however, decided that the king had the right of levying impositions — that is to say, duties raised by the sole authority of the king — without a grant from Parliament — holding that the Confirmatio Cartarum (see p, 221), to which Bate's counsel appealed, only restricted that right in a very few cases. Whether the argument of the judges was right or wrong, they were the constitutional exponents of the law, and when Cecil (who had been James's chief minister from the beginning of the reign, and was created Earl of Sahsbury in 1605) was made Lord Treasurer as well as Secretary in 1608, he at once levied new impositions to the amount of about 70,000/. a year, on the plea that more money was needed in consequence Of the troubles in Ireland. 8. The Great Contract. 1610— 1611.— Even the new imposi tions did not fill up the deficit, and Parliament was summoned in 1610 to meet the difficulty. It entered into a bargain — the Great Contract, as it was called — by which, on receiving 200,000/. a year, James was to abandon certain antiquated feudal dues, such as those of wardship and marriage (see p. 116). An agreement was also come to on the impositions. James voluntarily remitted the i6o5-i6ii HATFIELD HOUSE 485 486 JAMES I. 1601-1614 most burdensome to the amount of 20,000/. a year, and the House of Commons agreed to grant him the remainder on his passing an Act declaring illegal all further levy of impositions without a Parliamentary grant. Unfortunately, before the details of the Great Contract were finally settled, fresh disputes arose, and early in 1611, James dissolved his first Parliament in anger without setthng anything either about the feudal dues or about the Im positions. 9. Bacon and Somerset. 1612 — 1613. — In 1612 Salisbury- died, and Bacon, always ready with good advice, recommended James to abandon Salisbury's policy of bargaining with the Commons. Bacon was a warm supporter of monarchy, because he was anxious for reforms, and he believed that reforms were more likely to come from the king and his Council than from a House of' Commons — which was mainly composed of country gentlemen, with -little knowledge of affairs of State. Bacon, however, knew what were the conditions under which alone a monarchical system could be maintained, and reminded James that king and Parliament were members of one body, with common interests, and that he could only expect the Commons to grant supplies if he stepped forward as their leader by setting forth a policy which would commend itself to them. James had no idea of leading, and, instead of taking Bacon's advice, resolved to do as long as he could with out a Parliament. A few years before he had taken a fancy to a handsome young Scot named Robert Carr, thinking that Carr would be not only a boon companion, but also an instrument to carry out his orders, and relieve him from the trouble of dispensing patronage. He enriched Carr in various waysj especially by giving him the estate of Sherborne, which he took from Raleigh on the ground of a flaw in the title— though he made Raleigh some compensation for his loss. In 1613 he married Carr to Lady Essex, who had been divorced from her husband under very disgraceful circumstances, and created him Earl of Somerset. Somerset was brought by this marriage into connection with the family of the Howards— his wife's father, the Earl of Suffolk, being a Howard. As the Howards were for the most part Roman Catholics at heart, if not openly, Somerset's influence was henceforth used in opposi tion to the Protestant aims which had found favour in the House of Commons. 10. The Addled Pariiament. 1614.— In spite of Somerset and the Howards, James's want of money drove him, in 1614, to call another Parliament. Instead of following Bacon's advice that he l6i4 THE UNDERTAKERS 487 should win popularity by useful legislative projects, he tried first to secure its submission by encouraging persons who were known as the Undertakers because they undertook that candidates who supported the king's interests should be returned. When this failed, he again tried, as he had tried under Salisbury's influence Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk : from a painting belonging toT. A. Hope, Esq. in 1610, to enter into a bargain with the Commons. TheCommons, however, replied by asking him to abandon the impositio-ns and to restore the nonconforming clergy ejected m 1604 (see p. 482). On this James dissolved Parhament. As it granted no .supplies, and passed no act, it became known as the Addled Pariiament 488 JAMES I. 1614-1618 II. The Spanish Alliance. 1614—1617. — James was always anxious to be the peacemaker of Europe, being wise enough to see that the religious wars which had long been devastating the Conti nent might be brought to an end if only the contending parties would be more tolerant. It was partly in the hope of gaining influence to enable him -to carry out his pacificatory policy that he aimed, early in his reign, at marrying his children into influential families on the Continent. In 1613 he gave his daughter Eliza beth to Frederick V., Elector Palatine, who was the leader of the, German Calvinists, and he had long before projected a marriage between his eldest son, Prince Henry, and a Spanish Infanta, Prince Henry, however, died in 1612, and, though James's only surviving son, Charles, was still young, there had been a talk of marrying him to a French princess. The breaking-up of the Par liament of 1614 left James in great want of money ; and, as he had > reason to believe that Spain would give a much larger portion | than would be given with a French princess, he became keenly eager to marry his son to the Infanta Maria, the daughter of Philip I II. of Spain. Negotiations with this object -were not formally opened till 1617, and in 1618 James learnt that the marriage could not take place unless he engaged to give religious liberty to the English Roman Catholics. He then offered to write a letter to the king of Spain, promising to relieve the Roman Catholics as long as they gave no offence, but Philip insisted on a more binding and permanent engagement, and, on James's refusal to do more than he had offered to do, Gondomar, the very able Spanish ambassador who had hitherto kept James in good humour, was withdrawn from England, and the negotiation was, for the time, allowed to drop. 12. The rise of Buckingham. 1615— 1618.— In 1615 Somersel and his wife were accused of poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury. There can be no doubt that the Countess was guilty, but it is less certain what Somerset's own part in the matter was. In 1616 they J were both found guilty, and, though James spared their hves, ! he never saw either of them again. He had already found a new favourite in George Vilhers, a handsome youth who could dance 1 and ride gracefully, and could entertain the king with lively con- "'": versation. The opponents of the Spanish alliance had supported \ Villiers against Somerset, but they soon found that Villiers was ready to throw himself on the side of Spain as soon as he found that it would please the king. James gave him large estates, and rapidly advanced him in the peerage, till, in 1618, he created him Marquis of Buckingham. He also made him Lord Admiral in the i6i7-i6i8 RALEIGH'S VOYAGE TO GUIANA 489 hope that he would improve the navy, and allowed all the patronage of England to pass through his hands. Statesmen and lawyers had to bow down to Buckingham if they wished to rise. No wonder the young man felt as if the nation was at his feet, and gave him self airs which disgusted all who wished to preserve independence of character. 13. The Voyage and Execution of Raleigh. 1617— 1618.— In 1617 Raleigh, having been liberated through Buckingham's influ ence, sailed for the Orinoco in search of a gold-mine, of which he had heard in an earlier voyage in Elizabeth's reign (see p. 464). He engaged, before he sailed, not to touch the lac of the king 01 Spain, and James let him know that, if he broke his promise, he would lose his head. It was, indeed, difficult to say where the lands of the king of Spain began or ended, but James left the burden of proving this on Raleigh ; whilst Raleigh, imagining that if only he could find gold he would not be held to his promise, sent his men up the river, without distinct orders to avoid fighting. They attacked and burnt a Spanish village, but never reached the mine. Heart-broken at their failure, Raleigh proposed to lie in wait for the Spanish treasure-ships,' and, on the refusal , of his captains to follow him in piracy, returned to England with nothing in his. hands. James sent him to the scaffold for a fault which he should never have been given the chance of committing. Raleigh was the last of the Elizabethan heroes — a many-sided man ; soldier, sailor, statesman, historian, and poet He was as firmly convinced as Drake had been that there was no peace in American waters, and that to rob and plunder Spaniards in time of peace was in itself a virtue. James's unwise attempt to form a close alliance with Spain made Raleigh a popular hero. 14. Colonisation of Virginia and New England. 1607 — 1620. — Gradually Englishmen learned to prefer peaceable commerce and colonisation to piratical enterprises. In 1585 Raleigh had sent out colonists to a region in North America to which he gave the name of Virginia, in honour of Elizabeth, but the "colonists either returned to England or were destroyed by the Indians. In 1607 a fresh attempt was made, and, after passing through terrible hardships, the Colony of Virginia grew into a tobacco-planting, well-to-do coriimunity. In 1608 a congregation of Separatists emigrated from England to Holland, and, after a while, settied at Leyden, where* anxious to escape from the temptations of the worid, many of them resolved to emigrate to America, where they might lead an ideally religious life. In 1620 the emigrants, a hundred in all, ' lifting up II. KK 450 JAMES L t6i8-i6si their eyes to heaven, their dearest country,' crossed the Atiantic in the 'Mayflower,' and found a new home which they named Plymouth. These first emigrants, the Pilgrim Fathers, as their descendants fondly called them, lost half their number by cold and disease in the first winter, but the remainder held on to fomr a nucleus for the Puritan New England of the future. 15. The Beginning of the Thirty Years' War. 1618—1620.—' As yet, however, these small beginnings of a colonial empire attracted little attention in England. Men's thoughts ran far more on a great war — the Thirty Years' War — which, - in 161S, -^beganffc desolate Germany. In that year a revolution took place in Bohemia, where the Protestant nobility rose against their king, Matthias, a Catholic, who was at the same time Emperor, and, in 1619, after- Ihe death of Matthias, they deposed his successor, Ferdinand, and chose Frederick, the Elector Palatine, James's Calvinist son-in-law, as king in his place. Almost at the same time Ferdinand becattie by election the Emperor Ferdinand II. James was urged to interfere on behalf of Frederick, but he could not make up his mind that the cause of his son-in-law was righteous, and he therefore left him to his fate. Frederick's cause was, however, popular in England, and in 1620, when there were rumours that a Spanish force was about to occupy the Palatinate in order to compel Frederick to abandon Bohemia, James — drawing a distinction between helping his son- in-law to keep his own and supporting him in taking the land of another — went so far as to allow English volunteers, under Sir Horace Vere, to garrison the fortresses of the Palatinate. In the summer of that year, a Spanish army, under Spinola, actually occu pied the Western Palatinate, and James, angry at the news, sum moned Parliament in order to obtain a vote of supplies for -War, Before Parliament could meet, Frederick had been crushii^ defeated on the White Hill, near Prague, and driven outfot Bohemia. 16. The Meeting of James's Third Pariiament. 1621.— Parlia ment, when it met in 1621, was the more distrustful of James, as Gondomar had returned to England in 1620 and had revived the Spanish marriage treaty. When the Houses met, they were disappointed to find that James did not propose to go to war at once. James fancied that, because he himself wished to act justly and fairly, every one of the other Princes would be regardless of his own interests, and, although he had already sent several ambas sadors to settle matters without producing any results, he now proposed to send more ambassadors, and only to fight if negotia- l62I THE THIRTY YEARS' WA'R 491 tion failed. On learning this, the House of Commons only voted him a small supply, not being wilhng to grant war-taxes unless it King James I. : from a painting by P. van Somer, dated 1621, in the National Portrait Gallery. 492 JAMES L 1616-1621 was sure that there was to be a war. Probably James was right in not engaging England in hostilities, as ambition had as much to do with Frederick's proceedings as religion, and as, if James had helped his German allies, he could have exercised no control over them ; but he had too. little decision or real knowledge of the situation to inspire confidence either at home or abroad ; and the Commons, as soon as they had granted a supply, began to criticise his govem ment in domestic matters. 17. The Royal Prerogative. 1616— 1621.— Elizabeth had been high-handed enough, but she had talked little of the rights which she claimed, and had set herself to gain the affection of her subjects. James, on the other hand, liked to talk of his rightSj whilst he took no trouble to make himself popular. It was his business, he held, to see that the judges did not break the law under pretence of ad ministering it. " This," he said in 1616, " is a thing regal and pfoper to a king, to keep every court within its true bounds." More startiing was the language which followed. "As for the absolute prerogative of ; the Crown," he declared, " that is no subjectfor the tongue of a lawyer, nor is it lawful to be disputed. It is atheism and blasphera^o dispute what God can do : good Christians content themselves with His will revealed^n His word; so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a kmg can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that ; but rest in that which is the king's will revealed in his law." What James meant was that there must be in every state a power above the law to provide for emergencies as they arise, and to keep the authorities- judicial and administrative— from jostling with one another. At present this power belongs to Pariiament. When Elizabeth handed on the government to James, it belonged to the Crown. What James did not understand was that, in the long run, no one— either king or Pariiament— will be allowed to exercise powers which are unwisely, used. Such an idea probably never entered into James's mmd, because he was convinced that he was himself not only the best but the wisest of men, whereas he was in reality— as Henry IV. of France had said of him— 'the wisest fool in Christendom.' 18. Financial Reform. 1619.— James not only thought too Civil costume about 1620 : from a contemporary broadside. i -^^ e:v:!^V ^1 f^ i^^ T\ tpt! t ^ ¦•VHP I? A 111' ' Cl the Banqueting Hall ofthe Palace of Whitehall (from the north-east) ; built from the designs of Inigo Jones, 1619-1621. 494 JAMES I. i62i highly of his own powers of government, but was also too careless to check the misdeeds of his favourites. For some time his want of money led him to have recourse to strange expedients. In 1611 he founded the order of baronets, making each of those created pay him 1,080/. a year for three years to enable him to support soldiers for the defence of Ulster. After the first few years, however,ithe money, though regularly required of new baronets, was invariably repaid to them. More disgraceful was the sale of peerages, of which there were examples in 1618. In 1619, however, through the exer tions of Lionel Cranfield, a city merchant recommended to James by Buckingham, financial order was comparatively restored, and in quiet times the expenditure no longer much exceeded the revenue. 19. Favouritism and Corruption. -^-Though James did not ob tain much money in irregular ways, he did not keep a watchful eye on his favourites and ministers. The salaries of Ministers were low, and were in part themselves made up by the presents of suitors. Candidates for office, who looked forward to being enriched by the gifts of others, knew that they must pay dearly for the goodwill of the favourites through whom they gained promo tion. In 1620 Chief Justice Montague was appointed- Lord Treasurer. " Take care, my lord," said Bacon to him, when he started for Newmarket to receive from the king the staff which was the symbol of his office, " wood is dearer at Newmarket than in any other place in England." Montague, in fact, had to pay 20,000/. for his place. Others, who were bachelors or widowers, received promotion on condition of marrying one* of the many penniless young ladies of Buckingham's kindred. 20. The Monopolies Condemned. 1621. — The Commons, therefore, in looking for abuses, had no lack of subjects on which to complain. They lighted upon monopohes. James, soon after his accession, had abolished most ofthose left by Elizabeth, but the number had been increased partly through a wish to encourage home manufactures, and partly from a desire to regulate commerce. One set of persons, for example, had the sole right of making glass, because they bound themselves to heat their furnaces with coal instead of wood, and thus spared the trees needed for ship building. Others had the sole right of making gold and silver thread, because they engaged to import all the precious metals they wanted, it being thought, in those days, that the preciou^f metals alone constituted wealth, and that England would theref6if|! be impoverished if English gold and silver were wasted on personal adornment. There is no doubt that courtiers received payments l62I BACON AND THE MONOPOLIES 49S from persons interested in these grants, but the amount of such payments was grossly exaggerated, and the Commons imagined that these and similar grievances owed their existence merely to the desire to fill the pockets of Buckingham and his favourites. There was, therefore, a loud outcry in Parliament. One of the main promoters of these schemes. Sir Giles Mompesson, fled the kingdom. Others were punished, and the monopohes recalled by Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban Lord Chancellor : from the National Portrait Gallery. the king, though as yet no act was passed declaring them to be illegal. > 21. The Fall of Bacon. 1621.— After this the Commons turned upon Bacon. He was now Lord Chancellor, and had lived to find that his good advice was never followed. He had, neverthe less, been an active and upright judge. The Commons, however, distrusted him as having supported grants of monopolies, and, 496 JAMES I. 1621 when charges of bribery were brought against him, sent them up to the Lords for enquiry. At first Bacon thought a political trick was being played against him. He soon discovered that he had thoughtiessly taken gifts even before judgment had been given, though if they had been taken aftei! judgment, he would — according to the custom of the time — have (been considered innocent His own opinion of the case was probably the true one. His sentence, he saidj was 'just, and for reformation's sake fit.' Yet he was 'the justest Chancellor' that had been since his father's time, his father. Sir Nicholas Bacon, having creditably occupied under Elizabeth the post which he himself filled under James. He was stripped of office, fined, and imprisoned. His imprisonment, how- ' ever, was extremely brief, and his fine was ultimately remitted. Though his trial was not exactly like that of the old impeachments, it was practically the revival of the system of impeachments which had been disused since the days of Henry VL, It was a sign that the power of Parliament was increasing and that of the king growing less. 22. Digby's Mission, and the Dissolution of Parliament. 1621. — The king announced to Parliament that he Avas about to send an ambassador to Vienna to induce the Emperor Ferdinand to be content with the re-conquest of Bohemia, and to leave Frederick undisturbed in the Palatinate. Parliament was therefore adjourned,,.;; in order to give time for the result of this embassy to be known ; and the Commons, at their last sitting, declared — with wild enthusiasm — that, if the embassy failed, they would support Frederick with their lives and fortunes. When Lord Digby, who was the chosen ambassador, returned, he had done no good. Ferdinand was too anxious to push his success further, and Frederick was too anxious to make good his losses for any negotiation to be successful. The Imperialists invaded the Palatinate, and in the winter James called on Parliament — which had by that time re-assembled after the adjournment — for money sufficient to defend the Palatinate till he had made one more diplomatic effort. The Commons, believing ; that the king's alliance with Spain was the root of all evil, petitioned ¦ him to marry his son to a Protestant lady, and plainly showed their wish to see him at war with Spain. James replied that the Commons had no right to discuss matters on which he had not consulted them. They drew up a protestation asserting their right to discuss all matters of public concernment. James tore it out of their journal-book, and dissolved Parliament, though it had not yet granted him a penny. I622-I623 PRINCE CHARLES IN SPAIN . 497 23. The Loss of the Palatinate. 1622. — In 1614, James, being in want of money, had had recourse to a benevolence — the lawyers having advised him that, though the Act of Richard III. (see p. 342) made it illegal for him to cc against his asking his subje the same course in 1622, and ?mpel its payment, there was no law :ts to pay it voluntarily. He took . got enough to support the garrisons in the Palatinate for a few months', as many who did not like to give the money feared to provoke the king's displeasure by a refusal. Before the end of the year, however, the whole Palatinate, with the exception of one fortress, had been lost. 24. Charles's Journey to Madrid. 1623. — It was now time to try if the Spanish alliance was worth anything. Early in 1623, Prince Charles, accompanied by Bucking ham, started for Madrid to woo the Infanta in person. The young men imagined that the king of Spain would be so pleased with this un usual compliment, that he would use his influence — and, if necessary, his troops — to obtain the restitution of the Palatinate to Charles's brother-in-law, the Elector Frede rick. The Infanta's brother, Philip IV., was now king of Spain, and he had lately been informed by his sister that she was resolved not to marry a heretic. Her confessor had urged her to refuse. " What a com fortable bedfellow you will have ! " he said to her • " he who lies by your side, and will be the father of your children, is certain to go to hell." Philip and his prime minister Olivares feared lest, if they announced this refusal, it would lead to a war with England. They first tried to convert the prince to their religion, and when that failed, secretly invited the Pope to refuse to grant a dispensation for the marriage. The Pope, however, fearing that, if he caused a breach, James and Charles would punish him by increasing the persecution of the Enghsh Catholics, informed Philip that he should have the dispen sation for his sister, on condition not only that James and Charles should swear to grant religious liberty to the Catholics in England, Costume ot a la-wyer : from a broadside, dated 1623. 498 JAMES I. 1623 but that he should himself swear that James and Charies would-. keep their word. 25. The Prince's Return. 1623. — Philip referred the point whether he could conscientiously take the oath to a committee of theologians. In the meantime, Charles attempted to pay court to the Infanta. Spanish etiquette was, however, strict, and he was not allowed to speak to her, except in public and on rare occasions, i623 CONVOCA TION 499 500 JAMES L 1623-1624 Once he jumped over a wall into a garden in which she was. The poor girl shrieked and fled. At last Charles was informed that the theologians had come to a decision. He might marry if he pleased, but, the moment that the ceremony was over, he was to leave for England. If, at the end of six months, he had not only promised religious liberty to the Catholics, but had actually put them in the enjoyment of it, then, and only then, his wife should* be sent after him. Charles was indignant — the more so because he learnt that there was little chance that the king of Spain would interfere to restore the Protestant Frederick by force — and returned ' to England eager for war with Spain. Never before, or after was he so popular as when he landed at Portsmouth — not so much because he had come back, as because he had not brought the Infanta with him. 26. The Last Parliament of James I. 1624. — James's foreign policy had now hopelessly broken down. He had expected that simply because it seemed to him to be just, Philip would quarrel with the Emperor for the sake of restoring the Palatinate to a Protestant. When he found that this could not be, he had nothing more to propose. His son and his favourite, who had been created Duke of Buckingham whilst he was in Spain, urged him to go to war, and early in 1624 James summoned a new Parhament, which was entirely out of his control. For the time Buckingham, who urged on the war, was the most popular man in England. Alarge grant of supply was given, but the Commons distrusting James, . ordered the money to be paid to treasurers appointed by themselves, and to be spent only upon four objects — the repaii;ing of forts in England, the increase of the army in Ireland, the ifitting-outof a fleet, and the support of the Dutch Republic, which was still at war with Spain, and of ^ther alhes of the king. The king, on his part, engaged to invite friendly states to join him in war for the recovery of the Palatinate, and to summon Parliament in the autumn to announce the result. The Commons were the less anxious to trust James with money as they were in favour of a maritime war agair^t Spain, whilst they believed him to be in favour of a military war in Germany. They had reason to think that Cranfield, who was now Earl of Middlesex' and Lord Treasurer, had used his influence with the king to keep him from a breach with Spain ; and, with Charles and Buckingham hounding them on, they now impeached Middle= sex on charges of malversation, and drove him from ofiice. It was generally believed that the" Lord Treasurer owed his fall to his dislike of a war which would be ruinous to the finances l622-i62S THE FRENCH MARRIAGE TREATY 501 which it was his business to guard. The old king could not resist, but he told his son that, in supporting an impeachment, he was preparing a rod for himself Before the end of the session the king agreed to an act abolishing monopolies, except in the case of new inventions. 27. The French Alliance. — Even before Parliament was pro rogued, a negotiation was opened for a marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIIL, king of France. Both James and Charles had promised Parliament that, if the future queen were a Roman Catholic, no religious liberty should be granted to the English Catholics by the marriage treaty. Both James and Charles gave way when they found that Louis insisted on this concession, and promised religious liberty to the Catholics. Con sequently, they did not venture to summon Parliament till the marriage was over and it was too late to complain. Yet Bucking ham, who was more firmly rooted in Charles's favour than he had ever been in that of his father, had promised money in all directions. Before fhe end of the year he had engaged to find large sums for the Dutch Republic to fight Spain, 30,000/. a month for Christian IV., king of Denmark, to make war in Germany against the Emperor, 20,000/. a month for Count Mansfeld, a German adventurer, to advance to'the Palatinate, and anything thart: might be needed for a fleet to attack the Spanish ports. James, in short, was for a war by land, the Commons for a war by sea, and Buckingham for both. 28. Mansfeld's Expedition, and the Death of James I. 1624— 1625.— Before the end of 1624, twelve thousand Englishmen were gathered at Dover to go with Mansfeld to the Palatinate. The king ot France, who had promised to help them, refused to allow them to land in his dominions. It was accordingly resolved that they should pass through Holland. James, however, had nothing to give them, and they were consequently sent across the sea without money ahd without provisions. On their arrival in Holland they were put on board open boats to make their way up the Rhine. Frost set in, and the boats were unable to stir. In a few weeks three-fourths of the men were dead or dying. It was Buckingham's first experience of making war without money and without Pariia- mentary support Before anything further could be done, James was attacked by a fever, and, on March 27, 1625, he died. Though his reign did not witness a revolution, it witnessed that loosening of the bonds of sympathy between the ruler and the ruled which is often the precursor of revolution. S6i CHAPTER XXXII THE GROWTH OF THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 1625-1634 LEADING DATES The Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649 Charles's first Parliament and the expedition to Cadiz . 1625 Charles's second Parliament and the impeachment of Buckingham 1626 The expedition to Rg 1627 Charles's third Parliament and the Petition of Right . 1628 Dissolution of Charles's third Parliament .... 1629 Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury . . . . 1633 Prynne's, sentence executed ip34 I. Charles I. and Buckingham. 1625. — The new king, Charles I., was more dignified than his father, and was conscientiously desirous of governing well. He was, unfortunately, extremely unwise, being both obstinate in persisting in any line of conduct which he had himself chosen, and ready to give way to the advice of others in matters of detail. Buckingham, who sympathised with him in his plans, and who was never at a loss when called on to express an opinion on any subject whatever, had now made himself com pletely master of th» young king, and was, in reality, the governor of England far more than Charles himself On May i Charles was married by proxy to Henrietta Maria, and Buckingham fetched home the bride. 2. Charles's First Parliament. 1625. — Charles was eager to meet his first Parliament, because he thought that it would grant him enormous sums of money to carry on the war with Spain, on which he had set his heart. He forgot that its members would be disgusted at the mismanagement of Mansfeld's expedition, and at the favour shown by himself to the Cathohcs in consequence of his marriage. When Parliament met on June 18, the House of Commons voted a small sum of 140,000/., and asked him to put in - execution the recusancy laws. Charles adjourned Parliament to Oxford, as the plague was raging in London, in order that he might urge it to vote him a larger sum. It met at Oxford on August I,!b but the Commons refused to vote more money, unless counsellors in whom they could confide— in other words, counsellors other than I625 CHARLES L AND THE COMMONS 503 Buckingham— had the spending of it. Chiries seeing that, if the Commons could force him to accept ministers . against his wish, they would soon control himself, dissolved the Parliament On everything else he was ready to give way— making no objection to the renewal of the persecution of the Catholics, whom a few months ago he had solemnly promised in his marriage treaty to protect. Though the question now raised was whether England was tT3 be ruled by the king or by the House of Commons, it would be a mistake to think that the Commons were consciously aiming at sovereignty. They, saw that there was mismanagement, and all that they wanted was to stop it. 3. The Expedition to Cadiz. 1625.— Charles thought that, if he could gain a great victory, there would be no further talk about mismanagement Scraping together what money he could, he sent a great fleet and army, under the command of Sir Edward Cecil, to take Cadiz, the harbour of which was the port at which the Spanish treasure ships arrived from America once a year, laden with silver and gold from the mines of America. The greater part of Cecil's fleet was made up of merchant-vessels pressed by force into the king's service. Neither soldiers nor sailors had any heart in the matter. The masters of the merchant vessels did, all they could to keep themselves out of danger. The soldiers after landing outside the town got drunk in a body, and would have been slaughtered if any Spaniards had been near. Cecil.,failed to take Cadiz, and after he left it, the Spanish treasure-ships from America, which he hoped to capture, got safely into Cadiz harbour, whilst he was looking for them in another part of the sea. The great expedition sent by Buckingham to Cadiz was as complete a failure as that which he had sent out the year before under Mansfeld. Whilst Cecil was employed in Spain Buckingham himself went to the Hague to form a conti nental alliance for the recovery of the Palatinate, hoping especiaUy to secure the services of Christian IV., king of Denmark. Finding Christian quite ready to fight, Buckingham tried to pawn the king's jewels at Amsterdam in order to supply him with 30,000/. a month, which he had promised to him. No one would lend money on the jewels,, and Buckingham came back, hoping that a second Parliament would be more compliant than the first. 4. Charles's Second Parliament. 1626. — The new Parliament met on February 6, 1626. Charles, in order to secure himself against what he believed to be the attacks of interested and ambitious men, had hit on the clever expedient of making sheriffs 504 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 1626: of the leaders of the Opposition, so as to secure their detentiohfn their own counties. The Opposition, however, found a leader Tn Sir John Eliot, who, though he had formerly been a friend of Buckingham, was now shocked at the misconduct of the favourite and regarded him as a selfish and unprincipled adventurer. Eliot was not only a natural orator, but one of the most pure-minded of King Charles I from a painting by Van Dyck. patriots, though the vehemence of his temperament often carried him to impute more evil to men of whom he thought badly than they were really guilty of. At present, he was roused to indignation against Buckingham, not only on account of the recent failures, but because, in the preceding summer, he had lent some English ships to the French, who wanted to use them for suppressing the Huguenots of Rochelle, then in rebellion against their king, Louis XIII. Before long the Commons, under Ehot's guidance,' 1626 BUCKINGHAM IMPEACHED 565 impeached Buckingham of all kinds pf crime, m.T.king against him charges of some of which he was quite innocent, whilst others were much exaggerated. The fact that the only way to get rid of an unpopular minister was to accuse him of crime, made those who would Otherwise have been content with his dismissal ready to believe in his guilt. Charles's vexation reached its height when he heard that Eliot had branded Buckingham as Sejanus. " If he is Queen Henrietta Maria, -wife of Charles I. : from a painting by Van Dyck. Sejanus," he said, " I must be Tiberius." Rather than abandon his minister, he dissolved Parliament, before it had voted him a sixpence. • 5. The Forced Loan. 1626. — If the war was to go on, money must in some way or other be had. Charles asked his subjects to bestow on him a free gift for the purpose. Scarcely any one gave him anything. Then came news that the king of Denmark, to whom the promised 30,000/. a month had not been paid (see IL L L So6 PERSONAL- GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES L 1626-1627 p. 501, 503), had been signally defeated at L-utter, so that the recovery of the Palatinate was further off than ever. Some dever person suggested to Charles that, though the Statute of Benevolences (see p. 342) prohibited him from making his subjects give him mon-ey, no law forbade him to make them lend, even though there was no chance that he would ever be able to repay what he borrowed. He at once gave orders for the collection of a forced loan. Before this was gathered in, troubles arose with France. Louis XIIL was preparing to besiege Rochelle, and Charles believed himself to be in honour bound to defend it because Louis , had at one time promised him that he would admit his Huguenot subjects to terms. Besides, he had offended Louis by sending out of the country the queen's Freiich attendants, thinking, probably with truth, that they encouraged her to resent his breach of promise about the English Catholics (see p. 501). 6. The Expedition to Rg. 1627. — In 1627 war broke out be-' tween France and- England. Payment of the forced loan was urged in order to.isupply the means. Chief Justice Crewe, refusing to acknowledge its legality, was dismissed. Poor men were forceii to serve as soldiers ; rich men were sent to prison. By suclj^- means a considerable sum was got together. A small force was sent to help the king of Denmark, and a fleet of a hundred sailj|, carrying soldiers oji board, was sent to - relieve Rochelle, undeili the command of Buckingham himself On July 12 Buckingham landed on the Isle of Re, which would form a good base of operations for the relief of Rochelle. He laid siege to the fort of St. Martin's on the island, and had almost starved it into surrendejjj, when, on September 27, a relieving force of French boats dashed through the English blockading fleet, and re-victualled the place. Buckingham, whose own numbers Jiad dwindled away, called for reinforcements from England. Charles did what he could, but Englishmen would lend no money to succour the hated Bucking ham ; and, before reinforcements could arrive, a French army landed on the Isle of R^, and drove Buckingham back to his ship^. Out of 6,800 soldiers, less than 3,000 —worn by hunger and sickness — returned to England. 7. The Five Knights' Case. 1627.— Buckingham was more unpopular than ever. " Since England was England," we find in a letter of the time, "it received not so dishonourable a blow." Attention was, however, chiefly turned to domestic grievances. Soldiers had been billeted on householders without their consent, and martial law had been exercised over civilians as well as 1627 THE EXPEDITION TO RE 507 soldiers. Moreover, the forced loan had been exacted, and some of those who refused to pay had been imprisoned by the mere order of the king and the Privy Council. Against this last injury, five knights, who had been imprisoned, appealed to the Court of King's Bench. A writ oi habeas corpus was issued — that is'to say, an order was given to the gaoler to produce the prisoners before the Court, together with a return showing the cause of committal. All that the gaoler could show was that the prisoners had been com mitted by order of the king, signified by the Privy Council. The lawyers employed by the five knights argued that every prisoner Tents and military equipment in the early.part of the reign of Charles I.: from the monument of Sir Charles Montague (died in 1625) m the church of Barking, Essex. had a right to be tried or liberated on bail ; that, unless cause was shown— that is to say, unless a charge was brought against him— there was nothing on which he could be tried ; and that, therefore, these prisoners ought to be bailed. The lawyers for the Crown argued that when the safety of the state was concerned, the king- had always been allowed to imprison without showing cause, and that his discretion must be trusted not to imprison anyone ex cepting in cases of necessity. The judges did not decide this point, but sent the five knights back to prison. In a few days, all the prisoners were set free, and Charles summoned a third Pariia- _ So8 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES 1. 1627-1628 ment, hoping that it would vote money fof a fresh expedition to relieve Rochelle. 8. Wentworth and Eliot in the Third Parliament of Charles I. 1628. — Charles's third Parliament met on March 17, 1628. The leadership was at once taken by Sir Thomas Wentworth, who, as well as Eliot, had been imprisoned for refusing to pay the loan. Though the two men now worked together, they were, in most points, opposed to one another. Eliot had been a warm advocate of the war with Spain, till he found it useless to carry on the war under Buckingham's guidance. Wentworth disliked all wars, and especially a war with Spain. Eliot believed in the wisdom of the House of Commons, and thought that, if the king alwaySftook its advice, he was sure to be in the right. Wentworth thought'that the House of Commons often blundered; and that the king was more likely to be in the right if he took advice from wise counsellors. Wentworth, however, believed that in this case Charles had unfor tunately preferred to take the advice of foohsh counsellors, and though not sharing the opinions of Eliot and his friends, threw himself into the struggle in which the House of Commons was trying to stop Buckingham in his rash course. From time to time Wentworth contrived to show that he was no enemy of the king, or of a strong government such as that which had existed in the reign of Elizabeth. He was, however, an ardent and impetuous speaker, and threw himself into any cause which he defended with more violence than he could, in calmer moments, have justified to himself He saw clearly that the late aggressions on the hb©i---r2.— The ' Pfofectorate,~"aiia"lhe fhsff uifient of Government, y ' 1653. — On December 16 a constitutional document, known as The. \lnstrument of Government, was drawn up by Cromwell's leading t supporters, and accepted by himself Cromwell was lo be styled i Lord Protector, a title equivalent to that of Regent, of which the { last instance had been th.at of the Protector Somerset (see p. 412). ; The Protector was to enter, to some extent, upon the duties which ;had formerly devolved on the king. There was to be a Parliament ^consisting of a, single HOuse,~which was to meet once in three fefears, from which all who had taken the king's part were excluded, ?as they also were from voting al elections. The constituencies jwere to be almost identical with the reformed ones established by - |Vane's Reform Bill (see p. 566). The Protector was to appoint ihe - executive officials, and lo have a fixed revenue sufficient to pay the ["army and navy and ihe ordinary expenses of Government ; but if hie wanted more for extraordinary purposes he could only obtain it - by means of a Parliamentary grant. New laws were to be made by I Parliament alone, the Protector having no veto upon ihem, though The was lo have an opportunity of criticising them, if he wished to \ urge Pariiament lo change its purpose. The main lines of the '; I constitution were, however, laid down in the Instrument itself, and ^JEariiament had no power given it lo make laws contrary to the f Instrument. In the executive government the Protector was re- ! strained, not by Pariiament, but by a Council of State, the members I of which he could not dismiss as the king had dismissed his Privy I Councillors. The first members were nominated in the Instrument, [and were appointed for life ; but when vacancies occurred, Pariia- lihent was lo giye in six names, of which the Council was to selectijf AjKO, leaving to the Protector only the final choice of one out of two. Without N|he consent of this entirely independent Council, the Protector could take no step of importance. 13. Character of the Instrument of Government. —The Instru ment of Government allowed less Pariiamentary control than had been given to the Long Parliament after the passing of the Tri-' 1653-1654 A CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTORATE 569 ennial Act and the Tonnage and Poundage Act (see pp. 530, 531) : as, though Parliament could now pass laws wilhout any check cor responding to the necessity of submitting them to the royal assent, it could not pass laws on the constitutional points which the Instrument of Government professed to have settled for ever. Neither— except when there was an extraordinary demand for money— could it stop the supplies, so as to bring the executive under its power. It was, rather, the intention of the framers of the Instrument to prevent that Parhamentary absolutism which had proved so hurtful in the later years of the Long Parliament On the other hand, they gave to the Council of State a real control over the Protector ; and it is this which shows that they were intent on averting absolutism in the Protector, as well as absolutism in Parliament, though the means taken by them to effect their end was different from anything adopted by the nation in later years. 14. Oliver's Governraent. 1653-1654. — Before meeting Pariia ment, Oliver had some months in which he could show the quality of the new Government On April 5, 1654, he brought the war with the Dutch to a close, and subsequently concluded treaties with other European powers. On July 10 he had Dom Pantaloon Sa, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, beheaded for a murder. He had more than enough donieslic difficulties to contend with. The Fifth-Monarchy men, and other religious enthusiasts, attacked him for treachery to republicanism, whilst Charles II. offered rewards to his followers for the murder of the usurper. Some of the republicans were imprisoned, and Gerard and Vowel, who tried to murder Oliver, were executed. In the meanwhile, the Protector and Council moved forward in the path of conservative. reform. The Instrument allowed them to issue ordinances, which would be valid till Parliament could examine them ; and, amongst others which he sent forth, was one to reform the Court of Chancery, and another to establish a Commission of Triers, to reject all ministers presented to livings, if it considered them to be unfit, and another Commission of Ejectors, to turn out those who, being in possession, were deemed unworthy. Oliver would have nothing to say to the Voluntary system. Tithes were to be retained, and religious worship was to be established ; but there was to be no inquiry whether the ministers were Presbyterians, Independents, or anything else, provided they were Puritans. There was to be complete toleration of other Puritan congregations not belonging to the established churches ; whilst the Episcopalians, though not II. PP S7P THE COMMONWEALTH 6!= PROTECTORATE 1654-165$ legally tolerated, were as yet frequently allowed to meet privately without notice being taken of them. Other ordinances decreed a complete Union with Scotland and Ireland, both countries being ordered to return members to the Parliament at Westminster. As far as the real Irish were concerned, this Union was entirely illusory, as all Roman Catholics were excluded from the franchise 15. The First Protectorate Parliaraent. 1654 — 1655.- On Sep tember 3, 1654, the First Protectorate Parliament met. Its first act was to question the authority of private persons lo frame a constitution for the State, and il then proceeded to draw up a new constitution, altering the balance in favour of Parliament, and ex pressly declaring that the constitution was liable to revision when ever the Protector and Parliament agreed to change it. Oliver and the Parliament thus found themselves at issue on a point on which compromise was impossible. Parliament, as representing the nation, claiined the right of drawing up the constitution under ' which the nation was to live. Oliver claimed the right of fixing limits on Parliamentary absolutism ; for though, in the suggested constitution. Parliament only proposed to make change possible with the consent of the Protector, it had taken care to make the Council of Stale responsible to Parliament, thereby rendering it very difficult for the Protector to refuse his consent to anything on which Parliament insisted. The only real solution of the difficulty lay in a frank acknowledgment that the nation must be allowed to have its way for evil or for good. This was, however, precisely: what Oliver could not bring himself to acknowledge. He sus pected — doubtless wilh truth — that, if the nation were freely con sulted, it would sweep away not only the Protectorate, but Puri tanism itself He therefore required the members of Parliament to sign a paper acknowledging the government as estabhshed in a single person and in Parliament, and turned out of the House those who refused to sign it. On January 22, finding that those who remained persisted in completing their new constitution, he dissolved Parliament. 16. The Major-Generals. 1655.— The Instrument of Govern ment authorised the Protector to levy sufficient taxes without consent of Parliament to enable him to meet the expenditure in quiet times, and after the dissolution Oliver availed himself of this authorisation. Many people, however, refused to pay, on the ground that the Instrument, unless recognised by Parliament, was not binding ; and, as some of the judges agreed with them, Oliver could only enforce payment by turning out those judges who l654-i655 A MILITARY PROTECTORATE 571 opposed him, and putting others in their places. Moreover, the Government was embarrassed by attempts to overthrow it. There were preparations for resistance by the republicans in the army- suppressed, indeed, before they came to a head, by the arrest and imprisonment of the leaders— and there was an actual Royalist outburst, with wide ramifications, which was, for the most part, anticipated, but which showed itself openly in the South of England, where a Royalist gentleman named Penruddock rode, into Salisbury, at the head of 200 men, and seized the judges who had come down for the assizes. In the face of such danger, Oliver abandoned all pretence of constitutional government. He divided England into ten military districts, over each of which he set a Major-General, with arbitrary powers for maintaining order, and, by a mere stroke of the pen, ordered a payment of 10 per cent, on the incomes of Royalists which was to be collected by the Major-Generals. Military rule developed itself more strongly than eyer before. On November 27 Oliver, in his fear of the Royalists, ordered the suppression of the private worship of those who clung lo the Book of Common Prayer ; perceiving rightly that the most dangerous opponents of his system were to be found amongst sincere Episcopalians. ^ 17. Oliver's Foreign Policy. 1654 — 1655. — Partly, perhaps, be cause he hoped to divert attention from his difficulties at home, partly because he wished his country to be greal in war as well as in peace, Oliver had for some time been engaging in naval enterprise. In the early part of his career he had been friendly to Spain, because France intrigued with the Presbyterians and the king. France and' Spain were still at war, and when Cromwell became Protector he offered his alliance to .Spain, on condition that Spain would help him to reconquer Calais, and would place Dunkirk in his hands as a pledge for the surrender of Calais after it had been taken. He also asked for freedom of commerce in the West Indies, and for more open liberty of religion for the English in the Spanish dominions than had been offered by Spain in its treaty wilh Charles I. To these demands the Spanish ambassador replied sharply that to ask these two things' was to ask his master's two eyes, and plainly refused to admit an English garrison into Dunkirk. Upon this, Cromwell sent out, in the end of 1654, two fleets, one — under Blake— lo go to the Mediterranean, to get re paration from the Duke of Tuscany and the pirates of Tunis for wrongs done to English commerce ; and the other — under Penn and Venables — to seize some great' Spanish island in the West p p 2 572 THE COMMONWEALTH ^ PROTECTORATE 1655-1656 Indies. Blake was successful, but Penn and Venables failed in an attempt on San Domingo, though they took possession of Jamaica which at that lime was not thought to be of any great value. 18. The French Alliance. 1655. — As Oliver could not gel what he wanted from Spain, he offered his alliance to France. Mazarin, the French Minister, met him half-way, and a bargain was struck for the landing of English troops to help the French. Dunkirk was to be taken by the combined forces, and was to be surrendered to Oliver. Freedom of religion was to be accorded to Englishmen in France. Before any treaty had been signed, news arrived that the Duke of Savoy had sent his soldiers to compel his Vaudois subjects to renounce their religion, which was similai; to that of the Protestants, though it had been embraced by them long before Luther's Reformation. These soldiers committed terrible outrages amongst the peaceful mountaineers. Thosewho escaped the sword were carried off as prisoners, or fled to the snowy mountains, where they perished of cold and hunger. Milton's voice was raised to plead for them. " Avenge," he wrote — ' ' O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold — Even men who kept Thy truth, so pure of old. When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones." Cromwell at once told Mazarin that, if he cared for the English alliance, this persecution must stop. Mazarin put pressure on the Duke of Savoy, and liberty of worship was secured to the Vaudois. Then, on October 24, 1655, Oliver concluded the alliance with France. 19. Oliver's Second Parliament, and the Humble Petition and Advice. 1656.— War is expensive, and, in 1656, Oliver called a second Pariiament, to give him money. He would gladly have received a constitutional support for his Government, yet it was certain that any freely-elected Parliament would try to grasp authority for itself When Pariiament met, on September 1.7, Crbm- well began by excluding about a hundred members who were likely , to oppose him. After this, his relations with the House were smoother than they had been in 1654— especially as news arrived that Stainer, with a part of Blake's ships, had captured the Spanish treasure-fleet on its way from America ; and, before lon| thirty-eight waggons, laden with Spanish silver, rolled throij| the London streets. Parhament voted the money needed,4_ Oliver, in return, withdrew the Major-Generals. Then there wa 1656-1658 BREACH WITH PARLIAMENT 573 discovered a plot to murder the Protector, and Pariiament, anxious for security, drew up amendments to the Constitution, known as The Humble Petition' and Advice. There was to be a second House, to revise the decisions of the existing one, which was again to be called the House of Commons. Mem bers of the Council of State were to be approved by Parliament, and the power of excluding members was to be renounced by the .Protecton Oliver was asked to lake the title of king, with the right of naming his own successor. He refused the kingship, as the army disliked it, and also, perhaps, because he felt that there would be an incongruity in its assumption by himself The rest of the terms he accepted, and, on June 26, 1657, before the end of the session, he was installed as Lord Protector with greater solemnity than before. It was already known that, on April 20, Blake had destroyed a great Spanish fleet at Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe. On his way back, on August 7, he died at sea, and was brought home to be buried in Westminster Abbey. 20. The Dissolution of the Second Protectorate Parhament. 1658. — -The new arrangements were a concession to the instinctive feehng of the nation that, the nearer it could get back to the old constitution, the safer it would be. On January 20, 1658, Parliament met for its second session. The House of Commons had to take back the hundred excluded members who were enemies of Oliver, and to lose a large number of Oliver's warmest supporters, who were removed to the other House. The Commons had no longer an Oliverian majority, and, without attacking the Protector him self, they now attacked the other House which he had formed, and which gave itself the airs of the ancient Hoiise of Lords. On February 4, in a speech of mingled sadness and irritation, Oliver dissolved his second Parliament. "The Lord," he said, "judge between me and you." 21. Victory Abroad and Failure at Horae. 1657—1658.— Abroad, Oliver's policy was crowned with success. In 1657, 6,000 English troops were sent to co-operate with the French army, and the combined forces captured Mardyke. On June 4, 1658, they ..defeated the Spanish army in a great battie on the Dunes, and i>n the 14th Dunkirk surrendered, and was placed in the hands of he English. It has often been doubted whether these successes /ere worth gaining. France was growing in strength, whilst Spain was declining, and it would not be long before France would blcome as formidable to England as Spain had been in the days oft EUzabeth. Cromwell, however, was not the man to base his 574 THE COMMONWEALTH ^i' PROTECTORATE 1658-1659 policy on the probabilities of the future. At home and abroad he faced the present, and, since the day on which the king had mounted the scaffold, the difficulties at home had been over whelming. Though his efforts to restore constitutional order had been stupendous, and his .political aims hiid been noble, yet, in struggling lo maintain order amidst chaos, he was attempting that which he, at least, could never do. Men will submit to the clearly expressed will of the nation to which they belong, or to a govern ment ruling in virtue of institutions which they and their ancestors have been in the habit of obeying, but they will not long submit to a successful soldier, even though, like Oliver, he be a statesman as well, 22. Oliver's Death. 1658. — Oliver was growing weary of his unending, hopeless struggle. On August 6, 1658, he lost his favourite daughter, and soon afterwards he sickened. There were times when old doubts stole over his mind : " It is a fearful thing,V he repeated, "to fall into the hands of the living God." Such fears did not retain their hold on his brave , spirit for long : " I am a conqueror," he cried, " and more than a conqueror, through Christ that strengtheneth me." On August 30 a mighty storm passed over England. The devil, said the Cavaliers, was fetching home the soul of the usurper. Oliver's own soul found utterance in one last I prayer of faith : " Lord," he murmured, " though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with Thee through grace ; and I may, I will come to Thee, for Thy people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service ; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish, and would be glad of, my death. . . . Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too ; and pardon the, folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake, and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen." For three days more Oliver lingered on. On September 3, the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester, he passed away to the rest which he had never known on earth. 23. Richard Crorawell. 1658— 1659.— On his deathbed Oliver named, or was said to have named, his eldest son Richard as his successor. The nation preferred Richard to his father, because he was not a soldier, and was very little of a Puritan. On January 27, 1659, a new Parliament met, chosen by the old, unreformed constituencies, as they had existed in th^ time of Charles L; and not by those reformed ones appointed by the Instrument ol Government, though Royalists were still excluded both from votinj 1659 THE ANARCHY 575 at the elections and from sitting in Parliament. In this Pariiament a majority supported Richard, hoping that he would consult the wishes of the army less than his father had done. For that very reason the officers of the army turned against him, and asked not only that Fleetwood, Oliver's son-in-law, should be their com mander, but that he should be entirely independent of the authority ofthe Protector. Richard nominated Fleetwood, but insisted upon his acting under the Protector as his Lieutenant-General. Parlia ment upheld the. control of the civil power over the army. On April 22 the soldiers forced Richard lo dissolve Pariiament. On May 25 Richard abdicated and the Protectorate came to an end. 24. The Long Parliament Restored. 1659.— Already on May 7, at the invitation of the soldiers, forty-two members of the so-called Rump— the portion of the Long Parliament which had continued sitting till it was ejected by Cromwell in 1653 (see p. 566)— had installed themselves at Westminster. No hereditary king was ever more tenacious of his rights than they. They told the officers 'that the Parliament expected faithfulness and obedience to the Pariiament and Commonwealth,' and, declaring all Oliver's acts to have been illegal, resolved that all who had collected taxes for him must repay the money. The officers, many of whom had, as Major-Generals, gathered taxes by authority from Oliver, were naturally indignant. " I know not," said Lambert — one of the most distinguished of Oliver's officers — " why they should not be at our mercy as well as we at theirs." Before anything could be done, news arrived that Sir George Booth had risen in Cheshire for Charles 1 1. Lambert marched against him, and defeated him at Winnington Bridge. When he returned, the officers made high demands of Parliament, and, when these were rejected, they sent troops, on October 13, to keep the members out of the House. " Do you not know me ? " said the Speaker, Lenthall. " If you had been with us al Winnington Bridge," said a soldier, "we should have known you." 25. Military Governraent. 1659. — The soldiers had come to despise civilians merely because they were civilians. They tried to govern directly, wilhout any civilian auihority whatever. The attempt proved an utter failure. It was discovered that taxes were paid less readily than when there had been a civilian Government to exact them. The soldiers quarrelled amongst themselves, and the officers, finding themselves helpless, restored the Rump a second time. On December .26 it resumed its sittings at Westminster. J- 26. Monk and the Rump. 1660. — George Monk, who com- 576 THE COMMONWEALTH &= PROTECTORATE 1660 manded the forces in Scotland, had lillie inclination to meddle with politics ; but he was a thorough soldier, and being a cool, , resolute man, was determined to bear this anarchy no longer. On January i, 1660, he crossed the Border with his army, and on January 11 was joined by Fairfax at York, who brought with him all the weight of his unstained name and his high military reputation. On February 3 Monk entered London, evidently wishing to feel his way. On February 6 the City of London, which had no members sitting in the Rump, declared that it would pay no taxes without representation. Monk was ordered by the - Rump to suppress the resistance of the City. On the loth he reached Guildhall. Keeping his ears open, he soon convinced himself that the Rump was detested by all parties, and, on the ' morning ofthe i6th, declared for a free Parliament. 27. End of the Long Parliament. 1660. —It was easy to coerce the Rump, without the appearance of using violence. On February 26, under pressure from Monk, it called in the Pres^ byterian members shut out by Pride's Purge (see p. 557). After they had taken their seals, a dissolutior, to be' followed by new elections, was voted. At last, on March 16, the Long Parliament , came, by its own act, to its unhonoured end. The destinies of England were to be placed in the hands of the new Parliament, which was to be freely elected. The Restoration was a foregone : J conclusion. The predominant wish of Englishmen was lo escape from the rule of soldiers, and, as every recent form of civil govern ment had been discredited, it was natural to turn back to that which had flourished for centuries, and which had fallen rather through the personal demerits of the last king than through any inherent vices of the sysiem. 28. The Declaration of Breda. 1660.— On April 4 Charles signed a declaration, known as the Declaration of Breda. He offered a general pardon to all except those specially exempted by Parliament, and promised to secure confiscated estates to their new owners in whatever way Parliament should approve. He also offered to consent to a bill for satisfying the arrears of the soldiers, and to another bill for the establishment of ' a liberty for tender consciences.' By the Declaration of Breda, Charies had carefully thrown upon Pariiament the burden of proposing the actual terms on which the settiemenl was to be effected, and at the same time had shaken himself free from his father's policy of claiming to act independently of Pariiament. The new Pariia ment, composed of the two Houses of Lords and Commons, was i66o THE RESTORATION 577 known as the Convention Parliament, because, though conforming in every other respect to the old rules of the Constitution, the House of Commons was chosen wilhout the king's writs. It met on April 25. The Declaration of Breda reached it on May 1. After unanimously welcoming the Declaration, Parliament resolved that, 'according lo the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdoin, the Government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons.' The Puritan Revolution had come to an end. Books recommended for further study of Part X'l. Ranke, L. History of England (English Translation). Vol. i. p. 386 — vol. iii. p. 308. Hallam, H. Constitutional History of England. Chaps. 'VI.-X, Gardiner, S. R. History of England from 1603-1642. History of the Great Civil War. Masson. Life of Milton, and History of his Time, Vols, i.-v. FoRSTEK, J. Life of Sir John Eliot. : — The Grand Remonstrance. Arrest of the Five Members. Guizot, F. Charles I. Cromwell. Richard Crorawell. Hannay, D. Admiral Blake. 578 PART VII THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION. 1660-1689 CHAPTER XXXVII CH-4RLES II. AND CLARENDON. 1660— 1667 LEADING DATKS Reign of Charles II., 1660— 1685. Charles II. lands at Dover ... . May 25, 1660 Dissolution of the Convention Parliament Dec. sg, 1660 Meeting of the Cavalier Parliament . May 8,1661 Corporation Act . . . i66x Act of Uniformity .... . . 166a Expulsion of the Dissenting Ministers . Aug. 24, 1662 The King declares for Toleration Dec. 26, 166a Repeal ofthe Triennial Act . . J664 Conventicle Act . 1664 First Dutch War of the Restoration 1665 The Plague . . , . 1665 Five Mile Act .... 1665 Fire of London . , . 1666 Peace of Breda . J-rlySi, 1667 Clarendon's Fall . 1667 I. Return' of Charles II. 1660. — On May 35, 1660, Charles II. landed at Dover, amidst shouting crowds. On his thirtieth birthday, May 29, he entered London, amidst greater and equally enthu siastic crowds. At Blackheath was drawn up the army which ha# once been commanded by Cromwell. More than anything else, the popular abhorrence of military rule had brought Charles home, whilst the army itself, divided in opinion, and falling under the control of Monk, was powerless to keep him away. When the king reached Whitehall he confirmed Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and other statutes by which the royal power had at various times been limited. i66o CONSTITUTIONAL KINGSHIP sn 2. King and Pariiament. 1660.— Something more than Acts of Pariiament was needed to limit the power of the king. It had been found useless to bind Charies I. by Acts of Pariiament, Charles II. : from the portrait by Sir Peter Lely in Christ's Hospital, London. because he tried again and again to introduce foreign armies into England to set Parliament at naught. Charles II. was, indeed, a man of far greater ability than his father, and was quite as ready as his father to use foreign help to get his way at home. 58o CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON 1660 In the first year after his return he tried to get money both from the Dutch and from the Spaniards in order to make himself independent of Parliament, but his character was very different from his father's, in so far as he always knew — what Charles I. never knew— how much he could do with impunity. Having none of his fathers sense of duty, he was always inclined to give way whenever he found it unpleasant to resist. He is reported to have said that he was determined that, whatever else happened, he would not go on his travels again, and he was perfectly aware that if a single foreign regiment were broughtby him into England, he would soon find himself again a wanderer on the Continent. The people wished to be governed by the king, but also that the king should govern by the advice of .Parliament. The restoration was a restoration of Parliament even more than a restoration ofthe king. 3. Formation of the Government. 1660. — The Privy Council of Charles II. was, at the advice of Monk, who was created Duke of Albemarle in July, composed of Cavaliers and Presbyterians. It was, however, too numerous to direct the course of govern ment, and Charles adopted his father's habit of consulting, on important matters, a few special ministei:s, who were usually known as the Junto. Albemarle, as he knew little and cared less about pohtics, soon lost the lead, and the supreme direction of affairs fell to Hyde, the Lord Chancellor. Charles was too indolent and too fond of pleasure to control the government himself, and was easily guided by Hyde, who was thoroughly loyal to him, and an excellent man of business. Hyde stood to the king^s other advisers very much in the position of a modern Prime Minister, but he carefully avoided introducing the name, though it was already in vogue in France, and contented himself wilh the real influence given him by his superior knowledge. Jn religion and politics he was still what he had been in 1641 (see pp. 533, 534). He was a warm supporter of episcopacy and the Prayer Book. As a laiityer, he applauded the political checks upon the Crown which had been the work'of the first months of the Long Parliament, whilst he detested all the revolutionary measures by which, in the autumn of 1641, attempts had been made to establish the supremacy of Parliament over the king. 4. The Political Ideas of the Convention Pariiament. 1660.— Hyde's position was the stronger because, in politics at least, the Convention Parliament agreed with him. The Cavaliers in it naturally accepted the legislation of the Long Parliament, up to August 1641, when Charles I. left for Scotland (see p. 532), as their l66o CAVALIERS AND PRESBYTERIANS 58i own party had concurred in it. The Presbyterians, on the other hand, who now represented the party which had formerly been led by Pym and Hampden, saw no reason to distrust Charles II. as they had distrusted his father, and were, therefore, ready to abandon the demand for further restrictions on the royal power, on which they had vehemently insisted in the latter part of 1641 and in the eariiei- part of 1642 (see p. 534). In constitutional matters, therefore. Cavaliers and Presbyterians were fused into one, on the basis of Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674 : from an engraving by Loggan. taking up the relations between the Crown and Parliament as they stood in August 1641. This view ofthe situation was favoured by the lawyers, one of whom. Sir Orlando Bridgman, pointed out that, though the king was not responsible, his ministers were ; and, for the lime, every one seemed to be satisfied with this way of keeping up the indispensable understanding between king and Parliament. What would happen if a king arose who, like Charles I., deliberately set himself against Parliament, no one cared to inquire. 5. Execution of the Political Articles' of the Declaration of 582 CHARLES IL AND CLARENDON 1660 Breda. 1660. — Of the four articles of the Declaration of Breda, three were concerned with politics, and these were adopted by Par-,, liament, with such modifications as it pleased to make. The estates of the king and of the bishops and chapters were taken out of the hands of those who had acquired them, but all private sales were declared valid, though Royalists had often sold their land in order to pay the fines imposed on them by the Long Parliament. An Act of Indemnity was passed, in which, however, there were many exceptions, and, in the end, thirteen regicides, together with Vane, were executed, and the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradsbaw A mounted nobleman and his squire : from Ogilby's Coronation Procession of Charles II. dug up and hanged. The bodies of other noted persons, including those of Pym and Blake, which had been buried in Westmins'tl^ Abbey, were alsodiig up, and thrown into a pit outside. Many regicides and other partisans ofthe Commonwealth and Protectorate were punished with imprisonment and loss of goods, whilst others, again, who escaped, remained exiles till their death. Money was raised in order that the army might be paid as had been promised, after which it was disbanded., Feudal dues and purveyance were abolished, and an excise voted to Charles in their place. The whole revenue ofthe Crown was fixed at 1,200,000/. i66o A PROJECT OF TOLERATION 6. Ecclesiastical De bates. 1660. — On ecclesi astical matters the two parties were less harmoni ous. The cavaliers wanted to restore ,jpiscppacy and the Praver jBook. The Presbyterians were ready to go back in religion, as in politics, to the ideas of August, 1641, and to esta bhsh a modified episco pacy, in which bishops would be surrounded with clerical councillors, whose advice they would be bound to take. To this scheme Charles gave his ajiproval, and it is pro bable that if nothing else had been in question Par liament would have ac cepted it. Charies, how- , ever, had an object of his own. His life was disso lute, and, being without any religious convictions, he cherished, like some other dissolute men of that time, a secret attachment to the Church of Rome. In order to do that Church a good turn, he now asked for a toleration in which all -religions should be in cluded. The proposal to include Roman Catholics in the proposed toleration wrecked the chances of modified episcopacy. Cavaliers and Presbyte rians were so inuch afraid 583 Dre^iS ofthe Horse Guards at the Re=;toration : from Ogilby'.s Coronatio?i Procession of Charles II. Yeoman of the Guard : from bgilby's Coronaiian Prgcession of Charley //, 584 CHARLES IL AND CLARENDON 1660-1661 of the Roman Catholics that when a bill for giving effect to the scheme for uniting episcopacy and Presbyterianism was brought into Parliament, it was rejected through fear lest it should be a prelude to some other tolerationist measure favouring the Roman Catholics. . On December 29, 1660, the Convention Parliament was dissolved. 7. Venner's Plot and its Results. i66i.^Np one in the Conven tion Parliament had had any sympathy with the Independents, and still less wilh the more fanatical sects which had received toleration when the Independents were in power. The one thing which the people of England as a body specially detested was the rule of the Shipping in the Thames, circa 1660 : from Pricke's South Prospect of London. Cromwellian army, and the two parties therefore combined to persecute the Independents by whom that army had been sup ported. In January, 1661, a party of fanatics, knowing that they at least had nothing to hope, rose in insurrection in London under one Venner, a cooper. The rising was easily put down, but it gave an excuse to Charles — who was just then paying off the army— to retain two regiments, one" of horse and one of foot, besides a third, which was in garrison at Dunkirk. There was thus formed the nucleus of an army the numbers of which, before long, amounted to 5,000. To have an armed force at all was likely to bring sus picion upon Charles, especially as his revenue did not suffice foR I66i-i662 REACTION IN CHURCH AND STATE 585 the payment of 5,000 men without having recourse to means which would cause ill-feeling between himself and Parhament. ^ 8. The Cavalier Pariiament, and the Corporation Act. 1661. On May 8, 1661, a new Parliament, sometimes known as the Cava lier Parhament, met. In times of excitement, nations are apt to show favour to the party which has a clear and decided opinion; and, on this occasion, nine-tenths of the new members were Cava liers. The new Parliament voted that neither House could pretend to the command of the militia, nor could lawfully make war upon the king. Before the end of 1661 it passed the Corporation Act, which was aimed at the Presbyterians as well as at the Indepen dents. All who held office in municipal corporations were to renounce the Covenant, and to take an oath of non-resistance, declaring it to be unlawful to bear arms against the king ; and no one in future was to hold municipal office who had not received the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This Act did mqre than exclude from corporations those who ob jected to submit to its injunctions. In many towns the corporations elected the members of the House of Commons, and hence, by excluding non-conformists from corporations in towns, Parliament indirectly excluded them from many seats in the House of Commons. ^ 9. The Savoy Conference, and the Act of Uniformity. 1661 — 1662. — After the dissolution of the Convention Parhament, the old number of bishops was filled up, and, in April 1661, a conference between some bishops and some Presbyterian clergy was held at the Savoy Palace, and has therefore been known as the Savoy Conference. The two parties differed too much to come to terms, and the whole question of the settlement of the Church was left lo the Cavalier Parliament. In 1662 Parliament decided it bypassing the Act of Uniformity. Every clergyman and every schoolmaster refusing to'express, by August 24, his unfeigned consent to every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, was to be pre cluded from holding a benefice. On August 24 (St Bartholomew's day), about 2,000 clergy resigned their cures for conscience' sake, as their opponents had, in the time of Puritan domination, been driven from their cures, rather than take the Covenant. ^ 10. The Dissenters. 1662.— The expulsion of the dissenting clergy, as they were now called, made a great change in the history of Enghsh Christianity. The early Puritans wished, not to separate from the national Church, but to mould the national Church after their own fashion. The Independents set the example II. QQ 586 CHARLES IL AND CLARENDON 1662 of separating from the national Church, in order to form communities outside it. The Presbyterian clergy who kept up the tradition of the early Puritans were now driven out of the national Church, and were placed in very much the same position as the Independents; Hence, these two bodies, together with the Baptists and the Society of Friends — popularly known as Quakers — and other sects which had recently arisen, began to be known by the common name of Dissenters. The aim ofthose who had directed the meeting of the Savoy Conference had been to bring about comprehension, that is to say, the continuance within the Church of those who, after its close; became Dissenters. Their failure had resulted from the impossi bility of finding any formularies which could satisfy both parties ; and in consequence of this failure the Dissenters now abandoned ' all thought of comprehension, and contented themselves with asking for toleration, that is to say, for permission to worship apart froin the Church, in their own assemblies. II. The Parliamentary Presbyterians. 166^. — The Presby terian clergy were followed by most of their supporters among the tradesmen and merchants of the towns. They were not followed by the Presbyterians among the gentry. The, party in Parliament, which had hitherto styled itself Presbyterian, had originally become so mainly through dislike of the power of the bishops. They now consented to accept the Prayer Book, when they found that the regulation of the Church was to depend on Acts of Parliament and not either on the bishops or the king. The few members of the House of Commons who had hitherto been known as Presbyterians formed the nucleiis of a party of toleration, asking for a modification of the law against Dissenters', though refusing to become Dissenters themselves. ' 12. Profligacy of the Court. 1662.— On the other hand, the members of the Cavaher party had, in 1641, become Royahsts be^ ; cause they desired the retention of the doctrine and discipline ofthe Church of England, and, in 1662, the Cavaliers were supporters of the Church even more than they were Royahsts. As soon as Charles expressed his approval of. the Act of Uniformity, and not before, the House of Commons voted him a chimney tax of two shillings on every chimney. If Charles had been an economical man, instead of an extravagant one, he might possibly have contrived to . hve within his income. He was, however, beyond measure ex travagant. The reaction against Puritanism was not political only. There were plenty of sober men amongst the Enghsh gentry, but there were also many who had been so galled by the restrictions 1662-1663 CHARLES AND LOUIS XIV. 587 of Puritanism that they had thrown off all moral restraint Riot and debauchery became the fashion, and in this bad fashion Charies's. court led the way. 13. Marriage of Charles 1 1., and Sale of Dunkirk. 1662.— In 1662 Charles married Catharine of Braganza, a Portuguese- Princess. He professed his intention of leading a new life, but he was weak as water, and he soon returned to his evil courses. Politically , alone was the marriage of importance. Catharine brought with her- the possessions of Tangier, and of Bombav. the first spot on the soil of India acquired by the English Crown. It was also a seal of friendship between Charles and Louis XIV. of France. Louis had made peace with Spain by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, but he still sympathised with the efforts of Portugal to maintain the independence of which Spain had robbed her in 1580 (see p. 454), and which she had recovered in 1640. Charles's marriage was', therefore, a declaration in favour of France. In November, 1662, after Parliament had dispersed for a vacation, he further showed his attachment to France, by selling Dunkirk to Louis for 200,000/. By abandoning Dunkirk, Charles saved an annual cost of 120,000/., which he would be able, if he pleased, to spend on an army. It may be , doubted whether the possession of Dunkirk was of any real use, but there was a howl of indignation, in consequence of its loss, especially directed against Hyde, who had 'been created Earl of Clarendon in 1661, and was building a town house on a scale commensurate with his dignity. This house was popularly called Dunkirk House, it being falsely sup posed that Clarendon received froffi Louis bribes which were expended upon it. / 14, The Question of Toleration Raised. 1662— 1663.— Before ' Pariiament met, Charles, on December 26, 1662, issued a declara tion in favour of toleration. He asked Parliament to pass an Act enabling him lo mitigate the rigour of the Act of Uniformity by exercising that dispensing power ' which he conceived to be in herent in him.' Again and again, in former reigns, the king had dispensed from the penalties imposed by various laws, though there had been times when Parliament had remonstrated in cases where those penalties were imposed lo restrain the Roman Catholic religion. When Parliament met again in 1663, the Cavaliers rejected the king's proposal. They would hear nothing of tole ration for Dissenters, and still less of toleration for ' Papists.' The fear of a restoration of ' Popery ' was the strongest motive' of Englishmen of that day, and Charies, who, unlike his father,, SS8 CHaPLSS il and CLARENDON 16^4 always recoiled from strong opposition, even consented to banish > all Roman Catholic priests. Yet it was in their interest and not in that of the Dissenters that he had issued his declaration. This affair sowed the first seeds of ill-will between Charles and Clarendoa* " as the latter had warmly supported the opposition to the Declaration. 15. The Conventicle Act. 1664.— Parliament was roused to proceed still farther in its course of intolerance. The Act of Uniformity had turned the Dissenting clergy out of the Church, but liad not prevented them from holding meetings for worship. In May 1664 a Conventicle Act was passed, by which any adult attending a conventicle was made liable to an ascending scale of penalties, ending in seven years' transportation, according to the number of times that the offence had been committed. A con venticle was defined as being a religious meeting not in accordance with the practice of the Church of England, at which more than four persons were present in addition to the household. ¦ The sentence of transportation was, indeed, a terrible one, as it implied; working like a slave, generally under the burning sun in Barbacjoes or some West India colony. The simple-minded Pepys, whose' Diary throws light on the social conditions of the time, met sorae of the worshippers on their way to the inevitable sentence. " They go like lambs," he writes, " without any resistance. I would, lo God they would conform, or be more wise and not be catched,!' It was fear which produced the eagerness of English gentlemen to persecute Dissenters. They remembered how they had Ihemsel^ been kept under by Cromwell's Puritan army, and, knowing that most of Cromwell's soldiers were still in the prime of life, they feared lest, if the Dissenters were allowed to gather head, they might become strong enough to call again to arms that ever^ .victorious army. , J ' 16. The Repeal of the Triennial Act. 1664. — In the spring || 1664, before the passing of the Conventicle Act, the Cavalier Pariia- nient had been alarmed lest it should be thought that it ought to be dissolved in the following May, because it would then have sat three years, in compliance with the Triennial Act. In reality theie was nothing in the Triennial Act or in any other Act which rendered Parliament hable to dissolution, as long as the king lived, unless he chose to dissolve it ; but Charies, who did not like the fetters which that Act imposed upon him, took the opportunity .to ask Pariiament to repeal it. This was promptly done, though in the Act of Repeal was included a clause lo the, effect that there Should, in future, be no intermission of PariiamentsTor more than 1660-1664 COMEMRCIAL RIVALS 589 three years. As the whole of the machinery invented by the Long Parhament for giving effect to such a clause (see p. 530) had vanished, no king could now be compelled to summon Pariiament unless he wished to do so. 1/ 17 Growing Hostility between England and the Dutch. 1660-1664.-11 was not fear, but commercial rivalry, which made England hate the Dutch. In i66o the Convention Pariia ment had re-enacted the Navigation Act (see p. 565). Legis lation alone, however, could not prevent the Dutch from driving the Enghsh out of the markets of the worid, either by superior trading capacity, or by forcibly excluding them from ports in which Dutch influence was supreme. Besides this, the Dutch refused to surrender Pularoon, a valuable spice-bearing island in the East Indies, though they had engaged to do so by treaty. If there was anything_about which Charles II. was in earnest it was in the spread of^Enghsh colonies and commerce. He had also private reasons for bearing ill-will against-the Dutch, who by abolishing the office of Stadholder (see p. 565) in 1650, had deprived the young William of Orange, the son of Charles's sister Mary, of any post in the Repubhc. The seven provinces were held - together by the necessity of following the counsels of the Province of Holland, by far the most extensive and the wealthiest of the seven, if they were to preserve any unity at all. The opinion of this Province was the more readily accepted because the provincial states by which it was governed submitted lo be led by their pensionary, John de Witt, one of the most vigorous and most prudent states men of the age. A pensionary was only an officer bound to carry out the orders of the States, but the fact that all business passed through his hands made a man of John de Witt's ability, the director of the pohcy which he was supposed to receive from others. iii 18. Outbreak of the First Dutch War of the Restoration. 1664 — 1665.; — In 1664 hostilities broke out between England and the Dutch Republic, without any declaration of war. English fleets captured Dutch vessels on the coast of Africa, seized islands in the West Indies, and took possession of the Dutch settlement in America called by its founders New Amsterdam, but re-named by the English New York, after the king's only surviving brother, the Duke of York, who was Lord High Admiral. Later in the year, De Ruyter, one of the best of the Dutch admirals, retaliated by seizing most of the English forts on the coast of Guinea, and in 1665 war was openly declared, Pariiament inade what was then 590 CHARLES II, AND CLARENDON 1665 the enormous grant of 2,500,000/., and on June 3 a battle was fought off Lowestoft in which the English were completely victorious.,'! (/ 19. The Plague. 1665.- The rejoicing in England was marred by a terrible calamity. For more than half a century the Plague had appeared in England, at intervals of five years. It. now broke out with unusual virulence, especially in London. The streets there were narrow and dirty, and the air was close, be cause the upper storeys of the houses overhung the lower ones. - No medical aid appeared to avail anything- against the Plague. On the door of every house in which it appeared was painted a red cross with the words, "The Lord have mercy upon us." Every one rich enough fled into the country and spread the in fection. "How fearful," wrote a contemporary, "people were, thirty or forty, if not a hundred miles from London, of anything that they brought from any mercer's or^ draper's shop ; or of any goods that were brought to them ; or of any persons that came to their houses ! How they would shut their doors against their friends ; and if a mart passed over the fields, how one would avoid another ! " The dead were too numerous lobe buried in the usual way, and carts went their rounds at night, accompanied by a man ringing a bell and calling out, " Bring out your dead." The corpses were flung into a huge pit without coffins, there being no time to provide them for so many. It was not till winter came that the sickness died away. 20. The Five Mile Act. 1665.— In October, Pariiament'inet at Oxford, through fear of the Plague. It offered the king 1,250,000/. for the war if he would consent to fresh persecution of the Dis senters. He took the liioney, and gave his assent to the Five Mile Act. The Conventicle Act had been largely evaded, and, during the Plague, Dissenting ministers had preached in pulpits from which the clergy had fled through fear of infection. The Five Mile Act was to strike at the ministers ejected on St. Bar tholomew's day. Not one of them was allowed to come within five miles of a borough town, or of any place in which he had once held a cure, and was therefore likely to find a congregation, unless he would take the oath of non-resistance, and swear that he would never endeavour to alter the government in Church or State, a condition to which few, if any, of the Dissenters were willing to ^ubmit 21. Continued Struggle with the Dutch. 1665 — 1666. In the autumn of 1665 the ravages of the Plague kept the Enghsh fleet in the Thames, and the Dutch held the sea. On land -they were l666 THE DUTCH WAR 591 exposed to some peril. Ever since their peace with Spain, in 1648, they had allowed their military defences to fall into decay, on the supposition that they would have no more enemies who could dispose of any formidable land-force. Now even a petty prince like the Bishop of Miinster, hired by Charies, was able, in October, to over-run two of their eastern provinces. The Dutch called upon the king of France, Louis Xn^, for help, and he, being bound by treaty to assist them, declared war against England in January \\if^^\ Old ,St. Paur.s, from the east, showing its condition just before the Great Fire- from an engraving by Hollar. 1666. If he had given earnest support to the Dutch the conse quences would have been serious for England, but though he and other continental aUies of the Dutch frightened off the Bishop of Miinster from his attack on the Republic, Louis had no wish to help in the destruction of the English navy. What he wanted was to see the Dutch and English fleets destroy one another in order that his own might be mistress of the sea. Through the first four days of June a desperate naval battle was fought between the English and the Dutch, off the North Foreland, at the end of which the 592 CHARLES II AND CLARENDON 1665-1666 English fleet, under Albemarle and Rupert, was driven to take shelter in the Thames, whilst the Dutch had been so crippled as to be forced to put back to refit. On July 25 and 26 there was another battle off the mouth of the Thames. This time the Dutch had the worst, and in August the Enghsh fleet sailed along the islands at the entrance of the Zuyder Zee, destroying 160 merchant ships and burning a town. The struggle had been a terrible one. The sailors of both nations were equally brave, and equally at home in a sea-fight, but the English ships were better buift and the Enghsh guns were better, whilst the Dutch commanders did not work well together in consequence of personal and politieali jealousies. ' 22. The Fire of London. 1666. — In September, 1666, London suffered a 'calamity only second to that of the Plague. A fire broke out, and burnt for three days. All the City from the Tower to the Temple, and from the Thames to Smithfield, was absolutely destroyed. Old St Paul's, the longest cathedral in England, perished in the flames. Great as the suffering caused' by the fire was, it was not without its benefits, as the old houses with their Overhanging storeys were destroyed by it, and were replaced by new ones built in the modem fashion, so that there was more air in the streets. After this reconstruction of London it was never again visited by the Plague. 23. Designs of Louis XIV, 1665 — 1667. — Soon after the fire died down Parliament voted 1,800,000/. for continuing the war, but the country was exhausted, and it was known that it would be impossible to collect so large a sum. Both king and Parliament were therefore anxious for peace, and there were now reasons which made the Dutch also ready to make peace. In 1665 Philip IV. of Spain died, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles 1 1., as yet a mere child, hopelessly weak in body and mind. Phihp also left two daughters, the elder, Maria TheresajS a child of his first wife, being the wife of Louis, whilst the younger, Margaret Theresa, the wife of the Emperor Leopold 1., was, with Charles 1 1., the offspring of a second marriageii- Both of the daughters had renounced all future claim to the Spanish Crown, but Louis, knowing that the young Charles II. of ' Genealogy of the surviving children of Philip IV : — I. Elizabeth of France = Philip IV. =2. Mary of Austria. Irfjiria Theresa = Louis XIV. Margaret Tl^eresa= Leopold I. Charles Il/j l667 THE WAR OF DEVOLUTION 593 Spain was so sickly as to make his early death probable, was pre pared to assert his wife's claim whenever that event took place. In the meanwhile he put forward a demand that the greater part ofthe Spanish Netherlands should be immediately handed over to her, because in those countries there was a law, known as the law of devolution, enacting that the daughter of a first wife should receive a larger share of her father's property than a son of the second. Louis chose to construe a right to succeed to property as though it implied a right to govern. In March, 1667, he made a secret treaty with Charles II. of England, in which, on condition of his engaging not to help the Dutch, he was allowed to do as he pleased in the Spanish Netherlands. In May he began what is known as the War of Devolution, with Spain. Spain had neither money nor means to defend her territory in the Netherlands, and the French armies captured one place after another. (/ 24. The Dutch in the Medway, and the Peace of Breda. 1667. — The advance of Louis into "the Spanish Netherlands and the establishment of the French armies so near their frontier in the place of the now exhausted forces of Spain greatly alarmed the Dutch. The mere risk of this danger had, even before the war between France and Spain began, inclined them to peace with England, and a conference was opened at Bxe^ to consider the terms. All was quickly agreed on except the question about the right of England to Pularoon (see p. 589), and Charles, imagining that this would be settled in his favour, dismissed his sailors and dismantled his fleet, in order to save money to spend on his own extravagant pleasures. The Dutch fleet at once entered the Thames, sailed up the Medway, burnt three men-of-war, and - carried off a fourth. For some days it blockaded the Thames, so that the Londoners could get no coals. Men openly said that such things would not have happened if Oliver had been living. Orders were sent to the English ambassadors at Breda to give up Pularoon, and on July 31 the Treaty of Breda was signed. It was not wholly disastrous. If England lost her last hold on the spice islands of the East, she gained New York and all the territory formerly Dutch in the West, which had broken up the continuity of her colonies in America. ¦V^ 25. Clarendon and the House of Commons. 1667. -^The events of the last months of the war had produced important effects upon the temper of Parliament. Long before the Dutch appeared in the Medway, the House of Commons had demanded an inquiry into the expenditure of the money granted to the 594 CHARLES IL AND CLARENDON 1667 Crown, suspecting that much of the supply distinctly intended for purposes of war had been diverted to pay for the amusements of the Court. This demand, which opened a new chapter in the history of the financial struggle between the House of Commons and the Crown, brought the Commons into collision with Clarendon. ' It had been settied by the Long Pariiament that the king was to levy no taxes without a grant from Pariiament. The Cavalier Pariiament, Royalist as it was, was beginning to ask that the king should not spend the proceeds of taxes without the approbation of Parliament, When once this had been secured, Parliament would indubita:bly become supreme. Against this attempt to obtain the mastery Clarendon struggled. He was a good lawyer and an excellent -5 man of business, but he was not a statesman of genius. He wanted each part of the government to act in harmony with the others j but he could never understand the meaning of the saying that if two men ride on horseback, one must ride in front He wanted the king and Parhament both to ride in front, both —that is to say — to have iTieir own way in certain directions. His notion of a king was that of one prudently doing his best for his people, always ruling according to law, and irresponsible in everything, even in the expenditure of money. A wasteful, riotous Charles II. was a phenomenon for the control of which his constitutional formulas were not prepared. 26. The Fall of Clarendon. 1667. —Though Clarendon was unable to concur in any diminution of the power of the Crown, his eyes were widely open to the profligacy of Charles's life. Again and again he had remonstrated with him, and had refused to pass under the great seal grants in favour of Lady Castlemaine, to whom, amongst his many mistresses, Charies was at this tirae most com pletely subjugated. As might have been expected, this abandoned woman irritated her paramour against his upright Chancellor, telling him that he was no king as long as -he was ruled lay Clarendon. As Parliament continued its attacks, Charles, .on August 30, dismissed Clarendon from ofiice. On October 10, the fallen minister was impeached by the House of Commons, on charges the greater part of which were ridiculously untrue. He tried to rouse Charles lo support him, reminding him that, after Charles I. allowed Strafford to die, the king's own head had fallen on the scaffold. Charles II. , an easy-going but clever politician, probably thought that he could always escape his father's fate by refraining from imitating his father's stiffness. He gave Clarendon a strong hint to withdraw, and on November 29 the minister who l66o-i66i THE IRISH ACT OF SETTLEMENT ,595 had done more than any other man to establish the restored monarchy, fled to France, never to return alive. 27. Scotland and Ireland. 1660.— At the Restoration, the close connection established by Cromwell between England and Scotland was necessarily broken up. Scotland hated English control even when it came in the guise of a union of Parliaments, and the old relation of separate states united only by the Crown was al once resumed. Argyle and his principal followers were executed as traitors. The main profit of the restoration in Scotiand, however, fell to the nobility. The clergy was discredited by its divisions, and the noblemen, whose fathers had supported Presbyterianism against Charles I., now supported Charles II. against Presby terianism. Once more, as in the days of James I., the clergy were muzzled by the restoration of episcopacy and the assertion of the authority of the Crown. In Ireland the main question was how to satisfy alike the recent English immigrants who had received lands from Cromwell and the Irish proprietors who had been deprived of their lands in favour of the intruders. In 1661, at the king's desire, an Act of Settlement was passed, making, in elaborate detail, an attempt to satisfy as many as possible of both parties ; but as men of English descent and Protestant religion filled the Irish House of Commons, the English settlers contrived to maintain, by consti tutional authority, much of what they had taken with the strong- hand. According to the best evidence now procurable, whereas before 1641 about two-thirds of Irish lands fit for cultivation had been in the hands of Catholics, before the end of the reign of Charles II. two-thirds were in the hands of Protestants. 596 CHAPTER XXXVIII CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL. 1667— 1674 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660— 1685 Treaty of Dover June 1, 1670 Second Dutch War of the Restoration . March 13, 1672 Declaration of Indulgence March 15, 1672 Test Act .... March 29, 1673 Dismissal of Shaftesbury .... Nov. g, 1673 Peace with the Dutch Feb. ig, 1674 I. Milton and Bunyan. — Whilst Clarendon and his allies were fortifying the legal position of the Church of England, the old Puritanism which they attempted to crush found a voice in literature. Milton, who had become bhnd, in consequence of his intense devotion to the service of the State, as the secretary of Cromwell, at last, after long preparation, gave to the world ' Para dise Lost,' in 1667. The poem was Puritan, not only because its main theme was the maintenance or destruction of the purity of a single human soul, but because it based that purity on obedience to the commands of the great Taskmaster ; whilst, in the solemn cadence of its blank verse there is something to remind the reader of the stern world of duty, in the midst of which the nobler spirits-of the Commonwealth and Protectorate had moved. As Milton was the poet of Puritanism, John Bunyan was the prose-poet of Dissent. He had himself fought as a soldier on the side of Parliament in the Civil War, and, having become an earnest Baptist preacher, he continued to preach after the Restoration, and, boldly defying the law, was requited with a long imprisonment. His masterpiece, ' The Pilgrim's Progress,' was probably not written till 1675, but many of his religious writings were published before that date. His force of imagination made him the greatest allegorist the world has seen. His moral aim lay in the preservation of a few choice souls from the perils and temptations of a society wholly given up to evil. 3, Butler and the Dramatists — There was, doubtless, much in i663 MILTON AND BUTLER 597 die worid round Milton and Bunyan to awake indignation. Samuel Butier was a man of genius, but his ' Hudibras,' which appeared in 1663, shows but poorly by the side of 'Paradise Lost' and 'The John Milton in i66g. Pilgrim's P rogress.' This mock-heroic account of a Puritan knight is the work of a strong writer, who can find nothing better to 598 CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1667 do with the warriors and disputants who had lately controUei- England than to laugh at them. , The mass of Restoration poetry was far weaker than ' Hudibras,' whilst its dramatic writers vied with one another in the expression of licentious thought either m prose or in the regular heroic couplets which were, at this time, in vogue. It was, indeed, impossible to put much human' passion into two neat lines which had to be made to rhyme:; but at Court love-making had been substituted for passion, and the theatres, now re- opened, after they had been suppressed by the Puritans, were meant for the vicious Court and not for the people at large. 3. Reason and Science. — The satire of Butler, and the licen- , tiousness of the dramatists, both sprang from a reaction against the severe morality of the Puritans ; but it would have been a poor prospect for the generation following that of Puritan repression if the age had not produced any positive work of its own. Its work was to be found in the increase of respect for human reason. In the better minds amongst the clergy of the Restoration, the reasonable character of the Church of England was more than ever predominant. A few, such as Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's, were even anxious to find some way of comprehension by which Dissenters might be reconciled to the Church, whilst others, like Morley and Barrow, attached f&r more importance to arguments addressed to the understanding, than lo that uniformity of ceremonial which had been sp dear to the mind of Laud. Still more important was the spread of devotion to natural science. The Royal Society, founded for its promotion in 1660, brought together men who thought more about air-pumps than about the mysteries of theology ; and it was mainly the results of their inquiries which made any renewed triumph of Puritanism impossible. In 'The Pilgrim's Progress' the outer world was treated as a mere embarrassment to the pursuit of spiritual per fection. By the Fellows of the Royal Society it was treated as calling for reverent investigation, in order that, in the words of Bacon, nature might be brought into the service of man by hi^ obedience to her laws. 4. Charles 1 1, and Toleration. 1667. — In the long run the rise of the scientific spirit would conduce to religious tpIeratioi!|- because scientific men have no reason to desire the suppression of any form of religious belief The first step taken after the restora tion in the direction of rehgious toleration had come from Charies (see p. 581), who was actuated partly by a sneaking fondness for the I667-I669 PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 599 Roman Catholic Church and partly by dislike of being dictated to by Pariiament. He therefore, after Clarendon's fall, gave hib confidence mainly to men who, for various reasons, were inclined to support his wishes in this respect. 5. Buckingham and Arlington. 1667— 1669.— Amongst these men the principal were the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Ariington. Buckingham, the son of the favourite of Charies I.— ' everything by turns and nothing long '—was trying his hand at politics by way of amusement. Arlington, who, like Charles, hardly knew whether he was Catholic or Protestant, was entrusted, as Secretary. of State, with the direction of foreign affairs. He was a man of considerable ability, but perfectly unscrupulous in shifting his ground to suit his personal ambition. Both hated Clarendon as sour and austere, and both were ready to support the king in any scheme upon which he might set his heart. The Dissenters con fined to prison were liberated, and a Bill prepared to modify the ceremonies of the Church, so as to enable the expelled Presby terians to re-enter the Church. When, nowever, Parliament met in February, 1668, it showed its determination to have nothing to do with either toleration or comprehension (see p. 598). It offered the king 300,000/., but only under the implied condition that he would abandon his scheme. Charles took the money and dropped his scheme. , He prorogued Parliament in May, and did not re assemble it till October, 1669. Whilst Parliament was not in session Charies sheltered the Dissenters from persecution, and even thought of dissolving Parliament. Albemarle (see p. 580), hov/ever, cautiously reminded him that, 'even if he got a new Pariiament in which the Dissenters and their friends were predominant, it would probably cause him trouble by wanting to persecute those who had hitherto persecuted the Dissenters. Accordingly Charles, who hated no thing so much as trouble, not only allowed the old Parliament to meet again, but even issued a proclamation enforcing the penal laws against Dissenters. N 6. The Triple Alliance. 1668. — In 1668 a triple alliance was formed between Enghind, the Dutch Republic, and Sweden, to put an end to the War of Devolution "('see p. 593). Its originators were De Witt, and Sir William Temple, the English ambassador at the Hague. The allies deinanded that Louis should content himself with certain strong towns on his northern frontier which he had already conquered from Spain, and should desist from attempting to conquer more. Louis assented, and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed on these conditions. In England 6oO CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL 1669-1670 there was already a rising feeling against the French, and Charles acquired no little popularity by his supposed firmness. In reality he' had betrayed the secrets of the alli.ance to Louis, and had only shown his teeth to gain good terms for himself from the French king. ¦"^ 7. Charles's Negotiations with France. 1669— 1670.— Louis owed the Dutch a deep grudge, and set himself to win Charies to neutrality, if not to active help, in the war which he now purposed to make against them. Charles disliked the Dutch as the com mercial rivals of England, and was ready to sell himself to Louis if only the price offered was high enough. Though Charles never suffered religion of any kind to be a check on his conduct, his facile nature yearned after the imposing authority of the Roman Church. In 1669 his brother, James, avowed himself a Catholic^ and in the same year Charles, under the strictest secrecy, declared his own conversion to a small circle of men whom he could trust Before the end of the war he offered Louis support against the Dutch, but asked such enormous concessions in return that Louis refused to agree to them. Charles, before lowering the terms of his bargain with Louis, drove another bargain with his Parliame|it In the spring of 1670, by dropping his demand for toleration, he obtained a grant of 300,000/. a year for eight years. In return he gave the royal assent to a second Conventicle Act, even more stringent than the first "4, 8. The Treaty of Dover. 1670. — Having secured a grant, Charles prorogued Parliament, which he had deceived by.giving it to understand that he had abandoned the idea of toleration and turned to Louis. Louis sent over Charles's youngest sisteJf Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, to conclude an alliance, and fh June I, 1670, a treatyTsetween England and France was secretly signed at Dover; Charles ^agrged to join Louis in his projected? war against the Dutch, by sending an English force of 6,000 men to serve in the French arfiry,'and-to^assisf Louis to seize upon the territories of the Spanish monarchy in the event of the death af Charles II. of Spain without male heirs. Charles was also to acknowledge himself a CaAplic^whgnever he_thought_fit, lo do so. To support Charles against his subjects in case of their resisting hira in the declaration of his conversion, Louis was to give him 154,000/1 and the aid of 6,000 troops to be employed in England in his defence. Moreover, Charles was to receive 220^000/. a year during the pro posed war, andjhirty French ships wereTo serve under an English admiral. At the end'bf the war he was to receive Walchereil AN ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE 6c I- 1670 Stays and Cadsand from the Dutch Republic, and ultimately, if Louis made good his claims to the Spanish monarchy, he was to gam from Spam, Ostend, Minorca, and various territories in South America. Charies II. was no more scrupulous than his father had been.about using the troops of foreign princes to suppress the Opposi tion of his own subjects, but he was shrewd enough to know— what Charles I. had never known— that foreign princes would not lend him Temple Bar. London, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670 Taken down in 1878 and since rebuilt at Waltham Crobs. , troops unless he gave them something in return. The breach of the • Triple Alliance and the assistance offered by Charles to Louis in the proposed war against the Dutch were considered in France to be a fair equivalent for the payments which Louis had bound himself to make. It was another question whether Charles could be kept to his engagements. To secure this as much as possible Louis sent n. R R 602 CHARLES IL AND THE CABAL 1676 him over a new French mistress, Louise de Keroualle. Charles soon created her Duchess of Portsmouth, and she fulfilled her duty to her own king by betraying to him all the secrets of her lover. 9. The Cabal. 1670. — After Clarendon's fall Charles had been* his own chief minister. The ministers whom he consulted from time to time were known as his Cabal, a word then applied to any body of secret advisers, without carrying with it the opprobrious meaning which it now has. At last the wits discovered that the initials of five ministers who were principally consulted about the time of the Treaty of Dover, Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, spelt the word cabal, and writers have since talked about them as forming what has been called the Cabal Ministry, though no such ministry, in the modern sense of the word, ever existed. Not only did they not form a council meeting for purposes of government, but, though they agreed together in favouring toleration, they disagreed on other points. Nor were they usually consulted by Charles in a body. Sometimes he ,took the advice of persons not of their number ; sometimes he took the advice of some of them only, whilst he kept the others entirely in the dark. Thus Clifford, who was a brave and honest Catholic, and Arlington, who would support any measure as long as it was his interest to do so, knew all about the Treaty of Dover, whilst Buckingham, Lauderdale, and Ashley were in complete ignorance of it. Of Buckingham and Arlington enough has been already said (see p. 599). Lauderdale, who had little to do with English affairs, kept himself almost entirely to the task of building up the king's authority in Scotland, where he had already got together an army completely at Charles's disposal. The character of Ashley deserves a longer consideration. 10. Ashley's Policy.— Anthony Ashley Cooper,^ who had been created Lord Ashley since the Restoration, bad changed sides again and again during the late troubles. He was a born party- leader, and had signalised himself as a 'youth at Exeter College, Oxford, by leading a successful revolt of the freshmen against the older undergraduates, who, according to custom, tried to skin lf|e. chins ofthe freshmen and to force them to drink a nauseous com pound prepared for the occasion. Though in party conflict he was quite unscrupulous and despised no means which would enable him to gain his ends, he had the statesmanlike qualities of common sense and moderation. He had deserted Charles I. when he leant up^ the CathoUcs (see p. 541), had supported Cromwell in hisfst*lwi » Two Christian names were exceedingly rare in the seventeenth centuiy. 1671-1672 ASHLEY AND BUCKINGHAM 603 with the zealots ofthe Barebone's Pariiament (see p. 566), and had left him when he rejected the constitutional scheme of the first Parliament of the Protectorate (see p. 570). In disgust at the humours of the Rump and the army, he had done everything in his power to hasten the Restoration, and had soon shown hostility to Clarendon and to the persecuting laws of the Cavalier Pariia ment In fact, there were two principles lo which he was never entirely false, a love of Parliamentary government and a love of toleration, which last was based, not as was that of Oliver, upon sympathy with religious zeal of every kind, but upon dislike of clerical interference. At present he attached himself to Charles, because he knew of Charles's alleged wish to establish toleration, and knew nothing of the conspiracy against Parhament on which Charles had embarked, or of Charles's secret design to favour the Roman Church under cover of a general scheme of toleration. II. Buckingham's Sham Treaty. 1671. — To deceive those who were in ignorance of the secret treaty of the previous year, Buckingham was sent to Paris to negotiate a sham treaty in which all mention of Charles's conversion was omitted, and the whole of the money offered by Louis represented as given solely for the war. Charles particularly enjoyed making a fool of Buckingham, who imagined himself to be exceedingly clever, and he had also the temporary satisfaction of gaining the hearty support of Ashley as well as Buckingham, because Ashley was quite ready to accept Louis' help in a joint enterprise for crushing the commerce of the Dutch, and had no scruples about abandoning the Triple Alliance. Charles was the more ready to begin the war because he had lately succeeded in obtaining from Parliament another 800,000/. on the false plea that he wanted the: money to enable him to hold head at' sea against the French as well as the Dutch. As soon as the money was obtained he prorogued Parliament /" 12. The Stop of the Exchequer. 1672. — Charles prudently delayed the declaration of his conversion to a more convenient season, but the opening of the war was fixed for the spring of 1672. In spite of the large sums which he drew from Louis and from Parliament, his finances were in hopeless confusion, because of the enormous amount of money which he squandered on his numerous mistresses and his illegitimate children. It is said that the yearly income ofthe Duchess of Portsmouth was 40,000/., and that in one year she received no less than 136,000/. A caricature published in .JHolland aptly represented him as standing between two women, ,{Jwith empty pockets hanging out. At this time he had in his 6o4 CHARLES IL AND THE CABAL 1672 exchequer 1,400,006/., lent to him by the goldsiniths who, in those days, acted as bankers. On January 2, 1672, probably at Clifford's suggestion, he refused to repay the principal, and arbitrarily diminished the interest from 12 to 6 per cent.^ In consequence,iof this slop of the exchequer, as it was called, many of the gold smiths became bankfupt, but Clifford became .a peer and Lor4 High Treasurer. Anthony AshleyCooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, 1621-1683 : from the National Portrait Gallery. X 13. The Declaration of Indulgence. 1672.— On March: a 5, Charies, though still hesitating to proclaim himself a Catholic, issued a Declaration of Indulgence. Claiming a dispensing power,^ he > In the time of James I. the usual interest was 10 per cent. The Lon,? Parliament paid 8. 2 The right of pardon allows the king to remit the consequences to a par ticular person of a sentence passed on him. The right of dispensation allowi ' him to remit beforehand the consequences of a breach of a law either to sucl persons as are named, or to all persons generally who may commit such a breach 1672 THE DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE 60S suspended all penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, affecting either recusants or non-conformists, thus giving complete religious hberty to Roman Catholics as well as to Dissenters. To this measure, wise and statesmanlike in itself, but marred by the motives of its author and by its defiance ofthe law and of public opinion, Ashley gave his 'hearty support. : He was rewarded with the Earldom of Shaftesbury. He had shortiy before been made Lord Chancellor : being the last who held that post without being a lawyen At that time the decisions of the Cpurt of Chancery were still given in accordance with the view taken by the Chapcellor of what seemed fair and equitable, and did not therefore require any elaborate legal knowledge. Even Shaftesbury's bitterest enemies acknowledged that he was scrupulously just. ,w ,14- The Second Dutch War of the Restoration. 1672.— Both Charles and Louis had resolved lo take the Dutch by surprise. On March 13, Admiral Holmes, obeying orders, attacked a rich Dutch merchant fleet sailing up the Channel, before war was declared, but only succeeded in taking two vessels. In the war now begun the discipline of the English navy was worse, and that of the Dutch navy better, than it had been -in the former war (see p. 591). On June 7 there was a fierce sea-fight in South wold Bay, in which the Dutch had slightly the advantage. Louis, on his part, crossed the Rhine, and fell upon the Dutch territory. As a land attack had not been expected, the military preparations were incomplete, and the fortresses out of repair. One place after another capitulated 10 the French. The young William III., Prince of Orange, Charles's nephew, had been named Captain-General, but his army was too small to encourage him to risk a battle. Then De Witt took a heroic resolution. On J une 1 8 he cut the dykes which protected the low-lying land frorri the sea which stood at a higher level. In rushed the waters, Louis found his progress stopped. De Witt had the blame of the failure to prevent the invasion ; William, coming after him, had the credit of the resistance. The Republic needed a strong hand to preserve it, and the office of Stadholder was revived and given to William. Shortly afterwards De Witt, together with his brother, was brutally murdered at the Hague. William, who detested De Witt for having so long deprived him of the power which he considered his due, not only took no steps to hinder the assassination, but actually protected the murderers. Disgraceful as his tonduct was, he had' a temper as heroic as De Witt's. Buckingham came to urge him to submit to Louis' terms. " Do you not see," said the Englishman, " that the 6o6 CHARLES H. AND THE CABAL 1673 Republic is lost ? " "I know one sure means of never seeing it," was William's firm reply — " to die on the last dyke." His con fidence was justified. Louis could not pierce the girdle of waters which surrounded the Dutch towns, and, returning to Paris, brought the campaign to an end. 15. 'Delenda est Carthago.' 1673. — On February 4, 1673, Charles, having once more spent all his money, again met his Parliament, Shaftesbury urged the voting of supply for the war with the Dutch, whom he styled the eternal enemies of England, quoting the saying of Cato — Delenda est Carthago — as though they were to be destroyed as being to England what Carthage had been to Rome. So far as the war was concernedj" the House of Commons answered his appeal by offering 1,260,000^, though they kept back the Bill till they had brought him to terms. N, 16. Withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence. 1673.— It was at the withdrawal o^ the Declaration of Indulgence that the House was aiming. In vain Charles simulated firmness, declaring himself to be resolved to stick to his declaration. The Commons bitterly resented his interference with the law. Forty statutes, it was said, had been violated by the Declairation, and the house passed a resolution that ' penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by act of Parliament' Both sides were anxious to limit the question to ecclesiastical statutes : Charles, because the powers over the Church conferred on the Tudor sovereigns were vague, and therefore more defensible than those exercised by them in political matters ; the Commons, because they had preceden|^| of Pariiamentary resistance to dispensations granted to recusants, whereas former kings had usually been allowed without contradic tion to suspend the law in commercial matters. Charles tried to evade the summons of the Commons, but the Lords having come on March 7 to the same conclusion as the other House,'he gave way on the Sth and recalled his Declaration. As no new statute was passed on the subject, the legal question remained just -^here it was before. ^ 17. The Test Act. 1673.— Charies had entered on a struggle with Parliament and had been defeated. The Royalist Pariiament of i66i was still Royalist so far as the maintenance of the throne was conceirned, but it had entered on a course pf opposition whidBj had brought it into open collision with the king. From first | last the chief characteristic of this Pariiament was its resoluti to maintain the supremacy of the Church, and it was now obvipl i673 THE TEST ACT 607 that the Church was in more -danger from Roman Catholics than from Dissenters. Though Charles's conversion (see p. 600) was un known, it was no secret that the Duke of York, the heir to the throne, was a Catholic, and, in spite of the veil thrown over the terms of the Treaty of Dover, the danger of an invasion by French troops in support of the Enghsh Cathohcs was obvious to all. For the first time since the Restoration a Bill was brought in to relieve Protestant Dissenters, and, though this proposal came to nothing, the very fact of its being made showed that a new state of feehng was growing up. Arhngton, seeing how things stood, and wishing to oust the Catholic Clifford from the Treasury that he might be his successor, put up a member of the Commons to propose a Bill which soon became law under the name of the Test Act By it, no one was to hold office who refused to take_the test — that is to say, to make a declaration^ of his disbeliefin the doctrine of TransubstanSESipn and to receive the Sacrament according to the riles of the Church of England. It was only after Charles had given his assent to this Act on March 29 that the proposed grant of 1,360,000/. was actually made. 18. Results of the Test Act. 1673. — Though most Dissenters were excluded from ofiice by the latter clause of the Test Act, there were some who did not feel their opposition to the Church to be so strong as to preclude them from taking the Sacrament occasionally according to its rites. Every honest Roman Catholic, on the other hand, was at once driven from office. The Duke of York surrendered the Admiralty and Clifford the Treasury. The Test Act was not a persecuting Act in the sense in which the Conventicle Act and the Five Mile Act were persecuting Acts. It inflicted no direct penalty, on the mere holding of a special belief, or on the attendance on a special form of worship, but excluded persons holding a certain religious belief from offices the retention of which, according to the prevalent conviction, would be dangerous to the State. 19. Continuance of the Dutch War. 1673.— The Treasurer- ship, taken from Chfford, was given, not to Arlington, but lo Sir Thomas Osborne, whose sentiments, being strongly in favour of maintaining the predominance of the Church of England, were likely to commend him to the good-will of the Houses. In foreign pohcy he represented what was fast becoming a general opinion, that, as the main danger lo England came from France, it had been a mistake lo go to war with the Dutch. This belief was driven home by disasters at sea in the summer of 1673. In May, a com- 6o8 CHARLES IL AND THE CABAL 1673-1674 bined French and English fleet, under Prince Rupert, fought with out advantage against the Dutch. In August Rupert was defeated off the Texel, because the French fleet, which accompanied him, took no part in the action, Louis not wishing to see the English masters of the sea. On this, the English nation turned all its hatred : against France. 20. The Duke of York's Marriage and Shaftesbury's Dis missal. 1673. — The alarm inspired by the Catholics was increased in the course of 1673 by a marriage which -took place in the Royal , family. Soon after the Restoration the Duke of York had married Clarendon's daughter, Anne Hyde, and had by her two daughters, Mary and Anne, both of whom were brought up as Protestants, so that, if the Duke outiived his brother, he would, when he himself ,, died, transmit the crown to a Protestant queen. He was now, however, a widower, and took as his second wife a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. If the new Duchess should bear a son, the boy, who would inevitably be educated as a Catholic, would be the future king of England. When Parliament met in October it was highly indignant, and, as it attacked the king's .:'- - ministers, it was prorogued after a session of a few days. Charles' •? revenged himself by dismissing a minister whom the Commons?;! had not attacked. Shaftesbury had, earlier in the year, learned the contents of the secret articles of the Treaty of Dover, and had thereby discovered that Charles had made a fool of hiin as com pletely as he had made a fool of Buckingham when he sent him to negotiate a sham treaty (see p. 603). Shaftesbury remained true to his policy of toleration, but it was now to be toleration "for Dissenters alone. Toleration for Catholics, he now knew, was connected with a scheme for overthrowing English independence with the aid of French soldiers. Accordingly, he supported the Test Act, and, as he continued uncompliant, Charies, on No vember 9, dismissed him. Shaftesbury at once threw himself into the most violent opposition. Buckingham was dismissed noflong afterwards, and the so-called Cabal was thus finally broken up. 21. Peace with the Dutch. 1674. — The war with the Dutch was brought to an end by a treaty signed on February 19, 1674 On the 24th Charles prorogued Parliament, and did not summon it again for more than a year. During the interval, he at tempted to win friends all round, without committing himself to any definite policy. On the one hand, he remained on friendly terms with Louis, whilst, on the other hand, he offered the handof Mary, the eldest child of his brother James, to her cousin, WiUiam I674 WILLIAM OF ORANGE 609 of Orange. William's position was far higher than it had been two years before. Pie was now at the head of an alliance in which the Emperor Leopold, the King of Spain, and the Duke of Lorraine combined with him to restrain the inordinate ambitfon of Louis. It is true that his generalship was less conspicuous than his diplomacy, and that in the whole course of his life he never succeeded in beating a French army in the field. Yet even in war his indomitable courage and conspicuous coolness stood him in good stead, and he knew better than most commanders how to gather his troops after a defeat and to place them in strong positions in which the enemy did not dare to attack them. The history of i^urope during the remainder of his life was the history of a duel between the ambitious and autocratic Louis and the cool-headed William, the first magistrate of a republic in which his action was checked by constitutional restraints on every side, and the head of a coalition of which the members were always prone ^ lo take offence and to pursue their individual interests at the sacrifice of the common good. To win England to the alliance was, for^ Wilham, a most desirable object, but he knew that James might very well have a son by his second marriage, and, knowing that in that case he would reap no political advantage froin a marriage with Mary, he for the present refused the offer of her hand.' 1 Genealogy of some of the descendants of Charles I. ; — Charles I. = Henrietta Maria 1625-1649 1 Charles II. Mary s'William II. Anne Hyde= James II. (Du-ke of York)= Mary of 1660-1685 I (Prince of 1 King of Great Britam ] Modena Oranse) and Ireland I ! 1685-1688 I ! . 1 i ! William III. = Mary Anne Maria = James Francis (Prince of Orange) Queen of Queen of Clementina Edward (The King of Gt. Britain Gt. Britain Gt. Britain .Sobieski Old Pretender; and Ireland and Irelan and Ijeland i 1689-1702 1689-1694 1702-1714 j Louisa = Charles Edward Louis Henry Benedict Princess of Philip Casimir Mane Clement Stolberg (The Young Pretender) (Duke of York and Cardinal) 6lo CHAPTER XXXIX danby's ADMINISTRATION AND THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS. 167S— l68r LEADING DA.TES Reign of Charles II., 1660— 1685 Rejection ofthe Non-Resistance Bill 1675 Marriage of William and Mary .... Nov. 15, 1677 The Peace of Nymwegen July 31, 167S The Popish Plot 1678 Dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament . . . Jan 24, 1679 The First Short Parliament . . March 6— May 27, 1679 The Second Short Parliament . Oct. 21, 1680— Jan 18, 1681 The Third Short Parliament . . March 21— March 28, 1681, I. Growing Influence of Danby. 1675. — Charles's effort to govern in his own way having ended in failure, and, in what he thought to be of more consequence, discomfort to himself, he dis covered that he would lead an easier life if he were on good terms with his Parliament than if he quarrelled with it. Being now dis posed to throw over whatever troublesome convictions he had imagined himself to have, he gave his confidence to Osborne (see p. 607), whom he had recently created Eari of Danby. Danby revived the domestic policy of Clarendon by maintaining, in accordance with the majority of the Cavalier Parliament, thei supremacy of the Church of England over Catholics and Dis senters, and, equally in accordance with the majority of that Parlia ment, opposed Louis abroad. 2. Parliamentary . Parties. 1675. — The decision of Charles to support Danby in carrying out a definite pohcy completed the for mation of separate Parliamentary parlies. These had, indeed, existed in the Long Parliament under various names, and had reappeared after the Restoration ; but in the Cavaher Parliament the minority in favour of toleration had, at first, been exceedingly small, and, though it had grown larger in the days of the Cabal, it had been distracted by distrust of Charles when he appeared as a patron of toleration. The situation was now clear and the leaders distinctly known. On the one side was Danby and ' No toleration,' on the other side was Shaftesbury and ' Toleration for Dissenters only.' Neither side shrank from base means of acquiring strength. i67S A STRINGENT BILL 6ii The ministers who formed the Cabal are said to have been the first who bribed members of the House of Commons, but it was Danby who reduced bribery to a system which was afterwards extended by his successors. Shaftesbury's followers, on the other hand, were quite ready to enter into the pay of Louis, if he would help them to overthrow Danby and would strengthen them against the king. 3. The Non-Resistance Bill. 1675.— 'When Pariiament met in April 167s, Danby produced a Bill which was intended to secure his hold on the House of Commons, whatever might be the opinion prevailing in the country. No one was to be allowed to hold office or to sit in Pariia ment unless he would swear that he believed resistance to the Crown to be in all cases illegal, > and that he would never endeavour to alter the government in Church or State. If fhe Bill had passed, the future I liberty of Parliament would I have been fettered, and few, if any, who did not approve of the existing ,\ Church system could have entered Parliament The Bill passed the Lords, but while it was still under dis cussion in the Commons -.Shaftesbury stirred up so bitter a quarrel between the Houses, that Charles prorogued Parliament before the Bill could be converted into law. 4. Charles a Pensionary of France. 1675— 1676. —Pariiament, in its distrust of the king, refused him supplies, upon which Charles prorogued it for fifteen months. Louis, who feared lest Parliament should drive Charles into joining the alliance against him, was so pleased to see its sittings interrupted for so long a time that -he' granted to Charles a pension of 100,000/. a year, to make him independent of his subjects. The result was that whilst Charles Ordinary dress of gentlemen in 1675 : from Loggan's Oxonia Illustrata. 6i2 DANBY'S ADMINISTRATION 1676-1677 allowed Danby to have his own way in domestic affairs, he refused to allow him to detach England from the French alhancei' It was not, however, merely his personal interests which drew him lo Louis, as he took a real interest in the prosperity of English trade, and was un able to get over his jealousy of the Dutch. In November 1676, he obtained from Louis a treaty by which the French renounced a claim made by them to seize Dutch goods conveyed in English ships, hoping by this lo gain the goodwill of Parhament at its next meeting. He could not understand hoy completely the alarm of his subjects lest their national religion and in dependence should be assailed by the French had made them forgetful of their commercial jealousy of the Dutch. 5. Two Foreign Policies. 1677. — On February 15, 1677, Parliament again met Shaftesbury and his allies attempted to steal a march on Danby by producing two old statutes of Edward' III. which directed that Parlia ments should be held every year, founding on it an argu ment that the existing Parlia ment, not having met for a year, had legally ceased to exist The House of Lords sent Shaftesbury and three other: peers to the Tower for their pains, and the Common;s contemptuously rejected^ij a Cup presented, 1676, by King Charles II. the Barber Surgeons' Company. 1677 A DUTCH ALLIANCE 613 similar argument put forward in their 6wn House. Danby found himself triumphant. The Commons granted 600,000/. for increasing the navy. Danby then carried a Bill through the Plouse of Lords for securing the Protestant religion in the event of a Catholic— James being, of course, intended — coming to the throne, though the Bill did not pass the Commons, apparently from a feeling that its provisions were insufiicient. The eyes of Englishmen were, .however, princi- ' pally fixed on the Continent. In the preceding year the French had gained two great naval victories, in one of which De Ruyter had been slain, and in the spring of 1677 Louis carried one place after another in the Spanish Netherlands. Both Houses now asked Charles to join the alliance against France, whereupon Charles indignantly prorogued Parliament. When he was urged by the Dutch ambassador to act upon the wishes ofthe Houses he threw his handkerchief into the air, with the accompanying words •. " 1 care just that for Parliament." \ 6. The Marriage of the Prince of Orange. 1677. — Louis paid to Charles 1,600,000/. for the prorogation which rid France for a time ft-om the danger of a war with England. Charles, however, shrank from a renewal of the struggle with his Parlia ment on its next meeting, and, though he was resolved not to go to war with France if he could help it, he was ready to help in bringing about a general peace which would relieve him from all further invitation to join the allies. He accordingly welcomed Danby's suggestion that the plan for a marriage between the Prince of Orange and James's daughter Mary should be again taken up, especially as he hoped that it would break down the good under standing which existed between the Prince and Shaftesbury, and would smooth away the hostihty of his subjects to his brother's right of succession. William, knowing that the feeling of Enghsh men of both parties was in his favour, visited his uncles, and his marriage with Mary took place on November 15, 1677. The marriage, which was to prove of incalculable importance in the future, was of great significance even at the time, as it marked the end of the hostile feeling against the Dutch which, for so many vears, had been the dominant note of English foreign politics. 7. Danby's Position. 1677.— Though Danby had brought .Charles round to support his foreign as well as his domestic policy, his success was more apparent than real. The fact was that his foreign and domestic policies were inconsistent with one another. In the long run it would be found impossible to contend against tiie French king and the English Catholics supported by him. 6i4 DANBY'S ADMINISTRATION 1677-1678 F-f ?¦ 1*':^i Steeple of the Church ot St. Mary-le- Bow, London ; built by Sir Chris topher Wren between 1671 and 1680. without calling in the aid of those Protestant Dissenters who were most hostile to Louis. Englishmen attached to the Church were being led by their growing distrust of France to a tenderer feehng towards Dis senters, and the spread of this feeling made in favour of Shaftes bury, who favoured toleration, and not in favour of Danby, who opposed it For the present, however, Danby could count on the Parliamentary majority which agreed with him, and neither he nor the king wished. to risk a dissolution. \ 8. The Peace of Nymwegen. 1678. — When Pariiament inet in February 1678, Charles appeared ¦ full of determination. He' de clared that, unless Louis agreed ' to make peace with the Dutch on reasonable terms, he would go to war with France. The Commons at once resolved to grant him 1,000,000/., and to support an army of 30,000 men and a fleet of 90 ships. Before this resolution was embodied in an Act, without which Charles could not touch the money, the followers of Shaftesbury look alarm. They beheved-^ and, as is now known,Ti6T with out reason— that Charles intend ed to use the troops to make himself absolute. They not- only pressed him to disband what troops he had, but they entered into communication with Louis' ambassador, in the hope I678 TITUS GATES 615 that he would support them in forcing Charles to dismiss his troops and to dissolve Parliament, some of them even accepting from him gifts of money. Charles, on his part, vacillated, doubting which was the best policy for him to adopt. At one time he was eager to assist the Dutch, and sent troops to their succour in the hope that a victorious army might afterwards be useful to him in England. At another time he made overtures to Louis with the object of securing his support. In the end, on July 31, Louis and the Dutch made peace at Nymwegen without consulting Charles at all. Louis gained Franche Comt6 and a large number of fortresses on his northern frontier, which had formerly belonged to Spain. Though he had failed to destroy the Dutch Republic, he had shown himself superior in *ar to a great continental coalition, and had made France the predominant power in Europe. . ^. The Popish Plot. 1678.— The part played by the king left ''^he English people gravely dissatisfied with him. They feared lest he should seek to overwhelm their liberties by military force and should bring ia French regiments to support his own, troops. Their suspicions were heightened by the knowledge that, if Charles died, his brother, an uncompromising Roman Catholic, would suc ceed him.,. In August, 1678, a villain appeared to profit by this prevalent distrust. Titus Gates, a liar- from his youth up, who had tried various rehgious and had recently professed himself a Catholic, announced the existence of a great ' Popish plot.' ¦ Charles, he said, was to be murdered, and James set upon the thirone as the agent of the Jesuits. A French army was lo land to support him, and Protestantism was to be absolutely suppressed. It was true that many CathoUcs were anxious to see James on the throne and had expressed contempt at Charies's conduct in refusing to declare himself one of themselves, but the rest of Oates's story was absolutely false. 10. Growing Excitement. 1678.— OateS's depositions were taken before a Middlesex magistrate. Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey. The next morning Godfrey was found murdered in the fields near Pfimrose 1ti:ill. All London was wild with excitement It was widely beUeved that 'the Papists' had murdered him to punish him for listening to Gates. It was also held to be an undoubted truth that 'the Papists' were about to set fire to London, and to murder all good Protestants. A joiner named College made his fortune by inventing a pocket flail, tipped with lead, which was called the Protestant flail, and was to be used by sober citizens to brain 'Popish' assassins. When Parhament met on 6i6 DANBY'S ADMINISTRATION 1678-1679 October 21 Shaftesbury, who had been liberated eariy in the year, unscrupulously encouraged belief in the supposed plot. : Up to that lime Catholic peers had kept their seats in the House of Lords, and a few Catholics had surreptitiously sat in the Commons. A new Test Act was now passed by which they were excluded ' from both Houses, though the Duke of York was exempted by name from its operation. Five Catholic peers were thrown into the Tower, and Coleman, the secretary of the Duchess of York, who had in his custody papers implying that James had a design for forwarding the interests of his religion, was tried and executed. ' 1 1. Danby's Impeachment and the Dissolution of the Cavaliei Parliament. 1678—1679. — The mark at which Shaftesbury) aimed was the overthrow of Danby. Danby had always, as far as his own opinion went, been a warm antagonist of France, but a minister was still, in those days, in reality the servant of the king,. and was bound to carry out his master's orders, even when they were against his own conviction. Danby had, therefore, at the time when the Peace of Nymwegen was under discussion, written letters to Ralph Montague, the English ambassador in France, bidding him to ask Louis for a considerable payment to Charles, and, at the same time, explaining that the money was needed to make Charies independent of Parliament. Montague, having sub sequently returned to England, brought this letter before the House of Commons. The House at once impeached Danby, under the false impression that he had been really subservient to France all the while. Charles had become attached to Danby, and knew that, if the proceedings agajnst him were carried on, matters would come to light which he had every reason lo conceal. To save himself and his minister, on January 24, 1679, he dissolved the Cavaher Parliament, which had now sat for more than seventeen years. 12. The Meeting of the First Short Parliament. 1679.— When the elections to a new Parliament — the first of three short Parliaments — were completed, Charles found that, with the ex ception of at most thirty members, the opposition had gained every seat. Bowing to the storm, he sent his brother to Brussels, and expressed his readiness to place himself al the head of the Protes tants of the Continent. When, however, Parhament met, on March 6, 1679, il was found that both Houses were more anxious 1 By the Test Act of 1672 offices only were closed to the Catholics (see p. 607) ; the oath of supremacy, which had to be taken by every member of the House of Commons, being held sufficient to exclude them frora that Assembly. Peers might sit in the House of Lords without taking the oath. i67$ THE EXCLUSION BILL 6i1 about the fate of Protestantism at home than about that of Protes tants abiroad. The Commons renewed the impeachment of Danby, upon which Danby produced a free pardon from the king. The Lords decided that a pardon could not be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, but, in the end, proceeding* against Danby were dropped on his being deprived of ofiice and committed to> the Tower. By the advice of Sir WiUiam Temple, Charies tried a new experiment in government A new Privy Council was appointed of thirty members, fifteen being ministers of the Crown and fifteen influential lords and commoners, by the advice of which the king was always to be guided. Shaftesbury was appointed President of this Council, but it -was soon found to be too large a body to manage affairs which required secrecy, and a small committee was therefore formed out of it for the consideration of all important business. 13. The Exclusion Bill and the Habeas Corpus Act. 1679. — i^ha,rles, now that he experienced the strength of the opposition, was prepared to give way on every point except one — the main tenance of his brother's right of succession, which the new House of Commons was prepared to attack. He accordingly offered to place the strongest restrictions upon the power of a Catholic king. To the House of Commons, on the other hand, all restric tions appeared insufficient. The members believed seriously that no law would be able to bind a ' Popish' king. They thought that if he was determined — and it was taken for granted that he would be determined — to overthrow the Protestant religion,he would be able to do so. Lord Russell, the eldest son of the Duke of Bedford — , the chief leader of Shaftesbury's party in the House of Commons — was not in the habit of using exaggerated language. Yet even he declared that, if James became king, his subjects must make up their mind to become ' Papists ' or to be burnt. An Exclusion Bill was brought in, excluding the Duke of York from the throne. It was read twice, but not' passed, as Charles first prorogued, and then, on May 27, dissolved Parliament The only Act of importance produced in this Parhament was the Habeas Corpus Act, which finally put an end lo sundry methods by which the Crown had evaded the rule requiring the issue of writs of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners secured their right to be tried or liberated. 14. Shaftesbury and the King. 1679. — New elections were held, with the result that a House of Commons was chosen even more bitterly hostile to the Court than its predecessor. Shaftesbury II. S S 6i8 THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS 1679 was now at the lieight of his glory. Gates and other informers were adding new lies to those which they had told before, and the continual trials and executions of the Catholics for participation in the supposed Popish Plot kept the excitement in favour of the Exclusion Bill at a fever heat Shaftesbury's position was very, similar to Pym's in 1641. He had on his side the fundamental principle that a nation cannot safely be governed by a ruler whose ideas on the most important question of the day are directly opposed to those of his subjects, and he was right, as the result showed, in holding that, in the seventeenth century, a Catholic king could not satisfactorily govern a Protestant people. After Danby's fall, the king became the real head of the party opposed to Shaftesbury. His ability had always been great, but hitherto he had ahenated those who were disposed to be his friends by attempting to estab lish an absolute government wilh the help of the king of France and of an army dependent on himself He now set himself to overthrow Shaftesbury by appealing to a popular sentiment which was quite as strong, and might be stronger, than the dislike of a Catholic successor ; that is to say, to the horror with which any thing which threatened a new civil war fiUed the hearts of his subjects. 15. Shaftesbury and HaHfax. 1679.— Shaftesbury had alread^l aUowed il to be known that he intended, if he carried the Exclusion ' Bill, to propose that fhe future king should be the Duke of Mon-' mouth. Monmouth was the eldest of Charles's illegitiriiate sons, and it was currently, though falsely, believed that Charles had been privately married lo his mother, so that he might rightly be re garded as the heir to the Crown. Charies, who knew better than any one else that this story was untrue, stood faithfully by his brother, and, though his constancy made little impression as yet, he had on his side a man whose judgment might usually be taken as an indication of the ultimate decision of pubhc opinion. That man was George Savile, Eari, and afterwards Marquis of Halifax. He had been one of the bitterest enemies of Danby, but he devoted himself to no party. He caUed himself a Trimmer, as if his business was to trim the boat, and to throw himself against each party in turn as it grew violent in consequence of success. He now supported the king against Shaftesbury, on the ground that it was uncertain whether James would survive his brother, and that, if he did, he was not likely to survive him long ; whereas, the succession of the Duke of Monmouth would not only exclude from the throne the- Catholic James, but also his daughters, who were both Protestants, 1677-1679 THE SCOTTISH COVENANTERS 619 As Monmouth had no real hereditary right, there was every likeli hood that, even if he ascended the throne, his claim would be opposed by partisans of James's eldest daughter, the Princess of Orange, and that a civil war would ensue. i6. The Divine Right of Kings. 1679.— The fear of civU war already frightened some, and would in lime frighten more, into the acceptance of a doctrine which seems very absurd now — the doctrine of Divine indefeasible hereditary right— that is lo say, that the succession as it was established by English law was established by Divine appointment, so that, though indeed subjects might refuse to obey the king, if he ordered them lo commit sin, it was their duty to bear uncomplainingly any punishment that he might impose on them, however tyrannical he might be. Such a doctrine was credited, not because those who held it were absolutely silly, but because they were more afraid of rebellion and civil war than they were of the tyranny of kings. For the present, however, such ideas had little hold on the new Parliament, and Charles prorogued it to give time for them to grow. 17. The Highland Host. 1677— 1678.— Events were in the meanwhUe passing in Scotland which helped to impress upon those who were easily frightened the idea that the only security against rebellion lay in a general submission to established institutions in Church and State. For many years Lauderdale had been, with Charies's full support, the absolute ruler of Scotland. He put down with a high hand the opposition of noblemen in Parliament, but he could not put down the religious zeal of the peasants, who, especially in the western Lowlands, combined zeal for Presbyterian ism and the Covenant with exasperation against a Government which persecuted them. They held meetings for prayer and preach ing on the open hill-sides, and the Government, failing to suppress these Conventicles, as they were called, by process of law, sent into the disaffected districts, in 1677, a body of half-savage Highlanders known as the Highland Host, to reduce them to obedience by ' plunder and outrage. 18. Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. 1679.— When the High land Host had done its work it left behind a people whose temper was thoroughly soured. Political hatred of the oppressors mingled with religious zeal. The Covenanters, as those were caUed who denounced episcopacy as a breach of the Covenant (see p. 525), regarded themselves as God's chosen people and all who sup ported their persecutors as the children of the devU, against whom it was lawful to draw the sword. To many of the Scottish gentry 620 THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS . 1679-1680 such talk as this appeared to be contemptible and dangerous . fanaticism. Amongst those who strove most heartily against it was an active officer, John Graham of Claverhouse, who, being employed to quiet the country, shot or haled to prison men whom he thought Ukely to be forward in rebellion. On May 3, 1679, a band of fanatics murdered, on Magus Moor, near St. Andrews, James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, who was known to be eager to call for the persecution of the Covenanters, and who was peculiarly hated as having been once a Presbyterian himself On June 3 Claverhouse was driven back at Drumclog by an armed conventictej which he attempted to suppress. The peasants of the West rose in arms and declared against the king's supremacy over the Church, and against Popery, Prelacy, and the succession of the Duke of . York, but on June 22, Monmouth, who had been sent at the head . of an army against them, defeated them at Bothwell Bridge, near Hamilton, and entirely suppressed the rebellion. Many of the prisoners were executed after being tortured to extract from them information against their accomplices, and this cruelty was exercised! under the orders of the Duke of York, who had been sent to Scotland as Lord High Commissioner.^ 19. Petitioners and Abhorrers. 1680. — Encouraged by his \ success in Scotland, Charles dismissed Shaftesbury from the presidency of the Council and got rid of his principal supporters. Temple's reformed Council came thereby to an end. When Mon mouth returned from Scotland his father refused to see him and sent him away from London. In the beginning of i68o^haftes»| bury's party sent up numerous petitions lo ask Charles to allow. Parliament to meet, and his opponents sent up petitions expressing abhorrence at such an attempt to force the king's will. For a time the two parties were known as Petitioners and Abhorrers, names which were soon replaced by those of Whigs and Tories. These celebrated names were at first merely nicknames. The courtiers called the Petitioners Whigs— an abbreviation of Whigamoj-e,;lhe name by which the peasants of the west of Scotland were familiariy known, from the cry of ' Whiggam' with which they were accus- toriied to encourage their horses. The name Whig therefore implied that the petitioners were no better than Covenanting rebels. The Petitioners, on the other hand, called their opponents Tories— the name given to brigands in Ireland, implying that they were no , better than Popish thieves. 20. The Second Short Parliament. 1680—1681 Each party ' Scott s Old Mortality is founded on these events. i68o-i68i CHARLES'S VICTORY 621 did all that could be done to court popularity. Monmouth made a triumphant progress in the west of England. On the other hand, James, on his return from Scotland, had a good reception even in London, the head-quarters of his opponents. On June 26, 1680, Shaftesbury appeared at Westminster and indicted James as a re cusant. At last, on October 21, the second Short Pariiament met. The Exclusion Bill was rapidly passed through the Commons. In the LordSj Halifax carried the House with him by an eloquent and closely-reasoned speech, in which the claims of the Princess of Orange were dwelt on as superior to those of Monmouth, and the Bill was, in consequence, rejected. On December 29 Lord Stafford, a CathoUc peer, was executed on a false charge of a design to murder the king. When he protested his innocence on the scaffold, shouts were raised of " God bless you, my lord ! We believe you, my lord ! " Charles saw in these shouts an indication that the tide of opinion was turning in his favour, and, on January 18, r68i, dis solved Parliament. 21. The Third Short Parliament. 1681. — Charles summoned a new Parliament to meet at Oxford, where it would not be exposed to any violent interruption by Shaftesbury's ' brisk boys ' — as his noisy London supporters were called — who might, it was feared, repeat the exploits of the City mob in 1641 (see p. 535). The new House of Commons was again predominantly Whig, and it was thought by the Whigs that Oxford had been selected as the place of meeting because the University was eminently Tory, with the deUberate intention of overpowering them by force. Their alarm increased when they learned that the king was bringing his guards with him. Accordingly the Whigs armed themselves and their servants in self-defence, and, in this guise, rode into Oxford. Parliament was opened on March 21, 1681, and Charles then offered to assent to any scheme' for stripping his brother of royal authority, if only he were recognised as king. Shaftesbury repUed that the only~'way of ending the dispute was to declare Monmouth heir lo the Crown. As the Commons supported Shaftesbury, Charles, on March izS, dissolved his third Short Parliament. So much was he afraid that the Whig members and their servants might lay violent hands on him, that he drove in one coach to Christchurch Hall, where the House of Lords was sitting, and sent his robes by another, in order that it might not be guessed that a dissolution was intended. He soon found that he could now count on popular support in almost every part of England. The mass of people judge more by what theyjsee than by what they hear. The pistols in the hands of the 622 THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS 1681 Whig members when they rode into Oxford had driven into men's heads the belief that they intended to gain their ends by civil war, and, much as the nation disliked the idea of having a ' Popish ' king, it disliked the idea of civil war stiU more, and raUied round the king. CHAPTER XL THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES II. l68l— 1685 LEADING DATES Reign of Charles II., 1660—1685 Tory Reaction 1681 Flight of Shaftesbury . ... . 1682 Forfeiture ofthe Charter ofthe City of London 1683 The Rye House Plot . 1683 Executions of Russell and Sidney . . . 1683 Death of Charles II. Feb. 6, 1685 I. Tory Reaction. 1681. — The Tory reajction which followed made itself especially felt^injhe law-courts. Judges and juries who had combined lo_send to death innocent Catholics, upon the testi mony of forsworn informers, now combined to send to death ardent " Whigs, upon the testimony of informers equally base. CoUegfe, the inventor of the Protestant flail (see p. 615), was condemned to death, as having borne arms in Oxford during the last Pariia ment, and others shared his fate on equally slight grounds, In the " City of London, however, it was still impossible to secure a verdict . against a Whig. Juries were everywhere nominated by the sheriff ofthe county, and sheriffs were, in poUtical cases, ready to compose a jury of political partisans. In every part of England, except Middlesex, the sheriffs were named by the king, and were, there- ,, fore, Tories. The City of London, which was strongly Whig, had the privilege of electing sheriffs for London and Middlesex, and these sheriffs took care that Middlesex juries should be composed of Whigs. Shaftesbury was accused of high treason, but before he could be tried the Grand Jury of Middlesex had to find a true bill against him — that is to say, to declare that there was sufficient evidence against him to call for a trial. On November 24, 1681, the Grand Jury, composed of his own political partisans, threw out the bill, and he was at once set at liberty. ; I68i-i682 TORY ASCENDENCY 623 2. 'Absolom and Achitophel.' 1681.— A few days before Shaftes bury's release, Dryden, the greatest living master of the heroic couplet, strove lo stir up men's minds against the prisoner by his satire of 'Absolom and Achitophel,' in which the part of the tempter Achitophel was assigned lo Shaftesbury and the part of the tempted Absolom to Monmouth. Shaftesbury was described as For close designs and crooked councils fit ; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; Restless, unfixed in principles and place ; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which worketh out its way. Fretted the pigmy body to decay. And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity ; Pleased with the danger when the waves ran high. He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, 'Would steer too nigh the sands to show his wit. 3. The Scottish Test Act and the Duke of York's Return. 1681— 16S2 — The 'daring pilot's' course was nearly run. Before long, on May 27, 1682, Shaftesbury's most conspicuous enemy, the Duke of York, returned from Scotland. Whilst he was in Scotland he had obtained an Act from the Scottish Parliament, binding on all officials a new test, requiring them to swear to the doctrine of hereditary right and to the maintenance of the episcopal Church. The Earl of Argyle, the son of the Marquis of Argyle, the political leader of the Covenanters against Charles I., having inherited his father's Presbyterianism, not only refused the oath, but gave reasons for refusing. The Crown lawyers declared that his reasons poisoned the minds of the subjects against the king, and he was tried and condemned to death under an old statute against leasing-making — literally, the making of lies — which had been passed about a century before to punish court favourites who sowed dissension between the king and his people by poisoning the mind of the king against his subjects. Argyle, however, escaped to Holland, and on April 20, 1682, James reached London. 4. The City Elections. 1682. — The first thing on which, after James's return, the king's ministers set their heart, was to strike a blow at Shaftesbury. As he lived in his house in Aldersgate Street and took care never to leave the City, it was impossible lo bring him to trial as long as the sheriffs of London and Middlesex were Whigs. The Lord Mayor, Moore, was gained by the Court, and, by various unscrupulous contrivances, he secured the appointment 624 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES IL 1682-1683 of two Tory sheriffs, and, even before the end of 1682, of a Tory Lord Mayor named Prichard as his own successor. There would no longer be any difficulty in filling the Middlesex jury box with Tories. 5. Flight and Death of Shaftesbury. 1682—1683. — Shaftesbury had for some time been keenly aUve to the danger impending over him. He had wild followers in the City ready to follow him in acts of violence, and he had proposed to Russell and Monmouth that the king's guards at Whitehall should be attacked, and the king compelled to do his bidding. Russell and Monmouth recoiled from an act of violence which would certainly end in bloodshed. Shaftes bury StiU hoped to effect his end by the aid of his less scrupulous supporters ; but time slipped away, and on October 19, three days before Prichard's election, he fled to Holland, where he died on January 22, 1683. Wilh all his faults, he had led the way on that path in which the English nation was, before long, to walk, as he had latterly striven for a combination of Parliamentary supremacy with toleration for dissenters and without toleration for Catholics. His personal failure was due to the disquietude caused by his tur bulence in the minds of that large part of the community which regards orderly government as a matter of primary necessity. 6. The Attack on the City. 1682— 1683.— The difficulty which Charles had experienced in bending the city to his will made him anxious to provide against similar resistance in the future; Taking care to effect his objects under, at least, the form of law, he en forced on the electors in the City, who were called in December to choose the Common Council, the oath of supremacy and the proof required by the Corporation Act of having received the Sacrament in the Church. The result was that a Tory majority was returned on the Common Council. Following up this blow in 1683, he called on the City to show cause, by a writ known ks ' Quo Warranto^ before the King's Bench, why its charter should not be" forfeited, in consequence of its having imposed irregular tolls and having attacked the king's authority in a petition ex hibited in 1680. The King's Bench decided against the City, and the king then offered to restore the charter on certain conditions, of which the principal was, that he was to have a veto on the election of its principal officers. At first the City accepted his terms, but, before the end of the year, it drew back, and the king then named the Lord Mayor and other officers directly, paying no further regard to the municipal self-government under which the City had, for many centuries, conducted its own affairs. 7. The Remodelling of the Corporations, 1683 — 1684. — A 1683- 1 684 THE FALL OF THE WHIGS 625 large number of other corporate towns were treated as London had been treated. By a plentiful use of writs of Quo Warranto, the judges on circuit obtained the surrender of their charters, after which the king issued new ones in which Tories alone were named as members of the corporations. It was said of Jeffreys, one amongst the judges who was most subservient, that he ' made aU charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him.' The object of these proceedings was to make sure of a Tory Pariiament when the time came for fresh elections. In a large number of boroughs the corporations chose the members, and in such cases wherever the corporation had been remodelled, there would be a safe Tory seat. At the same time the laws against the Dissenters were strictly executed, and the prisons fiUed with their ministers. 8. The Rye House Plot. 1683.— When injustice is done under legal forms, there are usuaUy some persons who think it aUowable lo appeal to force. Some of Shaftesbury's more violent followers formed a plot to attack the king and his brother at the Rye House on their return from Newmarket, and either to seize or murder them. The plot failed, as Charles passed the Rye House some days earlier than was expected, and several of the con spirators were taken and executed. ^ 9. The 'Whig Combination. 1683. — The discovery of the Rye House Plot brought to light a dangerous combination amongst the Pariiamentary Whigs, in which Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Lord Howard of Escrick, and other notable persons were iniplicated. They had, indeed, kept themselves free from any intention to offer personal violence to the king, but they had attempted to form an association strong enough to compel him to summon another Parliament, though apparently without coming to a definite con clusion as to the way in which they were to use compulsion. In their own eyes their project was no more than constitutional agita- ti6n. In the eyes of the king and of the Crown lawyers it was a preparation for rebellion. Essex committed suicide in prison, whilst Howard of Escrick turned informer against his friends. 10. Trial and Execution of Lord Russell. 1683.— Russell was accordingly put on his trial as a traitor. In those days no one on his trial for treason was allowed to be defended by a lawyer, as far as the facts of the case were concerned, but no objection was taken to his having some one near him to take notes of the evidence and to assist his memory. " Your friends," wrote his wife lo him shortiy before the trial, " believing I can do you §pme service at your trial, I am extremely willing to try., My 626 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES IL 1683-1684 resolution wiU hold out, pray let yours." Her offer was accepted,' and she gave her husband all the help that it was possible to give. The jury, however, brought in a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death foUowed. In prison Russell was visited by two ministers,.' Tillotson and Burnet. No clergymen in England were more liberal-minded than these two, yet they urged the prisoner to acknowledge that resistance lo the king was in all cases unlawful. Russell maintained that, in extreme cases, subjects might resist. Here lay the root of the poUtical animosity between Whig and Tory. Whether an extreme case had occurred was a matter of opinion. " As for the share I had in the prosecution of the Popish Plot," Russell declared on the scaffold, " I take God to witness that I proceeded in it in the sincerity of my heart, , being then really convinced, as I am still, that there was a conspiracy against; the king, the nation, and the Protestant religion." It was because the nation at large no longer held this to be true that the Tories were in power. II. Execution of Algernon Sidney. 1683. — Russell's trial was followed by that of Algernon Sidney. Though the real charge against him was that of having conspired against the king, only one, and that a not very credible, witness could be produced as evidence of this; and the prosecuting lawyers then brought < forward a treatise, written in his own hand, but neither printed nor circulated in manuscript, in which he had advocated the right of subjects to depose their king. This was held to be equivalent to having a second witness against him, and Sidney was condemned and executed. He was a theoretical Republican, and it was hard to bring up against him a writing which he had never published. Other less important 'Whigs were also put to death. Monmouth owed his pardon to his father's tenderness, but, as he still continued ; to bear himself as the head of a party, he was sent into honourable, exile in Holland.- 12. Parties at Court. 1684. — In the spring of 1684 three years had passed wilhout a Parliament, although the statute repealing the Triennial Act (see p. 588) had declared that Parhament ought to be summoned every three years. So sure was Charles of his ground that he liberated Danby without causing a murmur of complaint. At Court there were two parties,- one led by Halifax, which urged that, by summoning a Parliament now, Charles would not only comply with the law, but would have a Parliament as loyal as the Cavalier Pariiament had been.|S the other, led by Lawrence Hyde, the second son of Clarendon,i| l66o-i68s DEATH OF CHARLES IL 627 who had recently been created Eari of Rochester. Rochester, who was the highest of Tories, pointed out that the law pre scribed no means by which the king could be compelled to call a Pariiament if he did not wish to do so, and that, after aU, the C-avalier Pariiament, loyal as it was at first, had made itself very disagreeable to the king during the latter years of its existence. All through the year Charies hesitated and left the question undecided. The king of France, who was renewing his aggressions on the Continent under the guise of legal claims, was ready to do all he could to prevent the meeting of an English Pariiament, which would, in all probability, declare against him, and by sending money lo Charles from time to time, he saved him from the necessity of asking his subjects for support. 13. Death of Charies II. 1685.— Gn February 2, 1685, before anything had been decided, Charles was struck down by an apo plectic sti-oke. It was soon known that he was dying. Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke plainly to him : " It is lime," he said, " to speak out ; for, sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons." The king took no notice, and, after a while, the Duke of York came to his bed-side and asked his brother whether he wished to be reconciled to the Church of Rome. " Yes," murmured the dying man, " with all my heart ! ' James sent for a priest, directing the bishops and the courtiers to leave the room. Charles was duly reconciled, receiving absolution and the sacraments of the Roman Church. He lingered for some days, and begged pardon of those around him. He had been, he said, an unconscionable time in dying, but he hoped they would excuse it. On February 6 he died. 14. Constitutional Progress. 1660 — 1685. — The twenty-five years of the reign of Charles II. were years of substantial con stitutional progress. Charles did not, indeed, acknowledge that Parliament had that right of directing the choice of his ministers , which the Long Parliament had upheld against his father in the Grand Remonstrance ; but though he took care that his ministers should be responsible to himself and not to Parliament, he had also taken care, on the whole, to adapt the selection of his ministers to the changing temper of Parliament and the nation. Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby had aU been allowed to disappear from office when Parliament turned against them. The formation of Pariiamentary parties, again, was itself a condition of Pariiamentary strength. The Cavalier Pariiament had been weakened in its later years by the uncertainty of its aims. At one time the king's 628 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES IL 1681-1685- reliance upon France and his tendency to rest his govemment on armed force provoked a majority to vote against him. At another time some concession made by him to their wishes brought , round a majority to his side.. In the latter years of Charles's reign - this uncertainty was at an end. Charles had thrown his depend- j ence on France and the army into the background, and in a struggle, ¦ the successful issue of which would - bring no personal advantage to himself, had taken his stand on the intelligible principle of defending his brother's succession. He had consequently rallied round the throne all who thought the main- ? tenance of order to be of supreme iraportance, whilst all who sus- peeled that the order which Charles maintained was hurtful and oppres sive combined against him. This> sharjj division of parties ultimately Dress of ladies of quality ; from Sand- ford's Coronation Procession of James II. strengthened the power of Parliament. The in temperance of Charles's adversaries had indeed given him the upper hand for the time, but, if ever the day came when a king made himself unpopular, a Parliament opposed to him would be all the stronger if its majority were of one mind in sup porting definite principles under definite leaders. Charles IL, in short, did not live to see the esta blishment of Parliamen- Ordinary attire of women of the lower classes ; from Sandford's Coronation Procession of James II. , tary government, but he unwittingly prepared the way for it. 15. Prosperity of the Country.— The horror of a renewal of civil war, which was partly the result of sad experience, was also I68i-i68s THE CITY OF LONDON 629 the result of the growth of the general well-being of the community. The population of England now exceeded 5,000,000. Rents were rising, and commerce was rapidly on the increase. Fresh colo nies—amongst them Pennsylvania and Carolina— were founded in America. In England itself the growth of London was an index lo the general prosperity. In those days the City was the home of the merchants, who did not then leave the place where their Co.^ch of the latter half of the seventeenth century : from Loggan's Oxonia Illustrata. business was done to spend the evening and night in the suburbs. Living side by side, they clung to one another, and their civic ardour created a strength which weighed heavily in the balance of parties. The opposition of the City to Charles I. had given the victory to Parliament in the civil war, and its dislike of military government had done much to bring about the Restoration. The favour of the City had been the chief support of Shaftesbury, and it wa-s only by Wagon ofthe second half df 'the seventeenth century : from Loggan's Cjr£'Mf« llhcstrata. overthrowing its municipal institutions that Charles II. had suc ceeded in crippling its power to injure him. In the meantime a new forest of houses was springing up on sites between Lincoln's Inn and what is now known as Soho Square, and round St. James's Church. The Court and the frequent meetings of Parliament attracted to London many famiUes which, a generation earlier, would have lived entirely in the country. 630 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES IL 1681-1685 16 The Coffee Houses.— Nothing has made a greater change in the material habits of Europeans than the introduction of warm beverages. Chocolate first made its way into England m the time of the Commonwealth, but it was for some time regarded merely as a medicine, not to be taken by the prudent except under a physician's orders, though those interested in its sale declared that it was suitable for all, and would cure every possible com plaint Chocolate was soon followed by coffee, and coffee soon became fashionable, not as a medicine, but as a pleasant substitute for beer and wine. The introduction of tea was somewhat later. alk* ::^i U}"^i, J'^tk-i Wt'X^nr^'rtl^,_»i; %^ii,.i .jur- mnmiiinw. ^ a Reaping and harvesting in the second half of the seventeenth century ; Cambridge'in the distance : from Loggan's Cantabrigia Illustrata. m It was in the reign of Charles II. that coffee-houses arose in Lon don, and became places of resort, answering the purposes of the modern clubs. They soon acquired political importance, matters of state being often discussed in them, and the opinion of their frequenters carrying weight with those who were directly concerned with Government. The gathering of men of inteUectual prominence to London was a marked feature of the time, and, except at the universities, there was scarcely a preacher or a theological writer of note who was not to be found either in the episcopate or at the head of a London parish. i68i-i685 PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY 631 17. Condition of London.-The arrangements for cleanliness did not keep pace m London with the increased magnificence of the dwellings. The centre of Lincoln's Inn Fields, for instance, was a place where rubbish was shot, and where beggars congregated. St. James s Square was just as bad, whilst filthy and discoloured streams poured along the gutters, and carts and carriages splashed mud and worse than mud over tiie passengers on fool. At the beginning of the reign of Charies II. the streets were left in darkness, and robbers made an easy prey of those who ventured out after dark. Young noblemen and gentiemen when drunk took pleasure in knocking down men and insulting women. These were they of whom Milton was thinking when he declared that In luxurious cities, when the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, And injury, and outrage : and when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Something was, however, done before the end of the reign to mitigate the dangers arising from darkness. One man obtained a patent for lighting London, and it was thought a great thing that he placed a lantern in front of one doOr in every ten in winter only, between six and midnight. 18. Painting. — The art ofthe time, so far as painting was con cerned, was entirely in the hands of foreigners. 'Van Dyck, a Fleming, from Antwerp, had left to the world numerous representa tions of Charles , I. and Henrietta Maria, of Strafford and Laud, and of the ladies and gentlemen who thronged the Court. An English man, Samuel Cooper, made posterity acquainted with the features of Cromwell (see p. 567). Charles II. again called in the services of a foreigner, whose real name was Van der Goes, but who called him self Lely, because his father's house on the borders of Germany and the Netherlands was known by the sign of the Lily. Lely painted Court beauties and Court gentlemen. He had far less power than 'Van Dyck of presenting on canvas the mind which lies behind the features, and in many cases those who sat lo him had minds less worthy of being presented than those with which 'Van Dyck had to do. When Charles II. wished for a painting of the sea and of shipping he had lo send for a Dutch painter, Vandevelde ; whilst an Italian, Verrio, decorated his ceilings with subjects taken from heathen mythology. 19. Architecture. — In architecture alone EngUsh hands were 632 THE LAST YEARS OF cNaRLES IL 1681-1685 found to do the work required ; but the style in which they built was not English but Italian. The rows of pillars and roundarches wilh the meaningless decorations which bespoke an age preferring sumptuousness to beauty, superseded the quaint Elizabethan, and early Jacobean houses, which seemed built for comfort rather than for display, such as Ingestre Hall (seep. 471) and Hatfield House (see p. 485). In the reign of James I., Inigo Jones planned the great banqueting haU at Whitehall (see p. 493), and so contemptuous was he of the great architecture qf the middle ages, that he fitted on an Italian portico to the west front of the old St. Paul's. This style of building cul minated in the work of Sir Chris topher Wjren. The fire of London gave him an opportunity which he did not thro-w away. The steeple of St Mary-le-Bow is an example of his powers of design (see p. 614), but his greatest . achievement, the new St Paul's, was, when Charles II. died, only slowly rising from the ground, and it remained uncompleted till long after Charies II. had been laid in the grave. 20. Science. — The foundation of the Royal Society (see p. 598) had borne ample fruit Halley and Flamsteed were the astro nomers of the lime tiU their fame was eclipsed by that of Isaac New ton, whose 'Principia,' in which the law of gravitation was set forth, was written, though it was not published, at the end of the reign of Charies II. 21. Difficulties of Communication.— Difiicukies of communi cation served both to encourage town Ufe and to hinder the increase of manufactures at any considerable distance from the sea. The roads were left lo each parish to repair, and the parishes usually did as httle as possible. In many places a mere quagmire took the Costume of a gentleman : from Sand ford's Coronation Procession James II. of I68i-i685 THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN 633 place of the road. Young and active men, and sometimes ladies, travelled on horseback, and goods of no great weight were trans mitted on packhorses. The family coach, in which those who were too dignified or too weak to ride made their way from one part of the country to another, was dragged by six horses, and often sank so deeply in the mud as only to be extricated by the loan of additional plough horses from a neighbouring farm, whilst heavy goods were conveyed in lumbering waggons, still more difficult to move even at a moderate speed. For passengers who could not afford to keep a coach the carrier's waggon served as a slow conveyance ; but before the end of the reign of Charies 1 1, there had been introduced a vehicle known as The Flying Coach, which managed to perform a journey al the rate of fifty miles a day in summer and thirty in winter, in districts in which roads were exceptionably good. 22. The Country Gentry and the Country Clergy.— These difficulties of communication greatly affected the less wealthy of the country gentry and the country clergy. A coimtry gentle man of large fortune, indeed, would occasionally visit London and appear as a visitor at the house of some relative or friend to whom he was specially attached. The movements, however, even of this class were much restricted, whilst men of moderate estate seldom moved at all. The refinements which at present adorn country hfe were not then to be found. Books were few, and the man of comparatively slender means found sufficient occupation in the management of his land and in the enjoyment of field sports. His ideas on pohtics were crude, and, because they were crude, were pertinaciously held. The country clergyman was relatively poorer than -the country squire ; and had few means of cultivating his mind or of elevating the religion of his parishioners. The ladies of the houses of even the richest of the landed gentry were scarcely educated at all, and, though there were bright exceptions, any one familiar with the correspondence of the seven teenth century knows that, if he comes across a letter particularly illegible and uninteresting, there is a strong probability that the writer was a woman. 23. Alliance bet-ween the Gentry and the Church. — A common life passed in the country under much the same conditions naturally drew together the squire and the rector or vicar of his parish. A still stronger bond united them for the mosl part in a common Toryism. They had both suffered from the same oppression : the squire, or his predecessor, had been heavily fined by a Puritan n. T T 6-34 THE LAST YEARS OF CHARLES IL 1681-1685 Parliament or a Puritan Lord Protector, whilst the incumbent or his predecessor had been expeUed from his parsonage and deprived of his livelihood by the same authority. They therefore naturally combined in thinking that the first (axiom in politics was to keep Dissenters down, lest they should do again what men like-minded with themselves had done before. Unless some other fear, stronger stiU, presented itself to them, they would endure almost anything from the king rather than risk the return to power of the Dissenters or ofthe Whigs, the friends ofthe Dissenters. CHAPTER XLI JAMES II. 1685 — 1689 LEADING DATES Accession of James II. . . ... Meeting of Parliament '. Battle of Sedgemoor. . . . . Prorogation of Parliament The Judges allow the King's Dispensing Power First Declaration of Indulgence . . Second Declaration of Indulgence Birth of the Son of Janies II. Acquittal of the Seven Bishops Landing of William of Orange .... The Crown accepted by ^Villiam and Mary Feb. 6, 1685 May ig, i^f, July 6, 1685 Nov. so, 1685 June 21, 1686 April 4, 1687 April 22, 168S June 10, 1688 June 30, 1688 Nov. 5, 1088 Feb. '13, 1689 I. The Accession of James II. 1685. — The character of the new king, James 1 1., resembled that of his father. He had the same unalterable belief that whatever he wished to do was ab solutely right ; the same incapacity for entering into the feelings or motives of his opponents, and even more than his father's inability to see faults in those who look his side. He was bent on procuring reUgious liberty for the Catholics, and at first imagined it possible to do this with the help of the clergy and laity of the Church of England. In his first speech to the Privy Council he announced his intention of preserving the established government in Church and •State. He had mass, indeed, celebrated with open doors in his chapel at Whitehall, and he continued to levy taxes which had been granted to his brother for life only ; yet, as he issued writs for a Parliament, these things did not l:ount much against him. '^^5 JAMES II. 635 Unless indeed, he was to set the law and constitution at defiance he could do no otherwise than summon Pariiament, as out of 1,400,000/. which formed the revenue of the Crown, 900,000/. lapsed on Charies's death. James, however, secured himself against all eventualities by procuring from Louis a promise of financial aid in case of Pariiament's proving restive. Before ParUament met, the king's inclinations were manifested by sentences pronounced by James II. : from the National Portrait Gallery. judges eager to gain his favour. On the one hand, Titus Oates was subjected to a flogging so severe that it would have killed anyone less hardy than himself On the other hand, Richard Baxter, the most learned and moderate of Dissenters, was sent to prison after being scolded and insulted by Jeffreys, who, at the end of the late reign, had, through James's influence, been made Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 636 JAMES I I. 1685 2. A Tory Pariiament. 1685.- Pariiament met on May 19. The House of Commons was Tory by an enormous majority, partiy because the remodeUed corporations (see p. 625) returned Tory members, but stiU more because the feeling of the country ran strongly in James's favour. The Commons granted to him the full revenue which had been enjoyed by his brother, and refused to listen to a few of its members who raised objections to some things which had been recently done. The House had not been long in session when it heard of two invasions, the one in Scotiand and the other in England. 3. Argyle's Landing. 1685. — In Scotiand the upper classes were animated by a savage resolve, to keep no terms with the Cove nanters, whose fa natical violence alarmed , them, The Scottish Par liament, soon after the accession of James, passed a law punishing with death any one at tending a conven ticle. Argyle, be lieving, in his exile in Holland, that all honest Scots would be ready to join him against the tyranny of the Government, sailed early in May at the head of a small expedition, and arrived in the Firth of Clyde. He had himself no military skill,^ and his followers, no less ignorant than himself, overruled everything that he proposed. Soon after landing he was captured and carried to Edinburgh, where, as he was already legally condemned to death (see p. 623), he was executed on June 30 without further trial. On the night before his death a member of the Council came to see him in his cell, where he found him in a placid slumber. The visitor rushed off in, agony to the house of a friend. "I have Yeomen of the Guard ; from Sandford's Coronation Procession of James II. l68s ARGYLE AND MONMOUTH 637 been," he said, "in Argyle's prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetiy as ever man did. But as for me—" His voice failed him, and he could say no more. 4. Monmouth's Landing. 1685.— In the meanwhile Monmouth, the champion of the Dissenters and extreme Protestants, had, on June 11, landed at Lyme. So popular was he in the west of England that the trained bands could not be trusted to oppose him, and he was left unassailed tiU regiments of the regular army could be brought against him. The peasants and townsmen of the western counties flocked to join Monmouth, and he entered Taunton at the head of 5,000 men ; but not a single country gentle man gave him his support Pariiament passed against him an Act of Attainder, condemning him to death without further trial, and the king marched in person against him at the head of a disciplined force. Monmouth declared himself to be the legitimate king, and, his name being James, he was popularly known amongst his followers as King Monmouth, in order to pre vent confusion. He advanced as far as Philip's Norton : there, hopeless of gaining support amongst the governing classes, he feU back on Bridgwater. The king followed him with 2,500 regular troops, and 1,500 from the Wiltshire trained bands. Monmouth was soldier enough lo know that, with his raw recruits, his only chance lay in surprising the enemy. The king's army lay on Sedgemoor, and Monmouth, in the early morning of July 6, at tempted to fall on the enemy unawares. Broad ditches filled with water checked his course, and the sun was up before he reached his goal. It was inevitable that he should be beaten ; the only wonder was that his untrained men fought so' long as they did. Monmouth himself fled to the New Forest, where he was captured and brought to London. James admitted him to his presence, but refused to pardon him. On July 1 5 he was executed as an attainted traitor without further trial. 5. The Bloody Assizes. 1685. — Large numbers of Monmouth's foUowers were hanged by the pursuing soldiers without form of law. Many were thrust into prison to await their trial. Jeffreys, the most insolent of the judges, was sent to hold, in the western counties, what will always be known as the Bloody Assizes. It is true that the law which he had to administer was cruel, but Jeffreys gained peculiar obloquy by delighting in its cruelty, and by sneering at its unhappy victims. At Winchester he condemned to death an old lady, Alice Lisle, who was guilty of hiding in her house two fugitives from vengeance. At Dorchester 74 persons 638 JAMES IL 1685-1686 were hanged. In Somersetshire no less than 233 were put to death. Jeffreys overwhelmed his victims with scornful mockery. One of them pleaded that he was a good Protestant : " Protestant ! " cried Jeffreys, " you mean Presbyterian ; I'll hold you a wager of it I can smeU a Presbyterian forty miles." Some one tried to move his compassion in favour of one of the accused. " My lord," he said, "this poor creature is on the parish.'' " Do not trouble your selves," was the only answer given, " I will ease the parish of the burden," and he ordered the man to be hanged at once. The whole number of those who perished in the Bloody Assizes was 32o,whilst 841 were transported to the West Indies to work as slaves under a broiling sun. James welcomed Jeffreys on his return, and made him Lord Chancellor as a reward for his achieve ments. 6. The Violation of the Test Act. 1685. — James's success made him believe that he could overpower any opposition. He had already increased his army and had appointed officers who had refused to lake the test On his return to London he resolved to ask Parliament lo repeal the Test Act, and dismissed Halifax for refusing to Support his proposal. It would probably have been difficult for him to obtain the repeal even ofthe Recusancy Laws which punished CathoUcs for acting on their religious belief It was not only hopeless, but rightly hopeless, for him to ask for a repeal of the Test Act, which, as long as a Catholic king was on the throne, stood in the way of his filling all posts in the army as weU as in the state with men who would be ready to assist him in designs against the religion and liberties of Englishmen. If anything could increase the dislike of the nation to the repeal of the Test Act it was the fact that, in that very year, Louis had revoked the Edict of Nantes issued by his ancestor, Henry IV., to protect the French Protestants, and had handed them over to a cruel persecution. It might be fairly argued that what Louis had done, James, if he got the power, might be expected to do hereafter. 7. Breach between Pariiament and King. 1685.- When the Houses, which had adjourned when the king went into the West, met again on November 9, James informed them not only that he had appointed officers disqualified by law, but that he was determined not to part with them. The House of Commons, the most loyal House that had ever been chosen, remonstrated with him, and there were signs that the Lords intended to support the remonstrance. On November 20 James prorogued Pariiament 8. The Dispensing Power. 1686.— Like his father, James 1686-1687 - THE KING AND THE LAW 639 liked to think that, when he broke the laws, he was acting legaUy, and he remembered that the Crown had, in former days, exercised a power of dispensing wilh the execution of the laws (see p. 604). This power had, indeed, been questioned by the Parliament in 1673 (see p. 606), but there was no statute or legal judgment declaring it to be forbidden by law. James now wanted to get a decision from the judges that he possessed the dispensing power, and when he found that four of the judges disagreed with him, he replaced them by four judges who would decide in his favour. Having thus packed the Bench, he procured the bringing of a collusive action against Sir Edward Hales, who, having been appointed an officer in the army, had, as a Catholic, refused lo lake the test. Hales produced a dispensation from the king, and, on June 21, 1686, the judges decided that such dispensations freed those who received them from the penalties imposed by any laws whatever. 9. The Ecclesiastical Commission. 1686. — James, in virtue of his dispensing power, had already authorised some clergymen of the Church of England, who had turned Roman Catholics, to retain their benefices. Obadiah Walker, the Master of University CoUege, Oxford, became a Roman Catholic, set up a press for the printing of Roman Catholic tracts, and had mass celebrated openly in the coUege. Yet he was allowed lo retain his post. Then the king ap pointed Massey, an avowed Roman Catholic, to the Deanery of Christchurch, and Parker, a secret Roman Catholic, to the Bishopric of Oxford. Naturally the clergy who retained the principles of the Church of England preached sermons warning their hearers against the errors of the Church of Rome. James ordered them to be silent, and directed Compton, Bishop of London, to suspend Sharp, the Dean of Norwich, for preaching against the Papal doctrines. As Compton refused to obey, James, on July 11, constituted an Ecclesiastical Commission Court, at the head of which was Jeffreys. It is true that the Court of High Commission had been abolished by a statute of the Long Parliament, but James argued that his father's court, having power to punish the laity as well as the clergy, could be abolished by Act of Parlia ment, whereas, a king being supreme governor of the Church, might provide for the punishment of the clergy alone, in any way that he thought fit, without taking account of Acts of Parliament. The first act of the new court was to suspend Compton for his refusal to suspend Sharp. James therefore had it in his power to stop the mouths of all the religious teachers in the realm. 10. Scotland and Ireland. 1686— 1687. — In Scotland James 640 JAMES II. 1686-1687 insisted on a Parliamentary repeal of aU laws imposing penalties on Roman Catholics. The Scottish Parliament, subservient as it had been to Charles II. , having refused to comply with this demand, James dispensed with aU these laws by his own authority, thereby making Scottish Episcopalians almost as sullen as Scottish Covenanters. In Ireland James had on his side the whole Catholic Celtic population, which complained of wrongs committed against their religion and property by the English colonists. James deter mined to redress these wrongs. In February, 1687, he sent over to Ireland as Lord Deputy the Earl of Tyrconnel, whose character was low, and who had been known at Charles's Court as Lying Dick Talbot. He vyas, however, a Roman CathoUc, and would . carry out the king's will in Ireland without remorse. II. The Fall of the Hydes. 1686 — 1687. — To make way for Tyrconnel, the former lord-lieutenant. Clarendon, the eldest son of the late Chancellor, was recalled from Ireland, his fall being pre ceded by that of his younger brother Rochester (see p. 627). Rochester was devoted to the maintenance of the Royal power; but James told him that he must change his reUgion if he wished to keep his office, and on his refusal he was dismissed. 12. The Declaration of Indulgence. 1687. — The dismissal of Rochester was the strongest possible evidence that James's own spirit was intolerant Yet he was driven, by the course which he had taken, into the adoption of the principle of toleration, and no doubt persuaded himself that he accepted toleration on its own merits. At first he had hoped to obtain favours for the Roman CathoUcs with the goodwill of the Church of England, whilst continuing the persecution of Dissenters. He now knew that this was impossible, and he therefore resolved to make friends of the Dissenters by pronouncing for a general toleration. He first had private interviews with the leading men in both Houses, in the hope that they would, if Parliament were re-assembled, assist in the repeal of all penal laws bearing on reUgion. These closetings, as they were called,' proving ineffectual, he issued, by his own authority, on April 4, 1687, a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all laws against Roman Catholics and Dissenters alike, and giving per mission to both to worship publicly. The result of the Declaration was not all that James desired. Many of the Dissenters, indeed, accepted their freedom joyfully. Most of them, however, dreaded a gift which seemed only intended to elevate the Roman CathoUcs, and opened their ears to the pleadings of the Churchmen, who now 1 Because the interviews took place in the king's closet, or private room. '687 ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT 641 assured their old enemies that if they would have a little patience they should, in the next Pariiament, have a toleration secured by law. This, argued the Churchmen, would be of far more use to them than one granted by the king, which would avail them nothing whenever the king died and was succeeded by his Protestant daughter, the Princess of Orange. 13. The Expulsion of the Fellows of Magdalen. 1687.— Scarcely was the Declaration issued when James showed how littie he cared for law or custom. There was a vacancy in the President ship of Magdalen College, Oxford, and James commanded the FeUows to choose one Farmer, a man of bad character, and a Roman Catholic. On April 15 the Fellows, as they had the un doubted right to do, chose Hough. In June they were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission, which declared Hough's election to be void, and ordered them to choose Parker, who, though at heart a Roman Catholic, was nominaUy the Protestant Bishop of Oxford (see p. 638). They answered simply that, as Hough had been lawfully elected, they had no right lo choose another President in his lifetime. Jeffreys buUied them in vain. James insisted on their accepting Parker, and on acknowledging the bjaUty of the proce*IShgs'~of the Ecclesiastical Commission. All but two, having refused to submit, were turned out of the CoUege and left to beg their bread. When the Commissioners attempted to install Parker in his office not a blacksmith in Oxford would consent to break open the lock of the President's lodgings. The servants of the Commissioners were at last employed to force the door, and it was in this way that Parker took possession of the residence to which Hough alone had a legal claim. The expelled Fellows were not left lo starve, as there was scarcely a gentleman in England who would r.ot have been proud to receive one of them into his house. 14. An Attempt to pack a Parliament. 1687. — James was anxious to obtain Parliamentary sanction for his Declaration of Indulgence. He dissolved the existing Parliament, hoping to find a new one more to his taste. As he had packed the Bench of Judges in 1686, he tried to pack a Pariiament in 1687. A board of regulators was appointed, with Jeffreys at its head, to remodel the corporations once more, appointing Roman Catholics and Dissenters to sit in them. James expected that th^ese new members would elect tolerationists to the next House of Commons. So strong, however, was public opinion against the king that even the new members chosen expressly to vote for the king's nominees could not be relied 642 JAMES IL 1688 on. The design of calling a new Parliament was therefpre aban doned for the lime 15, A Second Declaration of Indulgence. 1688.— On April 22, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of Indulgence, which he ordered to be read in all the churches. Most of the clergy objecting to read it, seven bishops signed a petition asking that the clergy might be excused. Six of these bishops— Sancroft, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who was the seventh, having b^en for bidden to appear before the king— presented the petition to James at Whitehall. James was startled when it was placed in his hands. " This," he said, " is a great surprise to me. I did not expect this from your Church, especiaUy from some of you. This is a standard of rebeUion." In vain the bishops protested that they hated the very sound of rebeUion. James would not listen to their excuses. " This," he persisted in saying, "is rebellion. This is a standard of rebellion. Did ever a good churchman question the dispensing power before ? Have not some of you preached for it and wriiten for it ? It is a standard of rebellion. I will have my declaration published," One of the bishops replied that they were bound to fear God as well as to .honour the king. James only grew more angry aiid told them, as he sent them away, that he would keep their petition, with the evident intention of taking legal proceed-" ings against them, " God," he said, as he dismissed them, " has given me the dispensing power, and I will maintain it. I tell you there are still seven thousand of your Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 16. Resistance of the Clergy. 1688. — When the day came for the reading of the Declaration scarcely a clergyman obeyed the king's prder. In one of the London churches Samuel Wesley. father of the John Wesley who was, by his preaching, to move the hearts of the next generation, preached a sermon on the text, " Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." In West minster Abbey, when the officiating minister, Bishop Sprat, a Dress of a bishop in the second half of the seventeenth cen tury : from Sandford's Coro nation Procession of James II. l688 THE SEVEN BISHOPS 643 courtly prelate, began to read the Declaration, the whole congre gation rose in a body and streamed out of the church. 17. The Trial of the Seven Bishops. 1688.— James ordered that the seven bishops should be tried, on the plea that their petition was a seditious libel. The trial took place in Westminster HaU on June 29. The first difficulty of the pirosecution was lo show that the so-called libel had been published — that is to say, had been shown to any one — as no one was present besides the ¦ bishops when James received it, and the king could not be put into the witness-box. At last sufficient evidence was tendered by the Earl of Sunderland — a minister who, unlike 'Rochester, had changed his religion to keep his place — to convince the court that the petition had been delivered to James. The lawyers on both sides then addressed the jury on the question whether the petition was really a libel. The jury retired to deliberate, and at first nine of them were for the bishops and three for the king. Two of the latter gave way, but the other, a certain Arnold, who was the king's brewer, held out. " Whatever I do," he said, " I am sure to be half ruined. If I say Not Guilty I shall brew no more for the king, and if I say Guilty I shall brew no more for anybody else." He decided that the king's custom was the best worth keeping. To a gentleman named Austen who proposed to argue with him he replied that his mind was already made up. "If you come to that," replied Austen, "look at me. I am the largest and strongest of this twelve ; and before I find such a petition a libel, here I will stay tiU I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe." The jury were locked up through the night, and when the morning of the 30th came Arnold had given way. A verdict of Not Guilty was given in. The crowds in Westminster HaU and in the streets of London burst out into - shouts of joy. At Hounslow, where James was reviewing the regiments on which he trusted lo break down all popular resistance, the soldiers shouted like the rest James asked what it aU meant " Nothing," he was told ; " the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call that nothing ? " he answered. " So much the worse for them.'' 18. Invitation to William of Oi3.nge. 1688.— The acquittal ofthe Bishops would, but for one circumstance, have strengthened the nation in its resolution patientiy to wait till James's death placed his daughter on the throne. On June 10, however, a son had been born to James, and that fact changed the whole situation. The boy would be educated in his father's religion, and England was threatened with a Roman Catholic dynasty in which each 644 JAMES IL 1688 successive ruler would, from his childhood, be brought up in the belief that he might break through aU legal restraints whenever he could have the approval of judges appointed by himself and liable to dismissal whenever he pleased. At first the general dislike of this disagreeable fact took the shape of incredulity, and it was almost universally believed, without a shadow of foundation, that the boy was a supposititious child pj-ocured from some poor mother and brought in a warming-pan into the queen's chamber. Whether he were supposititious or not, there was no doubt that he would be treated as James's heir. Tories were as much concerned as 'Whigs at the prospect before them. The doctrine of non-resistance was forgotten, and on June 30, the day of the bishops' acquittal, seven important personages, some being Whigs and some Tories, invited the Prince of Orange to land with an armed force to defend the liberties of England. 19. Landing of 'William. 1688. — WilUam would probably not have accepted the invitation if the constitutional rights of English men had alone been at stake ; but he had made it the object of his life lo struggle against Louis, and he knew that war was on the point of breaking out between Louis and an alliance in which almost every European prince took part excepting James. He accepted the invitation that he might bring England into that alliance; and made preparations, which could not be hidden from James. James made concessions, abolished the Ecclesiastical Commission, gave back the cha,rters of the City of London and the other cor porations, and restored the Fellows of Magdalen. Anxious as William was to come, he was delayed for some time. The army of Louis was on the southern frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, and WilUam could not stir as long as an invasion of his Spanish allies was threatened. Louis, however, offered James the assistance of his fleet to repel the expected Dutch expedition. James replied that he was quite able to take care of himself Louis lost his temper, withdrew his army from the frontier of the Netheriands, and sent il lo begin the war with the aUies by burning and ravaging the Palatinate. WiUiam put to sea, intending to land in Torbay. On the morning of November 5 it was found that the fleet had passed the haven for which it was bound ; and as the wind was blowing it strongly on, there seemed no possibility of returning. William believed that nothing but failure was before him. " You may go to prayers, doctor," he said to Burnet, an English clergy man who accompanied him ; " aU is over." In a moment the wind changed and bore the fleet back into Torbay, and William 1688-1689 FLIGHT OF JAMES 645 was enabled to land safely at. Brixham. Burnet, a warm-hearted but garrulous and inquisitive man, began asking him questions about his plans. If there was one thing that William disliked more than another, it was the interference of clergymen in military matters. He therefore looked Burnet in the face, replying only by another question : « Well, doctor, what do you think of pre destination now ?" Both he and Burnet were convinced that God had Himself guided them thus far in safety for the deliverance of His people. 20. William's March upon London. 1688.— William marched upon London, and, after a while, the gentry of the counties through which he passed poured in to support him. The north and the midlands rose under the Earls of Devonshire and Danby and other lords, Whig and Tory. The doctrine of non-resistance was thrown to the winds. James set out with his troops lo combat William. He reached Salisbury, but the officers of his own army and his courtiers deserted him. Amongst those who fled to William was Lord Churchill, afterwards known as the Duke of Marlborough and the greatest soldier of the age. He had re ceived many favours from James, which he now repaid by inciting all those whom he could influence to abandon their king. Amongst these was James's younger daughter Anne, over whom Churchill's wife exercised a most powerful influence, and who now, together with her husband. Prince George of Denmark, fled to William. James, left almost alone, made his way back to London, which he reached on November 27. On the 30th he ordered the pre paration of writs for the election of a Parliament, and proposed an accommodation with William, who by that time had reached Hungerford. It was agreed that both armies should remain at a distance of forty miles from London in order to enable the new Parliament to meet in safety. James was, in reality, de termined not to submit. On December 10 he sent his wife and son to France. On the nth he attempted lo follow them, burning the writs and dropping the great seal into the Thames, in the hope that everything might fall into confusion for want of the symbol of legitimate authority. There were riots in London, and the Roman Catholic chapels were sacked and destroyed. There was a general call to William to hasten his march. On the 12th, however, James was stopped near Sheerness by some fishermen and brought back to London. William had no mind lo have a second royal martyr on his hands, and did everything lo frighten James into another flight. On December 18 James left London 646 JAMES II. 1689 and William arrived at Whitehall. On December 23, with 'WiUiam's connivance, James embarked for France. 21. A Convention Parliament Summoned. 1688. — Amongst the crowd which welcomed WilUam was Sergeant Maynard, an old man of ninety. " You must," said William to him, " have sur vived aU the lawyers of your standing." "Yes, sir," replied Maynard, " and, but for your Highness, I should have survived the laws too." He expressed the general sense of almost every Englishman. How to return to a legal system with the least possible disturbance was the problem lo be faced. William con sulted the House of Lords and an assembly composed of aU persons who had sat in any of Charles's Parliaments, together with special representatives of the City. Members of James's one Parliament were not summoned, on the plea that the return to it of members chosen by the remodelled corporations made it no true Pariiament. The body thus consulted advised WilUam lo call a Convention, which would be a Parliament in everything except that there was no king to summon it. 22. The Throne declared Vacant. 1689.- On January 22, 1689, the Convention met The House of Commons contained a majority of Whigs, whilst the Tories were in a majority in the Lords. On the 28th the Commons resolved that "king James IL, having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the funda mental laws and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the government, and that the throne had thereby become vacant." This lumbering resolution was unanimously adopted. The Whigs were pleased with the clause which made the vacancy of the throne depend on James's misgovernment, and the Tories were pleased with the clause which made it depend on his so-called voluntary abdication. The Tories in the Lords proposed that James should remain nominally king, but that the country should be governed by a regent. Danby, however, and a small knot of Tories supported the Whigs, and the proposal was' rejected. Danby had, indeed, a plan of his own. James, he held, had really abdicated, and the crown had therefore passed to the next heir. That heir was not, according to him, the supposititious infant, but the eldest daughter of James, Mary Princess of Orange, who was now in her own right queen of England. It was an ingenious theory, but two circumstances were against its being carried into practice. In the first place, Mary scolded Danby for l689 THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 647 daring to set her above her husband. In the second place William made it known that he would neither be regent nor administer the government under his wife. Danby therefore withdrew his motion, and on February 6 the Lords voted, as the Commons had voted before, that James had abdicated and the throne was vacant. 23. WiUiam and Mary to be Joint Sovereigns. 1689 A Declaration of Rights was prepared condemning the dispensing power as lately exercised and the other extravagant actions of James IL, while both Houses concurred in offering the crown to WiUiam and Mary as joint sovereigns. As long as William lived he was to administer the government, Mary only attaining lo actual power in the eVent of her surviving her husband. After the death of both, the crown was to go first to any children which might be born lo them, then to Anne and her children, and, lastly, lo any chUdren of William by a second wife in case of his surviving Mary and marrying again. As a matter of fact, William had no chUdren by Mary, who died about eight years before him, and he never married again. On February 13 William and Mary accepted the crown on the conditions offered lo them. 24. Character of the Revolution. — The main characteristic of the revolution thus effected was that il established the supre macy of Parliament by setting up a king and queen who owed their position to a Parliamentary vote. People had been found to. believe that James II. was king by a Divine right Nobody could believe that of William. Parliament, which had set him up, could pull him down, and he would have therefore lo conform his government to the will of the nation manifested in Parliament. The political revolution of 1689 succeeded, whilst the Puritan Revolution of 1641 failed, because, in 1641, the political aim of setting the Pariiament above the king was complicated by an ecclesiastical dispute which had split Parliament and the nation into two hostile parties. In 1689 there was practically neither a poUtical nor an ecclesiastical dispute. Tories and Whigs combined lo support the change, and Churchmen and Dissenters made common cause against the small Roman Catholic minority which had only been dangerous because it had the Crown at its back, and because the Crown had been supported by Louis and his armies. A Revo lution thus effected was, no doubt, far less complete than that which had been aimed at by the more advanced assailants of the throne of Charles I. It did not aim at changing more than a small part of the political constitution of the country, nor at changing any part whatever of its social institutions. Its programme, in short, was 648 JAMES II. 1689 one for a single generation, not one, like that of the ' Heads ofthe Proposals ' (see p. 5 5 5 ) or the ' Agreement of the People ' (see p. 5 56) for several generations. Consequently it did not rouse the anta gonism which had been fatal even to the best conceived plans of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It is much lo be regretted that the moral tone of the men who brought about the Revolution of 1689 was lower than that which had brought about the Revolution of 1641. That this was the case, however, was mainly the fauh of the unwise attempt of the Puritans to enforce morality by law. The individual hberty which was encouraged by the later revolu tion would in due time work for morality as well as for political improvement Books recommended for further study of Part VII. Ranke, L. English History (English translation). 'Vol. iii. p. 310- vol. iv. p. 528. Airy, O. The English Restoration and Louis XW. Christie, 'W. D. Life of A. A. Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. Macaulay, Lord. History of England from the Accession of James II. 'Vols. i. and ii. Hallam, H. Constitutional History. Chapters- X I, -XI'V. Mahan, A. T. Influence of the Sea-power upon History. Chapters I. -III. INDEX THE SECOND VOLUME ABB Abbey lands, the, distributed by Henry VIII., 400: Mary wishes for the re storation of, 422 Aberdeen, Montrose's victory at, 547 Abhorrers, party name of, 620 Addled Parliament, the, 486 Admonition to Parliament, An, 446 Adwalton Moor, battle of, 53S Agitators, choice of, 554 ; propose to purge the House, 556 Agreement of ihe People, the., drawn up by the Agitators, 556 Agriculture, More's views on the decline of, 358 ; progress of, in Elizabeth's reign, 464 Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 5^9 Alasco, opinions of, 418 Albemarle, George Monk, Duke of, as George Monk, commands in Scotland, , / 575 ; effects the restoration, 576 ; created Duke of Albemarle, 580 ; holds a command in the battle off the North Foreland, 592 ; advises Charles II. not to dissolve Parliament, 599 Alengon, Francis, Duke of, EUzabeth proposes to marry, 446 ; entertained by Elizabeth, 454 ; attacks Antwerp, 455 ; death of, 456 Ale^cander VI., Pope, character of, 375 alford, battle of, 549 a^ien. Cardinal, founds a college at : i)ouai, 453 ; plots to murder Elizabeth, 454 Alva, Duke of, his-tyranny in the Ne therlands, 443 ; discusses the murder of Elizabeth, 445 ; fails to reduce the Dutch, 449 Aniicable Loan, the, 372 ' jinjou, Henry, Duke of, see Henry III., king of France , Annates, first Act of, 388 ; second Act of, 390 Anne, daughter of James II., birth of, 608 ; deserts James II. , 645 ; settlement of the crown on, 647 II. Anne Boleyn, appears at Court, 380 ; is married to Henry VIIL, 389 ; execu tion of, 395 Anneof Cleves married to Henry VIIL, 400 ; divorce of, 401 Antwerp attacked by Alengon, 455 ; taken by Parma, 436 Appeals, Act of, 389 ; provision for the nearing of, 391 Architecture, Elizabethan, 465 ; Stuart, &^x, 632 Areopagitica^ 546 Argyle, Archibald Campbell, Earl of, execution of, 636 Argyle, Archibald Campbell, Marquis of, opposed to Montrose, 547 ; execution of, 595 Arlington, Henry Bennet, Earl of, secre- tarjr to Charles 1 1., 599 ; intrigues against Clifford, 607 Armada, the Invincible, sailing of, 458 ; destruction of, 462 Army, the New Model, formation of, 545 ; attempt of Parliament to disband, 553; choiceof Agitators in, 554; gains possession of the king's person, 555 ; the heads of the proposals presented in the name of, ib, ; drives out the eleven members, ib. ; turns against the king, 556, 557 ; expels members by Pride's Purge, ib. \ its inability to reconstruct society / after the king's execution, 560 ; overthrows Richard Cromwell, restores and expels the Rump, 575 ; brings back the Rump, ib,\ receives Charles IL on Blackheath, 578 ; paid off, 584 Army, the Royal, beginning of, 584 Army plot, the, 531 Articles, the ten, 395 ; the six, 399 ; the forty-two, 420 ; the thirty-nine, ib. ; ^ declaration of Charles L,prefixed to, 512 Arundel Castle taken and lost by Hopton, 542 Ashley, Lord, see Shaftesbury, Earl of [tt] 650 INDEX TO Aske heads the Pilgrimage of Grace, 397 Assembly of divines, proposal to refer church questions to, S34 ; meeting of, 540 ; declares for Presbyterianism, 543 Association, the, in defence of Elizabeth, 456 Attainder, Bill of, against Thomas Crom well, 401 ; nature of a, ib., note i. ; against Strafford, 531 Auldearn, battle of, 547 Babington plots the murder of Eliza beth, '457 Bacon, Francis (Lord Veralam and Viscount St. Alban), scientific aspira tions of, 474 ; advises Elizabeth as to the treatment of the Catholics, 475 ; his conduct to Essex, 478 ; gives poli tical advice to James l.,_ 486 ; his jest on Montague's promotion, 494 ; at tacked about monopolies, 495 ; dis grace of, 496 Bagenal defeated by Hugh O'Neill, 475 Ballard takes part in Babington's plot, 457 . , ^. Barbadoes, prisoners sent to, 564 ; dis senters sent to, 588 Barebone's ParUament, the, origin ofthe name of, 566 ; dissolution of, 567 Baronets, origin of the order of, 494 Barrow, Henry, a separatist, hanged, 470 Barrow, Isaac, addresses his sermons to the understanding, 598 Basing House taken by Cromwell, 549, Bastwick sentenced by the Star Chany ber, 521 Bate's case, 484 Baxter, imprisoned by Jeffreys, 635 Beaton, Cardinal, burns Wishart, 412 ; is murdered, 414 Bedingfield, Sir Henry, takes charge of Elizabeth, 423 Benevolences raised by James L, 497 Berwick, Treaty of, 526 Bible, the,, Henry VIIL authorises the translation of, 396 Bishops, nominated by congi ^elire., 391 ; first Bill for removing from the House of Lords, 533 ; impeachment of the twelve, 533 ; excluded from the House of Lords, 536 Bishops' War, the first, 526 ; the second, 529 Blackwater, the, defeat of Bagenal on, 475 Blake, defends Taunton, 5+8 ; appointed to command the fleet, 565 ; sent to the Mediterranean, 571 ; destroys Spanish ships at Santa Cruz, 573 ; death of, ib. Bloody Assizes, the, 637 BocheTj Joan, burnt, 419 Bohemia, outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in, 490 Boleyn, Anne, see Ann6 Bolfeyn Bombay acquired by Charles II., 587 Bonner, Bishop, deprived of his see, 416 Booth, Sir George, defeated at Winning- ton Bridge, 575 Bothwell, James Hepburn, Earl of, career of, 439 Bothwell Bridge, defeat of the Covenan ters at, 620 Boulogne, taken by Henry YIIL, 405; -surrendered by Warwick, 417 Bourbon, the Duke of, revolt of, 371 ; death of, 374 Boxley, destruction of the rood of, 398 Breda, declaration of, 576 ; treaty of, 593 Brentford, Charles I. at, 537 Bridgman, Sir Orlando, declares that the king's ministers are responsible, 581 Bridgwater taken by Fairfax, 549 ; Mon mouth at, 637 Brill seized by exiles from the Nether. lands, 449 Bristol stormed by Rupert, 538 Browne, Archbishop_ of Dublin, destroys relics and images in Ireland, 402 Browne, Robert, founder of the Separa^ ists, 470 Brownists, see Separatists Bucer, Martin, teaches in England, ^16 Buckingham, George Villiers, First Duke of, becomes Marquis of Bucking ham and Lord Admiral, 488 ; accom panies Charles to Madrid, 497 ; be comes Duke of Buckingham, and advo* cates war with Spain, 500; promises money for foreign wars, 501 ; his ascendency over Charles L, 502 ; tries to pawn the crown jewels, 303 ; lends ships to fight against Rochelle, 504; impeachment of, 503 ; leads an expedi tion to R^, 506 ; feeling of Wentwoi'th towards, 508 ; murder of, 510 Buckingham, George Villiers,'^ Secohd Duke of, in favour with Charles II., 599 ; his sham treaty with France, 603 ; dismissal of, 608 Buckingham, Henry Stafford, Duke oti , -, execution of, 369 Buildings, improvement in, in Elizabeth's time, 465 Bunyan writes Pilgrivi's Progress, 396^ Burghley, William Cecil, Lord, as 'Sir William Cecil becomes the chief ad^iSer of Elizabeth, 429; urges Elizabetli to assist the Scotch Prptestantg, 433 5 becomes Lord Burghley and discovers the Ridolfi plot, 445 ; death of, 480 _ Burnet, Gilbert, his conversation with William of Orange, 645 Burton, sentenced by the Star Chamber, ^521Butler, author of Hudibras, 597 Cadiz, capture of, 464 ; Cecil's expedi tion to, 503 Calais, loss of, 427 ; Elizabeth's hope of THE SECOND VOLUME est ^regaining, 436; the Armada takes re fuge in, 462; CromweU's anxiety to recover J 371 , Calvittj his work at Geneva, 430 Calvinism influences Elizabethan Pro testantism, 430 Cambrai, league of, 363 ; treaty of, 383 Campeggio, Cardinal, appointed legate to" hear the divorce case of Henrv VIIL, 382 Campion lands in England, 453 ; execu tion of, 434 Carberry Hill, Mary's surrender at, 439 Cardinal College founded by Wolsey, 377j 383 J ^S£ Christchurch Carisbrooke Castle, detention of Charles I. in, 356 Carolina, colonisation of, 629 Cartwright advocates the Presbyterian system, 446 ' Casket letters, the, 440 Castlemaine, Lady, uses her influence against Clarendon, 394 CSteau Cambresis, peace of, 431 Catesby plans Gunpowder Plot, 483 Catharine of Aragon, marriage of, 363 : Henry VIII. grows tired of, 379 ; divorce suit against, 382 ; is divorced, 389 ; the sentence of Clement VIL in favour of, 390 ; death of, 395 Catharine of Braganza marries Charles ¦ "- 587 ... Catherine de Medicis, widow of Henry IL, king of France, becomes regent, 433 ; takes part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 449 Catherine Howard, marriage and execu tion of, 401 Catherine Parr, marriage of, 401 Catholics, Roman, laws directed against, 453, 434 ; their position at the end of Ehzabeth's reign, 475 ; increased per secution of, after Gunpowder Plot, 483 ; negotiation between James I. and Spain for the relief of, 488 ; tendency of Charles II. to support, 584 ; declara* ibn for the toleration of, issued by Charles IL, 387 ; perse cuted about the Popish Plot, 616 ; efforts of James II. in favour of, 634, 638, 6^0 Cecil, Sir Edward, commands the Cadiz expedition, 503 .Chancery, Court of, proposal ofthe Bare bone's Parliament to suppress, 567 ; reformed by Cromwell, 569 ; nature of J the decisions of, 605 Chantries, Act for the dissolution of, 412 ; their income vested in the king, 415 Charles I., intention of the Gunpowder plotters to blow up, 483 ; proposals of marriage for, 488 ; visits Spain, 497 ; is eager for war with Spain, 500; negotiation for marriage with Henri etta Maria, 501 ; becomes king and marries Henrietta Maria, 502;, ad journs his first parliament to Oxford, zb. ; dissolves his first parliament and sends out the Cadiz expedition, 503 • meets his second Parliament, ib. ; dis solves his second Parliament^ 305 ; orders the coUection of a forced loan, 506 ; meets his third ParUament, 508 ; consents to the Petition of Right, 509 ; claims a right to levy Tonnage and Poundage, 310 ; issues a declaration on the Articles, 512 ; dissolves his third Parliament, 513 ; his personal govern ment, 314 ; levies knighthood fines, 515 ; insists on the reading of the Declaration of Sports, 317; levies fines for_ encroaching on forests, 523; levies ship-money, ib. ; imposes a new prayer-book on Scotland, 323 ; leads an army against the Scots, 526 ; con sults Wentworth, 527 ; makes Went worth Earl of Strafford; and summons the Short Parliament, 52S ; dissolves the Short Parliament, marches again against the Scots, and summons the Long Parliament, 529 ; assents to the Triennial Act, 530 ; signs a commis sion for Strafford's execution, 531 ; visits Scotland, 332 ; returns to Eng land, 534 ; rejects the Grand Rem-on- strance, 335 ; attempts to arrest the five members, 536 ; fights at Edgehill, 337 ; his plan of campaign, ib. ; be sieges Gloucester, and fights at New bury, 539 ; looks to Ireland for help, 541 ; sends Rupert to reUeve York, 543 ; compels Essex's infantry to sur render at Lostwithiel, and fights again at Newbury, 544; is defeated at Naseby, 548 ; attempts to join Mont' rose, s 391 Paradise Lost, publication of, 390 Paris submits to Henry IV., 464 Parker, Matthew, becomes Archbishop of Canterbury, 429; ch.racter and position of, 430 Parker, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, a secret Roman Catholic, 639 ; intrusive President of Magdalen College, 641 Parliament, relations of Henry VIII, with, 385 ; relations of EUzabeth with, 444 ; the Addled, 486 ; the Short, . 528" the Long, 529 ; formation of parties in, 532 ; struggles with Charles I. for the militia, 336 ; raises forces against the king, 337 ; tries to dis band the army, 533 ; its speakers take refuge with the army, 553 ; dissolution of, by CromweU, 566 ; the Barebone's, ib. ; the first, of the Protectorate, 570 ; the second, of the Protectorate, 572 ; ^ Richard Crom well's, 574 ; restoration of the Long, 373 ; final dissolu ion of the Long, 576 ; the first convention, 577-584 ; the Cavalier, 385 ; supports the . Church more than the king, 386 ; rejects the declaration of Charles IL in favour of toleration, 587 ; Albemarle resists the dissolution of, 399 ; opposes James II., 638 ; James II. attempts to pack, 641 Parma, Alexander Famese, Prince of, governor of the Spanish Nether lands, 450 ; gains grpjind in the 662 INDEX TO PAR Netherlands, 454-436 ; takes Antwerp, 456; takes Zutphen, 457 v hopes to transport an army to England, 439 ; blockaded by the Dutch, 462 ; sent to aid the League, 464 Parris, Van, burnt, 419 Parsons, Robert, lands in England, 453 ; escapes, 454 Parsons, Sir William, one of the Lords Justices in Ireland, 533 Parties, Parliamentary, formation of, 532 ; development of, 610, 628 Paulet, Sir Amias, refuses to put Mary Stuart to death, 457 Pavia, battle of, 372 Penn and Venables, expedition of, to the West Indies, 571 ^ Pennsylvania, colonisation of, 629 Penruddock captures the judges at Salisbury, 571 Penry, John, hanged, 472 Pepys pities dissenters, 388 Perth, the five articles of, 325 Peter Martyr teaches in England, 416 Peter's Pence, abolition of, 391 Petition of Right, the, 308 Petitioners,- party name of, 620 Philip II. , King of Spain, marries Mary, 423 ; abdication of Charles V. in favour of, 4-6; deserts Mary, ib.; induces Mary to declare war against France, 427 ; makes peace with France, 431 ; proposes to marry Eliza beth, 432 ; persecutes the Protestants in the Netherlands, 443 ; annexes Portugal, and shares in a plot for the invasion of England and the murder of Elizabeth, 434 ; undertakes the invasion of England, 456 ; claims the English crown, 43 =1 ; appoints a commander for the Armada, 460 ; supports the League in France, 464 PhUip IIL, King of Spain, Jaines I. seeks an aUiance with, 488 Philip IV., King of Spain,^ receives Pnnce Charles, and negotiates with the Pope about his sister's marriage, 497 ; consults thecloglans, 498 ; in forms Charles of his terms, 300 ; death of, 392 Philiphaugh, battle of, 549 Philip's Norton, Monmouth at, 637 Pilgrim Fathers, the, 489 Pilgrim^ s Progress, publication of, 396 Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 396, 397 Pinkie Cleugh, battle of, 413 Pius v., Pope, excommunicates Eliza beth, 441 Plague, the, devastations of, 590 Pl;^mouth held by a Parliamentary gar- risen. 538 Pole, Reginald, opposes Henry VIII. and becomes a cardinal, 399 ; as Papal legate reconcUes England to the see of Rome, 424 ; becomes archbishop of Canterbury, ^26 *, death of, 427 Ponet mavle Bishop of Winchester, 416 Popish Plot, the, 615 Portland, Richard Weston, Earl of, as Lord Westoji, becomes Lord Treasurer, 514; made Earl of Portland and dies, Portsmouth, Louise de Keroualle Duchess of, betrays the secrets oi" Charles IL, 602 ; extravagance of, 603 Portugal subdued by Philip IL, 454 Post-naii, the,' 483^ Powick Bridge, skirmish at, 337 Poyntz, Major-General, defeats Charles I. at Rowton Heath, 349 Prayer Book, the, see Common Prayer, Book of Prayer Book, the Scottish, introduced by Charles I., 323 Prerogative, the, opinion of James I. about, <(92 Presbyterian clergy, the, prepared to accept a modified episcopacy, 583 ; expelled from their livings, 383, j pro posal of Charles IL to obtain compre hension for, 399 Presbyterian party, the, in a majority in the Houste of Commons, 546 ; attempts to disband the army, 553 ; negotiates with the Scots for a fresh invasion of England, 534 ; generally accepts the Prayer Book, 3S6 Presbyterianism emanates from Geneva, 430 ; its organisation completed in France, 431 ; adopted in S.e.i3tland, 434 ; attempts to establish, in England, 470 ; feeling in the Long Parliament aboutj 532 ; adopted by the Assembly of Divines, 343 ; Charles I. urged to establish in England, 551 Preston, CromweU's victory at, 337 Prichard, Lord Mayor, 624 Pride's Purge, 557 Privilege of Parliament, Strickland's case of, 445 ; Eliot's vindication of the, 312 Privy Council, the. Temple's scheme for reforming, 617 Prophesyings, the, ^30 Protectorate, establishment of the, 568 Protestants, the English, feeUng of Henry VIIL and More towards, 388 ;. parties amongst, 413 ; the Marian per secution of, 42^; local distribution of, 426 ; their position at Elizabeth's acces sion, 428; influence of Calvinism- on 430 Prynne, character and writings of, 319 ; his sentence in the Star Chamber, ib.', second sentence on, 321 Pularoon, refusal of the Dutch to sur render, 389 ; abandoned by the Eng lish, 593 Puritans, the, aims of, 444 ; gain influ ence in the House of CommonSj 443, 468; the Court of High, Commission directed against, 470 ; opinions of, at the Hampton Court Conference, 482 ; unpopular after the restoration, 586 Purveyance, abolition of, 5821 ' THE SECOND VOLUME 663 PYiM SCO Pym differs from El^ot on the method of dealing with the cSiestion of Tonnage and Poundage, 5^2 ; addresses the Short Parliament;' m 'grievances, 329; proposes in the Lcng Parliament the impeachment of Stn^ffprd, ib. ; his view of Strafford's case, 530 ; discloses the arn>y plot, 531 ; is one of the leaders of fthe party of the Grand Remon strance, 334 ; accused as one of the fiv^ members, 535 ; urges the House of Commons to resist Charles I., 540 ; death of, 542 , Quo warranto, writs o^, 624, 625 R^VLElGH, Sir Walter, takes part in the capture of Cadiz, 464 ; sentenced to death and imprisonment, 481; loses Sherborne, 486 ; voyf ge to Guiana and execution of, 499 ; his colony in Vir ginia, ib. Re, Buckingham's expedition to, 506 Reading taken by Essex, 338 Reading, the abbot of, executed, 400 Recusancy laws, the, penalties inflicted ^y- 454 , . . n Regicides, the, e:fecution of, 582 Reims, CoUege at, 433 * Relics, destruction of, 398 Renascence, the, character of, 366 ; its influence on England, 367 ; immorality of, 374, 375 Requesehs, governor of the Netherlands, 449 Ruyter, De, captures English forts in Guinea, 389 Revenue of the crown fixed after the Restoration, 582 Revolution of 1688-9, 646-648 Ridley made Bishop of London, 416 ; burnt, 423 Ridolfi plot, the, 444 Rinuccini, Archbishop, arrives in Ireland, 550 ;Meaves Ireland, 562 Ripon, treaty ofj 529 Rising in the North, the, 441 Rizzio, David, murder of, 439 Roads, improvement in, 633 Rochelle, Buckingham lends ships to fight against the Huguenots of, 504 ; .' siege of, 506 ; expedition to the relief of, 310 Rochester, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of, advises against the summoning of Pai'liament, 626 ; dismissal of, 640 Rogers, John, burnt, 424 Rome taken by the Duke of Bourbon, ,374 Root and Branch BiU, the, 533 Roundway Down, battle of, 338 Rowton Heath, battle of, 3-^9 Royal Society, the, foundation of, 398 Rump, the name given to the remnant of the Long Parliament, 565 ; dis solved by Cromwell, 366 ; brought back, expelled and brought back again, 373 ; final dissolution of, 576 Rupert, Prince, commands the cavalry at EdgehUl, 537 ; storms Bristol, 338 ; is defeated at Marston Moor, 543 ; takes part in the battle of Naseby, 548 ; surrenders Bristol, 549 ; holds a command in the battle off the North Foreland, 592 ; defeated off the Texel, 608 Russell, WiUiam Russell, Lord, sup ports the Exclusion BiU, 617 ; refuses to take part in acts of violence, 624 ; trial of, 623 ; execution of, 626 Rye House Plot, the, 623 Sa, Dom Pantaleon, execution of, 369 St. Andrews captured by the French and recaptured, 413 St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 449 St. Bartholomew's day, ejection of the Presbyterian clergy on, 583 St. Paul's, Old, burnt, 392 Salisbury, Penruddock captures the judges at, 371 Salisbury, Robert Cecil, Earl of, as Sir Robert Cecil, secretary to EUzabeth and James I., 480, 481 ; becomes Earl of Salisbury and Lord "rreasurer, 484 ; orders the levy of new impositions, ib. ; death of, 486 Salisbury, Countess of, executed, 401 San Domingo, Penn and Venables attack, 572 Santa Cruz, Blake destroys Spanish ships at, 573 Savoy Conference, the, 585 Savoy, Duke of, persecutes the Vaudois, 573 Scotland, power of the nobles in, 404 ; Hertford's iiivasion of, 409 ; Protestant missionaries in, 412 ; Somerset's inva sion of, 413 ; the Reformation in, 432; the intervention of Elizabeth in, 453 ; Presbyterianism in, 434 ; Mary lands in, 435 I Mary's government of, 457- 440 ; civU war m^ 443 ; projected union with, 482 ; Episcopacy and Presbyterianism in, 524 ; introduc tion of a new prayer book in, 525 ; national covenant signed in. ib. ; first Bishops' war with, 526; episcopacy abolished by the Assembly and Parlia ment of, 527 ; the second Bishops war with, 529 ; visit of Charles I. to, 532; solemn league and covenant with, 340 ; sends an army into Eng land, 542 ; its army recalled, 553 ; pro posal of a new invasion of England by, 554 ; engagement signed with Charles I. by Commissioners of. 356; Charles IL and Cromwell in, 563 ; Restoration settlement of, 395 ; Lauderdale's in fluence in, 602 ; Lauderdale s inanage- ment of, 619 ; Covenanters ^ in, ib. ; rising of the Covenanters in, 620; under James IL, 639 Scottish army, the, encamps on Dunse Law, 326 ; routs the English at New burn, 529 ; invades England, 543 : 664 INDEX TO ^tR ¦ besieges York, ib. ; takes part in the battle of Marston Moor, 543 ; receives Charles I. at Southwell, and conveys him to Newcastle, 351 : negotiation for the abandonment of Charles I. by, 333 ; returns to Scotland, 353 J is de feated at Dunbar, 563 ; and at Wor cester, 364 Second Civil War, the, 536, ,337 Sedgemoor, battle of, 637 Selby taken by the Fairfaxes, 542 Selden, John, takes part in drawing up the Petition of Right, 308 Self-denying Ordinance, the, 345 Seminary priests, the,'453 ; Act of Parlia ment against, 436 Separatists, the, principles of, 470 ; settlement of, in Leyden and New England, 489 ; receive the name of Independents, 543 ; see Independents Settlement, Irish Act, of, 595 Seven BLshops, the, petition presented by, 642 ; trial of, 643 Seymour, Jane, see Jane Seymour^ Seymour of Sudley, Lord, execution of, 415 Seymour, William, heir of the Suffolk line, 480 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, early life of, 602 ; policy of, 603; supports the Declaration of Indulgence, 603 ; becomes Earl of Shaftesbury and Chancellor; ib. ; his invective against the Dutch, 606 _; dis missal of, 608 ; leads the opposition, ib. ; supports toleration for Dissenters only, 610 ; declares the present Par liament to be dissolved, 612 ; en courages belief in the Popish Plot, 616; his position similar to that of Pym, 6t8 ; supports the Exclusion Bill, ib. ; indicts the Duke of Vork as a recusant, 621 ; supported by the thhd Short Parliament, ?3. ; the Grand Jury throw out a Bill against, 622 ; ' Dryden's satire on, 623 ; proposes to attack the king's guards, 624; exile and death of, ib. Shakspere, William, teaching of, 474 Sharpy Archbishop, murder of, 620 Sherborne taken by Fairfax, 348 Sherfield, Henry, fined by the Star Chamber, 515 Ship-money, levy of, 323 ; resisted by Hampden, 524 Ships, comparison between EngUsh and Spanish, 459 Shrines, destruction of, 398 Sidney, Algernon, execution of, 626 Sidne^, Sir Philipj death of, 457 Sinclair, Oliver, killed at Solway Moss, 405 Skeffington, Lord Deputy, takes May nooth, 402 Slave trade, the, carried on by Eliza- . bethan sailors, 447 Smerwick, slaughter at, 433 Solemn league and covenant, the ,340 Solway Moss, defeat of> the Scots at, 403 ; Charles I. i:/ged by the Scots to take, 351 p Somerset, Edward ^stymour, Duke of, invades Scotland as Earl of Hertford, 406 ; becomes Duke of Somerset and Protector, 412 ; defeats the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh, 413; possession -of Church property by, 415 ; expelled from the Pi-otectorate, 416 ; execution of, 418 Somerset, Robert Carr, Earl of, favourite of James L, 486 ; disgrace df, 488 Somerset House, building of, 416 Southwell, Charles I. surrenders to the Scots at, 331 Southwold Bay, battle in, 605 Spain, resources of, 426 ; maritime power of, 447 ; authority of, in. the West Indies challenged by English sailors, - ib. ; navy of, 459 ; English attacks on, 464 ; sends an expedition to Kinsale, 478 ; its alliance sought by James I., 486 ; attack of Raleigh on the colonies of, 489 ; sends troops to occupy the Palatinate, 490 ; protest of the Coiji- mons against an alliance with, 496; visit - of Prince Charles to, 497 ; eagerness in England for war with, 500 ; money voted for war with, 501 ; expedition against Cadiz in, 303 ; Charles I. makes peace with, 514 ; Cromwell makes war on, 571 ; question of the succession to, 592 , Spenser, Edmund, his Faerie Queen, 47^ Spinola, Ambrogio, invades the Palati nate, 490 Spurs, battle of the, 364 Stadholder, office of, 449 ; aboUtion of the office of, 565 Stainer, Admiral, captures a Spanish fleet, 572 Star Chamber, Court of, its sentences in . the reign of Charles L, 514, 5i9i 5=^ -# aboUtion ofj 531 ^ "^ Stillingfleet aims at comprehension, 59^ Stop of the Exchequer, the, 604 Stow-on-the-Wold, surrender of the last Royalist army at, 330 Stafford, WiUiam Howard, Viscount, ex ecution of, 621 Strafford, Thomas .Wentworth, Earl of, as Sir "Thomas Wentworth, his policy contrasted with that of Elipt, 508;,, . brings in a bill to secure the liberty of the subject, ib. ; becomes Lord Went worth and President of the Council of the North, 514 ; becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland, 527 ; created Earl of Straf ford, and advises the summoning ' \-~ to promote, 598 , 'J:(T6nnage and Poundage, nature of, 509 ; " claimed by Charles I. in spite of the ' Petition of Right, 310 ; Act prevent ing the king from levying, 331 Torbay, arrival of WiUiam IIL in, 644 Tory party, the, origin of the name of, 620 ; reaction in favour of, 622 ; elects officers in the city, 623; gains a majority in the Common Council, 624 ' Treasons, Act creating new, 392 Trent, the Council of, 436 Triennial Act of Charles L, the, 330 ; , repealed, 388 II. Triers, Commission of, 369 Trimmer, origin of the name of, 618 Triple Alliance, the, 599 Tulchan bishops, the, 524 ' Tunis, Blake sent against, 371 Turnham Green, the militia of the city resist Charles I. at, 537 Tuscany, Duke of, Blake sent against, 571 Tyndale, William, translates the New Testament, 396 Tyrconnel, Earl of, see O'Donnell Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, Earl of. Lord Deputy in Ireland, 640 Tyrone, Earl of, see O'Neill, Hugh Ulster, plantation of, 484 ; insurrec tion and massacre in, 534 Undertakers, the, 487 Uniformity, Elizabethan Act of, 429 Restoration Act of, 583 Universities consulted on the divorce of Henry VIIL, 383 Utopia, 367 Utrecht, union of, 450 Valentine takes part in holding down the Speaker^ ^14 Vandevelde paints marine subjects, 631 Van Dyck, portraits by, 631 '' Vane, Sir Henry, tbe younger, produces evidence against Strafford, 530 ; negotiates the Solemn League and Covenant, 540 ; brings in a Reform bill, 566 Vaudois, the, Cromwell intervenes in favour of, 372 Venice, League of Cambrai formed against, 363' Venner's plot, 584 Vere, Sir Horace, defends the Palatinate, 490 . Verrio paints ceihngs, 631 Vestments, ecclesiastical. Hooper's rejec tion of, 417 ; Puritan resistance to the use of, 444 ; Whitgift's opinion on the ptopriety of, 468^ Virginia, colonisation of, 489 Vote of No Addresses, 536 Walker, Obadiah, Roman CathoUc Master of University CoUege, 639 Waller, Sir William, defeated at Lans down and Roundway Down, 538 ; takes Arundel Castle and defeats Hopton at Cheriton, 342 ; fights at Cropredy Bridge, 344 ; resigns his command, 545 Walsingham, Sir Francis, Secretary to Elizabeth, 457 Warwick, Earl of, see Northumberland, Duke of Wentworth, Sir Thomas, see Strafford, Earl of [uu] INDEX TO THE SECOND VOLUME WEN Wentworth, Thomas Wentworth, Lord, governor of Calais, 427 Wesley, Samuel, sermon by, 64a West Indies, ¦ the, conflicts between English -and Spanish sailors in, 447 Weston, Lord, see Portland, Earl of Westphalia, Peace of, 364 Westmorland, Charles Neville, Earl of, takes part in the rising of the North, 441 Westward Ho ! 447 Wexford, slaughter at, 363 Whig party, the, origin of the name of, 620 ; has a hold on the city of London, 622 * Whip with six strings, the,' 400 Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canter bury, ¦ opinions of, 468 ; the High Commission Court under, 470 ; com pared with Hooker, 472 Wilkins, Bishop, aims at comprehension, ¦598 WiUiam L, Prince of Orange, Stad holder of the Dutch republic, 449 ; Jaureguy 's attempt to murder, 454 ; murdered by Gerard, 456 WiUiam II., Prince of Orange, deathof, 565 WiUiam IIL, Prince of Orange, defends ¦ the Dutch repubUc, 603 ; is offered the hand of Mary,, daughter of the Duke of York, 608 ; at the head of a conti nental alliance, 609,; marriage of, 613; invited to England, 644 ; lands at Brixham and marches on London, 643 ; arrives at Whitehall, 646 ; the crown offered to, 647 WilUams, John, Archbishop of York, impeachment of, 335 Winceby, .fi^ht at, 542 ZWI Winchester taken by Cromwell, '549* ¦'" Winnington Bridge, Booth defeated at ' ¦575 " ' Wishart, George, burnt, 413 Witt, John de. Pensionary of Holland,' 589 ; negotiates the Triple 'Alliance, 399 ; murder of, 603 Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, rise of, 363 ; magnificence of, 364 ;¦ supports a policy of peace, 365, 366 ; comes* into the House of Commons, 571; becomes unpopular on account of the Amicable Loan, 372 _; secures his position by an alliance with France, 374 : aspires to the papacy, 575 \ is named legate a latere, ib. ; his views on Church re form, 376 ; founds two colleges, 37jri; faUs to persuade Henry VIII. Mp' abandon Anne Boleyn, 380:^5 ap- < pointed legate \o try Henry's divorce, 382 : faU of, 383 ; death of, 384 Worcester, battle of, 364 Wren, Sir Christopher, ' buildin^.^ by, '632 •' Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor, excluded from the Council, 412 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, rebellion and exe cution of, 423 York, Charles I. at, 337 ; siege of, 542 York, James, Duke of,''j*e Jahies II. Zutphen, death of Sir Philip Siclneyat, ^457 .¦ . Zwingli, teaching of, 390 Zwinglianismj spread of, in England,,' 399 \ Cranmer's attitude towards, 416.,'; 3 9002 00459 9461