neither of which it had any reason to or receive the sacrament according to love, at length relieved itself from his conscience, yet still firm in his retrouble by dictating a compromise. solution to obey God rather than man, That system, cruel, but most complete was, in spite of some unpleasing recoland energetic, by which Oliver had lections, an object of pity and respect to proposed to make the island thoroughly well constituted minds. These feelings English, was abandoned. The Crom- became stronger when it was noised wellians were induced to relinquish abroad that the court was not disposed third part of their acquisitions. The to treat Papists with the same rigour land thus surrendered was capriciously which had been shown to Presbytedivided among claimants whom the rians. A vague suspicion that the government chose to favour. But great King and the Duke were not sincere numbers who protested that they were Protestants sprang up and gathered innocent of all disloyalty, and some strength. Many persons too who had persons who boasted that their loyalty been disgusted by the austerity and had been signally displayed, obtained hypocrisy of the Saints of the Commonneither restitution nor compensation, wealth began to be still more disgusted and filled France and Spain with out- by the open profligacy of the court and cries against the injustice and ingrati- of the Cavaliers, and were disposed to tude of the House of Stuart. doubt whether the sullen preciseness Meantime the government had, even of Praise God Barebone might not be in England, ceased to be popu- preferable to the outrageous profanelar. The Royalists had begun ness and licentiousness of the Buckingunpopular to quarrel with the court and hams and Sedleys. Even immoral land. with each other; and the men, who were not utterly destitute of party which had been vanquished, tram-sense and public spirit, complained that pled down, and, as it seemed, annihi- the government treated the most seÏated, but which had still retained a strong principle of life, again raised its head, and renewed the interminable The government becomes in Eng war. Had the administration been faultless, the enthusiasm with which the return of the King and the termination of the military tyranny had been hailed could not have been permanent. For it is the law of our nature that such fits of excitement shall always be followed by remissions. The manner in which the court abused its victory made the remission speedy and complete. Every moderate man was shocked by the insolence, cruelty, and perfidy with which the Nonconformists were treated. The penal laws had effectually purged the oppressed party of those insincere members whose vices had disgraced it, and had made it again an honest and pious body of men. The Puritan, a conqueror, a ruler, a persecutor, a sequestrator, had been detested. The Puritan, betrayed and evil entreated, deserted by all the timeservers who, in his prosperity, had claimed brotherhood with him, hunted from his home, forbidden under severe penalties to pray rious matters as trifles, and made trifles its serious business. A King might be pardoned for amusing his leisure with wine, wit, and beauty. But it was intolerable that he should sink into a mere lounger and voluptuary, that the gravest affairs of state should be neglected, and that the public service should be starved and the finances deranged in order that harlots and parasites might grow rich. A large body of Royalists joined in these complaints, and added many sharp reflections on the King's ingrati tude. His whole revenue, indeed, would not have sufficed to reward them all in proportion to their own consciousness of desert. For to every distressed gentleman who had fought under Rupert or Derby his own services seemed eminently meritorious, and his own sufferings eminently severe. Every one had flattered himself that, whatever became of the rest, he should be largely recompensed for all that he had lost during the civil troubles, and that the restoration of the monarchy would be followed by the restoration of his own dilapidated fortunes. None of these expectants could restrain his indigna- | of Charles what Calais had been to an tion, when he found that he was as earlier generation, and what the rock poor under the King as he had been of Gibraltar, so manfully defended, under the Rump or the Protector. The through disastrous and perilous years, negligence and extravagance of the against the fleets and armies of a mighty court excited the bitter indignation of coalition, is to ourselves. The plea of these loyal veterans. They justly said economy might have had some weight, that one half of what his Majesty if it had been urged by an economical' squandered on concubines and buffoons government. But it was notorious that would gladden the hearts of hundreds the charges of Dunkirk fell far short of of old Cavaliers who, after cutting the sums which were wasted at court down their oaks and melting their plate in vice and folly. It seemed insupto help his father, now wandered about portable that a sovereign, profuse beyond in threadbare suits, and did not know example in all that regarded his own where to turn for a meal. pleasures, should be niggardly in ali that regarded the safety and honour of the state. At the same time a sudden fall of rents took place. The income of every landed proprietor was diminished by five shillings in the pound. The cry of agricultural distress rose from every shire in the kingdom; and for that distress the government was, as usual, held accountable. The gentry, compelled to retrench their expenses for a period, saw with indignation the increasing splendour and profusion of Whitehall, and were immovably fixed in the belief that the money which ought to have supported their households had, by some inexplicable process, gone to the favourites of the King. The minds of men were now in such a temper that every public act excited discontent. Charles had taken to wife Catharine Princess of Portugal. The marriage was generally disliked; and the murmurs became loud when it appeared that the King was not likely to have any legitimate posterity. Dunkirk, won by Oliver from Spain, was sold to Lewis the Fourteenth, King of France. This bargain excited general indignation. Englishmen were already beginning to observe with uneasiness the progress of the French power, and to regard the House of Bourbon with the same feeling with which their grandfathers had regarded the House of Austria. Was it wise, men asked, at such a time, to make any addition to the strength of a monarchy already too formidable? Dunkirk was, moreover, prized by the people, not merely as a place of arms, and as a key to the Low Countries, but also as a trophy of English valour. It was to the subjects The public discontent was heightened, when it was found that, while Dunkirk was abandoned on the plea of economy, the fortress of Tangier, which was part of the dower of Queen Catharine, was repaired and kept up at an enormous charge. That place was associated with no recollections gratifying to the national pride: it could in no way promote the national interests: it involved us in inglorious, unprofitable, and interminable wars with tribes of half savage Mussulmans; and it was situated in a climate singularly unfavourable to the health and vigour of the English race. But the murmurs excited by these errors were faint, when com- war with pared with the clamours which the Dutch. soon broke forth. The government engaged in war with the United Provinces. The House of Commons readily voted sums unexampled in our history, sums exceeding those which had supported the fleets and armies of Cromwell at the time when his power was the terror of all the world. But such was the extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those who had succeeded to his authority, that this liberality proved worse than useless. The sycophants of the court, ill qualified to contend against the great men who then directed the arms of Holland, against such a statesman as De Witt, and such a commander as De Ruyter, made fortunes rapidly, while the sailors mutinied from very hunger, while the dockyards were unguarded, while the ships were leaky tion in the and without rigging. It was at length | administration was heightened by determined to abandon all schemes of calamities which the best administration offensive war; and it soon appeared could not have averted. While the that even a defensive war was a task ignominious war with Holland was too hard for that administration. The raging, London suffered two great Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames, and disasters, such as never, in so short a burned the ships of war which lay at space of time, befell one city. A Chatham. It was said that, on the pestilence, surpassing in horror any very day of that great humiliation, the that during three centuries had visited King feasted with the ladies of his the island, swept away, in six months, seraglio, and amused himself with more than a hundred thousand human hunting a moth about the supper room. beings. And scarcely had the dead Then, at length, tardy justice was done cart ceased to go its rounds, when a to the memory of Oliver. Everywhere fire, such as had not been known in men magnified his valour, genius, and Europe since the conflagration of Rome patriotism. Everywhere it was remem- under Nero, laid in ruins the whole bered how, when he ruled, all foreign city, from the Tower to the Temple, powers had trembled at the name of and from the river to the purlieus of England, how the States General, now Smithfield. so haughty, had crouched at his feet, Had there been a general election and how, when it was known that he while the nation was smart- Opposi was no more, Amsterdam was lighted ing under so many disgraces House of up as for a great deliverance, and chil- and misfortunes, it is Commons. prodren ran along the canals, shouting for bable that the Roundheads would have joy that the Devil was dead. Even regained ascendency in the state. But Royalists exclaimed that the state the Parliament was still the Cavalier could be saved only by calling the old Parliament, chosen in the transport of soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. loyalty which had followed the RestoSoon the capital began to feel the ration. Nevertheless it soon became miseries of a blockade. Fuel was evident that no English legislature, scarcely to be procured. Tilbury Fort, however loyal, would now consent to the place where Elizabeth had, with be merely what the legislature had manly spirit, hurled foul scorn at been under the Tudors. From the Parma and Spain, was insulted by the death of Elizabeth to the eve of the invaders. The roar of foreign guns civil war, the Puritans, who predomiwas heard, for the first and last time, nated in the representative body, had by the citizens of London. In the been constantly, by a dexterous use of Council it was seriously proposed that, the power of the purse, encroaching on if the enemy advanced, the Tower the province of the executive governshould be abandoned. Great multi-ment. The gentlemen who, after the tudes of people assembled in the streets Restoration, filled the Lower House, crying out that England was bought though they abhorred the Puritan and sold. The houses and carriages of the ministers were attacked by the populace; and it seemed likely that the government would have to deal at once with an invasion and with an insurrection. The extreme danger, it is true, soon passed by. A treaty was concluded, very different from the treaties which Ŏliver had been in the habit of signing; and the nation was once more at peace, but was in a mood scarcely less fierce and sullen than in the days of shipmoney. name, were well pleased to inherit the fruit of the Puritan policy. They were indeed most willing to employ the power which they possessed in the state for the purpose of making their King mighty and honoured, both at home and abroad: but with the power itself they were resolved not to part. The great English revolution of the seventeenth century, that is to say, the transfer of the supreme control of the executive administration from the crown to the House of Commons, was, The discontent engendered by mal-through the whole long existence of Fall of Claren don. this Parliament, proceeding noiselessly, | filled with masterpieces of Vandyke but rapidly and steadily. Charles, which had once been the property of kept poor by his follies and vices, ruined Cavaliers, his palace, which wanted money. The Commons alone | reared its long and stately front right could legally grant him money. They opposite to the humbler residence of could not be prevented from putting our Kings, drew on him much deserved, their own price on their grants. The and some undeserved, censure. When price which they put on their grants the Dutch fleet was in the Thames, it was this, that they should be allowed was against the Chancellor that the to interfere with every one of the rage of the populace was chiefly King's prerogatives, to wring from him directed. His windows were broken; his consent to laws which he disliked, the trees of his garden were cut down; to break up cabinets, to dictate the and a gibbet was set up before his door. course of foreign policy, and even to But nowhere was he more detested direct the administration of war. To than in the House of Commons. He the royal office, and the royal person, was unable to perceive that the time they loudly and sincerely professed the was fast approaching when that House, strongest attachment. But to Claren- if it continued to exist at all, must be don they owed no allegiance; and they supreme in the state, when the managefell on him as furiously as their prede- ment of that House would be the most cessors had fallen on Strafford. important department of politics, and The minister's virtues and when, without the help of men possessvices alike contributed to his ing the ear of that House, it would be ruin. He was the ostensible head of impossible to carry on the government. the administration, and was therefore He obstinately persisted in considering held responsible even for those acts the Parliament as a body in no respect which he had strongly, but vainly, differing from the Parliament which opposed in Council. He was regarded had been sitting when, forty years beby the Puritans, and by all who pitied fore, he first began to study law at the them, as an implacable bigot, a second Temple. He did not wish to deprive Laud, with much more than Laud's the legislature of those powers which understanding. He had on all occa- were inherent in it by the old constisions maintained that the Act of In- tution of the realm: but the new demnity ought to be strictly observed; development of those powers, though a and this part of his conduct, though development natural, inevitable, and highly honourable to him, made him to be prevented only by utterly hateful to all those Royalists who destroying the powers themselves, diswished to repair their ruined fortunes gusted and alarmed him. Nothing by suing the Roundheads for damages would have induced him to put the and mesne profits. The Presbyterians great seal to a writ for raising shipof Scotland attributed to him the money, or to give his voice in Council downfall of their Church. The Papists for committing a member of Parliament of Ireland attributed to him the loss of to the Tower, on account of words their lands. As father of the Duchess spoken in debate: but, when the Comof York, he had an obvious motive mons began to inquire in what manner for wishing that there might be a the money voted for the war had been barren Queen; and he was therefore wasted, and to examine into the malsuspected of having purposely recom-administration of the navy, he flamed mended one. The sale of Dunkirk was with indignation. Such inquiry, acjustly imputed to him. For the war cording to him, was out of their prowith Holland, he was, with less justice, vince. He admitted that the House held accountable. His hot temper, his was a most loyal assembly, that it had arrogant deportment, the indelicate done good service to the crown, and eagerness with which he grasped at that its intentions were excellent. But, riches, the ostentation with which he both in public and in the closet, he, on squandered them, his picture gallery, every occasion, expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely attached to | of showing his scorn of the mimics, monarchy should unadvisedly encroach revellers, and courtesans who crowded on the prerogative of the monarch. the palace; and the admonitions which Widely as they differed in spirit from he addressed to the King himself were the members of the Long Parliament, very sharp, and, what Charles disliked they yet, he said, imitated that Parlia- still more, very long. Scarcely any ment in meddling with matters which voice was raised in favour of a minister lay beyond the sphere of the Estates loaded with the double odium of faults of the realm, and which were subject which roused the fury of the people, to the authority of the crown alone. and of virtues which annoyed and imThe country, he maintained, would portuned the sovereign. Southampton never be well governed till the knights was no more. Ormond performed the of shires and the burgesses were con- duties of friendship manfully and faithtent to be what their predecessors had fully, but in vain. The Chancellor fell been in the days of Elizabeth. All the with a great ruin. The seal was taken plans which men more observant than from him: the Commons impeached himself of the signs of that time pro- him: his head was not safe: he fled posed, for the purpose of maintaining a from the country: an act was passed good understanding between the Court which doomed him to perpetual exile; and the Commons, he disdainfully re- and those who had assailed and underjected as crude projects, inconsistent mined him began to struggle for the with the old polity of England. To- fragments of his power. wards the young orators, who were rising to distinction and authority in the Lower House, his deportment was ungracious: and he succeeded in making them, with scarcely an exception, his deadly enemies. Indeed one of his most serious faults was an inordinate contempt for youth: and this contempt was the more unjustifiable, because his own experience in English politics was by no means proportioned to his age. For so great a part of his life had been passed abroad that he knew less of that world in which he found himself on his return than many who might have been his sons. For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons. For very different reasons he was equally disliked by the Court. His morals as well as his politics were those of an earlier generation. Even when he was a young law student, living much with men of wit and pleasure, his natural gravity and his religious principles had to a great extent preserved him from the contagion of fashionable debauchery; and he was by no means likely, in advanced years and in declining health, to turn libertine. On the vices of the young and gay he looked with an aversion almost as bitter and contemptuous as that which he felt for the theological errors of the sectaries. He missed no opportunity The sacrifice of Clarendon in some degree took off the edge of the public appetite for revenge. Yet was the anger excited by the profusion and negligence of the government, and by the miscarriages of the late war, by no means extinguished. The counsellors of Charles, with the fate of the Chancellor before their eyes, were anxious for their own safety. They accordingly advised their master to sooth the irritation which prevailed both in the Parliament and throughout the country, and for that end, to take a step which has no parallel in the history of the House of Stuart, and which was worthy of the prudence and magnanimity of Oliver. politics, dency of We have now reached a point at which the history of the great State of English revolution begins to be European complicated with the history of and ascen foreign politics. The power of France. Spain had, during many years, been declining. She still, it is true, held in Europe the Milanese and the two Sicilies, Belgium, and Franche Comté In America her dominions still spread, on both sides of the equator, far beyond the limits of the torrid zone. But this great body had been smitten with palsy, and was not only incapable of giving molestation to other states, but could not, without assistance, repel aggression. |