protecto rate set aside. Rump returned to power May 7, 1659; members Colonel protector really came to an end, and the supreme power again passed to the military chiefs who, in the hope of composing the country, then in a state of anarchy, agreed with the republicans that the protectorate should be set aside in favor of the remnant of the Long Parliament, which had been expelled from St. Stephen's on the 20th of April, 1653. 7. On that memorable occasion Bradshaw had warned Cromwell that "no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves,"1 and upon that theory forty-two members of the Rump, with Lenthall, the former speaker, at their head, returned to the house on the 7th of May, 1659, to there resume, at the invitation of the army, the direction of affairs which the same power five years before had forcibly taken from their hands. without the From the republican body thus reconstituted were carefully excluded by excluded those members, at once royalist and presbyterian, of whom the house had been purged by Colonel Pride on the 6th December of December, 1648.3 The new coalition thus formed for the 6, 1648; defence of republicanism and civil liberty endured, however, only for a moment. Dissensions at once arose out of demands made by the army which the parliament regarded as unbearable, and thus began a new conflict, that culminated on October 13 in a fresh expulsion of the Rump by the officers, who undertook to secure the public peace, and to prepare a new form of government for submission to a new parliament. At a division this point it was that the army finally divided against itself. in the army; The troops in Scotland and Ireland protested against the action of their brethren in England, and General Monk, the commander of the Scottish forces, the moment that he heard manded the of the expulsion of the members, openly appeared as their pa tron, under the title of "asserter of the ancient laws and liberties of the country." Although Lambert was sent to oppose him, the tide of opposition to the acts of the English army rose so high that before the end of December it was forced to reinstate the Rump in all its former authority. Early in January, 1660, Monk crossed the border, and marched first to York and Rump expelled in October; General who com Scottish forces, crossed the border January, 1660; 1 See above, p. 346. 2 Ludlow, vol. ii. pp. 179-186; Whitelock, p. 677. By gradual additions the house at last numbered seventy members. four were still alive, eighty of whom actually resided in the capital."- Lingard, vol. viii. p. 573 4 Commons' Journals, December 26; Ludlow, vol. ii. pp. 268, 276, 282, 290; 8" Of these, one hundred and ninety- Whitelock, pp. 689, 690, 691. members Parliament then to London, where on the 21st of February he agreed to admit the royalist presbyterian members who had been ex- excluded cluded from the house in 1648, upon their promise to settle admitted; the arrears of the army, to issue writs for a new parliament to sit at an early day, and to dissolve themselves before that time. Under the terms of that compact a bill was read for the third time on the 16th of March, dissolving "the parlia- Long ment assembled on the 3d of November, 1640," and conven- finally dising at the same time a new assembly to be composed of lords, solved knights, citizens, and burgesses, which was to meet on the 25th of April. Before its dissolution, however, the Rump had appointed Monk, who was secretly arranging for the return of the king, commander-in-chief of the forces of the three kingdoms, and commander of the fleet jointly with Admiral Montague. At the appointed time the Convention Parliament, so Convention designated by reason of the fact that it was called without the met April king's writ, met; and after the organization of the lower house 25, with the presbyterians in the majority, and with the presence in the upper of the greater part of the peerage,2 the scheme of restoration was laid bare by the presentation to the two houses of letters directed to them from Breda by the king, who briefly set forth therein the conditions under which he was willing to ascend the throne of his ancestors. Upon the faith of that and settled declaration, which was accepted as a royal charter, the houses, tion of after declaring that "the government is, and ought to be, by Charles II. king, lords, and commons," invited Charles to return and continue his reign, which was proclaimed as having commenced from the day of his father's execution.4 1 Commons' Journals, February 11, 13, 15, 17, 21; Price, pp. 768-773; Lingard, vol. viii. p. 604. The peers who sat in the king's parliament at Oxford and those whose patents bore date after the beginning of the civil war did not demand ad- 3 Lords' Journals, vol. xi. pp. 7, 10. Parliament the restora BOOK VI. THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. Consti tution modified during first ten months of liament; CHAPTER I. CHARLES II. AND THE RESTORED CONSTITUTION. I. WHEN Cromwell at the height of his power attempted restored as through the "Act of Government" 1 to return as far as pos sible to the forms of the monarchical system, he clearly manifested his belief in the necessity of restoring the ancient Long Par constitution as modified and purified in the crucible of revolu tion. Animated by the same conservative spirit, the Convention Parliament entered upon its work firmly resolved to restore "government . . . by king, lords, and commons," subject to all the limitations imposed upon the crown by the Long Parliament during the first ten months preceding the recess in which its members were able to strike as one man against abuses that pressed alike upon all. Thus it was that that part of the work of the Long Parliament which embraced the abolition of the star chamber and high commission, the vital declaration that the entire taxing power of the nation was vested exclusively in the king in parliament, and the Triennial Act, minus its compulsory clauses, survived as a part of the permanent constitution of the country,2-it being at the same time understood that the commonwealth legislation should be treated as void, excepting only such parts as were confirmed treated as by express enactments.3 The presbyterian element dominant in the lower house, which had been elected under ordinances common wealth legislation void; 1 See above, p. 352. Cf. Sir J. F. Stephen, Hist. of the They put one of their number, Sir H. Grimstone, in the chair as speaker. parties; Breda; that withheld the franchise from royalist "malignants," 1 put forward this general basis of settlement no more persistently than the strong cavalier minority with which they were confronted. Upon that basis both parties united in the invitation Charles invited to to Charles to return, while he upon his part bound himself in return by the declaration sent to the houses from Breda (1) to grant a both free and general pardon to all, excepting only such as should his declara afterwards be excepted by parliament; (2) to indemnify the tion from church and the royalists for injuries suffered in their estates; (3) to make a satisfactory settlement with the army; (4) and finally to secure "liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom." 2 Before entering upon the task of giving to these guarantees the forms of law, the convention called convention into being by the Rump declared, while the bishops were still itself to be legally excluded from their places in the upper house, that "the two the Long Parliament was dissolved, and that it was in fact parlia "the two houses of parliament, notwithstanding the want of the king's writ of summons, and as if his majesty had been present in person at the commencement thereof,' a declaration which the succeeding parliament indirectly discredited by always describing the convention in its journals as "the last assembly." 4 declared houses of ment." In addition to the limited promise of pardon given to the Fate of the regicides; regicides in the declaration from Breda, Charles immediately upon landing issued a proclamation, in which he held out inducements to such of his father's judges as should immediately surrender themselves. After deducting twenty-five who had died and nineteen who had fled beyond sea,5 twenty-nine finally remained in custody, including those who had surrendered under the proclamation. After a serious disagreement between the houses the fugitives were attainted, and a bill of Bill of indemnity was passed in which was embodied a compromise 1 Cf. Green, Hist. of the Eng. People, vol. iii. p. 351. 2 Lords' Journals, vol. xi. pp. 7, 10. 3 12 Car. II. c. I. Hallam, Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 323, note 2. The royalist lawyers claimed that as this parliament had been called without the king's writ, its acts could never have any validity until confirmed 5 For the history of Whaley, Goff, 6 Lingard, vol. ix. pp. 12, 13. Indemnity; trial by a special court; conceding to the crown the right to try, despite the proclamation, those who had voluntarily surrendered, subject to the proviso that no one of them should be executed without a subsequent act of parliament passed for that purpose.1 After trial? before a special court composed of thirty-four commissioners, ten of the regicides were immediately executed, and two years afterwards three more, who were surrendered by Holland.3 Unappeased by vengeance thus taken upon the living, the royalists were permitted by an order of the houses approved by the king to tear the bodies of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton from their graves, and to draw them on hurdles to Tyburn, failure to on the anniversary of the death of Charles I. The bill of incompensate royalists for demnity which went so far in the attempt to satisfy the pas pecuniary sions of those who had suffered in the king's cause did nothing, however, to compensate them for the pecuniary sacrifices which they had made in his behalf. Parliament refused either to vote a direct moneyed compensation, or to annul such sales as the royalists had voluntarily made.5 The only redress reëntries. actually received was through forcible entries made by the church, the crown, and the dispossessed royalists, upon such of their estates as were held by purchasers who derived their titles under revolutionary proceedings, which were treated as void. sacrifices; their forcible Disbandment of standing army; By the making of successive grants the arrears of the army were settled and a large and dangerous body of men disbanded without mutiny or disturbance; and in a short time after the reorganiza- dissolution of this republican force the militia was reorganized under statutes which placed it more than ever before under the control of the country gentry and rich municipal landowners." tion of militia. The presbyterians and independents, who in the days of the commonwealth had taken possession of nearly all of the livings 1 12 Car. II. c. 11; Clarendon, Continuation of Life, p. 69. 2 State Trials, pp. 947-1364. See comments upon these trials in Sir J. F. Stephen's Hist. of the Crim. Law, vol. i. pp. 370-372. 8 Corbet, Okey, and Berkstead, thus surrendered, suffered in April, 1662, under the act of attainder. Ludlow, vol. iii. p. 82; State Trials, vol. v. pp. 1301-1335. 4 Lords' Journals, vol. xi. p. 205: Kennet's Reg., p. 367. 5 For that reason the cavaliers called the bill of indemnity an act for the indemnity of the king's enemies, and of oblivion for his friends. 6 When they pleaded that they were bona fide, the answer was, "You have taken the risk with the benefit." 7 13 Car. II. c. 6; 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 3; 15 Car. II. c. 4. |