Belloc-Lingard - The History of England - CHAPTER IV. : THE COMMONWEALTH.
Vigilance Of The Government--Subjugation Of Ireland--Of
Scotland--Negotiation With Portugal--With Spain--With The
United Provinces--Naval War--Ambition Of Cromwell--Expulsion Of
Parliament--Character Of Its Leading Members--Some Of Its Enactments.
In the preceding chapter we have followed the fortunes of Charles Stuart,
from his landing in Scotland to his defeat at Worcester and his escape to
the continent; we may now look back and direct our attention to some of the
more important events which occurred during the same period, in England and
Ireland.
1. The reader is aware that the form of government established in England
was an oligarchy. A few individuals, under the cover of a nominal
parliament, ruled the kingdom with the power of the sword. Could the sense
of the nation have been collected, there cannot be a doubt that the old
royalists of the Cavalier, and the new royalists of the Presbyterian party,
would have formed a decided majority; but they were awed into silence and
submission by the presence of a standing army of forty-five thousand men;
and the maxim that "power gives right" was held out as a sufficient reason
why they should swear fidelity to the commonwealth.[1] This numerous army,
[Footnote 1: See Marchamont Nedham's "Case of the Commonwealth Stated."
4to. London, 1650.]
the real source of their security, proved, however, a cause of constant
solicitude to the leaders. The pay of the officers and men was always in
arrear; the debentures which they received could be seldom exchanged for
money without a loss of fifty, sixty, or seventy per cent.; and the plea of
necessity was accepted as an excuse for the illegal claim of free quarters
which they frequently exercised. To supply their wants, recourse was
therefore had to additional taxation, with occasional grants from the
excise, and large sales of forfeited property;[1] and, to appease
the discontent of the people, promises were repeatedly made, that a
considerable portion of the armed force should be disbanded, and the
practice of free quarter be abolished. But of these promises, the first
proved a mere delusion; for, though some partial reductions were made, on
the whole the amount of the army continued to increase; the second was
fulfilled; but in return, the burthen of taxation was augmented; for the
monthly assessment on the counties gradually swelled from sixty to ninety,
to one hundred and twenty, and in conclusion, to one hundred and sixty
thousand pounds.[2]
Another subject of disquietude sprung out of those principles of liberty
which, even after the suppression of the late mutiny, were secretly
cherished and occasionally avowed, by the soldiery. Many, indeed, confided
in the patriotism, and submitted to the judgment, of their officers; but
there were also many who condemned the existing government as a desertion
of the
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 18, Oct. 4; 1650, March 30; 1651, Sept.
2, Dec. 17; 1652, April 7.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1649, April 7, Aug. 1, Dec. 7; 1650, May 21, Nov.
26; 1651, April 15, Sept. 1, Dec. 19; 1652, Dec. 10; 1653, Nov. 24.]
good cause in which they had originally embarked. By the latter Lilburne
was revered as an apostle and a martyr; they read with avidity the
publications which repeatedly issued from his cell; and they condemned as
persecutors and tyrants the men who had immured him and his companions in
the Tower. Preparations had been made[a] to bring them to trial as the
authors of the late mutiny; but, on more mature deliberation, the project
was abandoned,[b] and an act was passed making it treason to assert that
the government was tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful. No enactments,
however, could check the hostility of Lilburne; and a new pamphlet from his
pen,[c] in vindication of "The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People,"
put to the test the resolution of his opponents. They shrunk from the
struggle; it was judged more prudent to forgive, or more dignified to
despise, his efforts; and, on his petition for leave to visit his sick
family, he obtained his discharge.[1]
But this lenity made no impression on his mind. In the course of six weeks
he published[d] two more offensive tracts, and distributed them among
the soldiery. A new mutiny broke out at Oxford; its speedy suppression
emboldened the council; the demagogue was reconducted[e] to his cell in the
Tower; and Keble, with forty other commissioners, was appointed[f] to
try him for his last offence on the recent statute of treasons. It may,
perhaps, be deemed a weakness in Lilburne that he now offered[g] on certain
conditions to transport himself to America; but he redeemed his character,
as soon as he was placed at the bar. He repelled with scorn the charges of
the
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 11, May 12, July 18. Council Book May 2.
Whitelock, 414.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. April 11.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. May 12.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. June 8.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. July 18.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. Sept. 6.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1649. Sept. 14.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1649. Oct. 24.]
prosecutors and the taunts of the court, electrified the audience by
frequent appeals to Magna Charta and the liberties of Englishmen, and
stoutly maintained the doctrine that the jury had a right to judge of the
law as well as of the fact. It was in vain that the court pronounced this
opinion "the most damnable heresy ever broached in the land," and that the
government employed all its influence to win or intimidate the jurors;
after a trial of three days, Lilburne, obtained a verdict of acquittal.[1]
Whether after his liberation[a] any secret compromise took place is
uncertain. He subscribed the engagement, and, though he openly explained it
in a sense conformable to his own principles, yet the parliament made to
him out of the forfeited lands of the deans and chapters the grant[b] of
a valuable estate, as a compensation for the cruel treatment which he had
formerly suffered from the court of the Star-Chamber.[2] Their bounty,
however, wrought no change in his character. He was still the indomitable
denouncer of oppression wherever he found it, and before the end of the
next year he drew upon himself the vengeance of the men in power, by the
distribution[c] of a pamphlet which charged Sir Arthur Hazlerig and the
commissioners at Haberdashers'-hall with injustice and tyranny. This by the
house was voted a breach of privilege, and the offender was condemned[d]
in a fine of seven thousand pounds with banishment for life. Probably the
court of Star-chamber never pronounced a judgment in which the punishment
was more disproportionate to the offence. But his former enemies sought
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, Sept 11, Oct. 30. Whitelock, 424, 425. State
Trials, ii. 151.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 436. Journ. 1650, July 16, 30.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Dec. 29.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. July 30.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Dec. 22.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. Jan. 15.]
not justice on the culprit, but security to themselves. They seized the
opportunity of freeing the government from the presence of a man whom they
had so long feared; and, as he refused to kneel at the bar while judgment
was pronounced, they embodied the vote in an act of parliament. To save his
life, Lilburne submitted; but his residence on the continent was short: the
reader will soon meet with him again in England.[1]
The Levellers had boldly avowed their object; the royalists worked in the
dark and by stealth; yet the council by its vigilance and promptitude
proved a match for the open hostility of the one and the secret
machinations of the other. A doubt may, indeed, be raised of the policy of
the "engagement," a promise of fidelity to the commonwealth without king or
house of lords. As long as it was confined to those who held office under
the government, it remained a mere question of choice; but when it was
exacted from all Englishmen above seventeen years of age, under the penalty
of incapacity to maintain an action in any court of law, it became to
numbers a matter of necessity, and served rather to irritate than
to produce security.[2] A more efficient measure was the permanent
establishment of a high court of justice to inquire into offences against
the state, to which was added the organization of a system of espionage by
Captain Bishop, under the direction of Scot, a member of the council. The
friends of monarchy, encouraged by the clamour of the Levellers and the
professions of the Scots, had begun to hold meetings,
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1651, Dec. 23; 1652, Jan. 15, 20, 30. Whitelock,
520. State Trials, v. 407-415.]
[Footnote 2: Leicester's Journal, 97-101.]
sometimes under the pretence of religious worship, sometimes under that of
country amusements: in a short time they divided the kingdom into districts
called associations, in each of which it was supposed that a certain
number of armed men might be raised; and blank commissions with the royal
signature were obtained, to be used in appointing colonels, captains, and
lieutenants, for the command of these forces. Then followed an active
correspondence both with Charles soon after his arrival in Scotland, and
with the earl of Newcastle, the Lord Hopton, and a council of exiles; first
at Utrecht, and afterwards at the Hague. By the plan ultimately adopted, it
was proposed that Charles himself or Massey, leaving a sufficient force
to occupy the English army in Scotland, should, with a strong corps of
Cavalry, cross[a] the borders between the kingdoms; that at the same time
the royalists in the several associations should rise in arms, and that
the exiles in Holland, with five thousand English and German adventurers,
should land in Kent, surprise Dover, and hasten to join their Presbyterian
associates, in the capital.[1] But, to arrange and insure the co-operation
of all the parties concerned required the employment of numerous agents, of
whom, if several were actuated by principle, many were of doubtful faith
and desperate fortunes. Some of these betrayed their trust; some undertook
to serve both parties, and deceived each; and it is a curious fact that,
while the letters of the agents for the royalists often passed through the
hands of Bishop himself, his secret papers belonging to the council of
state were copied and forwarded to the king.[2] This consequence however
followed,
[Footnote 1: Milton's State Papers, 35, 37, 39, 47, 49, 50. Baillie, ii. 5,
8. Carte's Letters, i. 414.]
[Footnote 2: State Trials, v. 4. Milton's State Papers, 39, 47, 50, 57. One
of these agents employed by both parties was a Mrs. Walters, alias Hamlin,
on whose services Bishop placed great reliance. She was to introduce
herself to Cromwell by pronouncing the word "prosperity."--Ibid.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. December.]
that the plans of the royalists were always discovered, and by that means
defeated by the precautions of the council. While the king was on his
way to Scotland, a number of blank commissions had been seized in the
possession of Dr. Lewen, a civilian, who suffered[a] the penalty of death.
Soon afterwards Sir John Gell, Colonel Eusebius Andrews, and Captain
Benson, were arraigned on the charge of conspiring the destruction of
the government established by law. They opposed three objections to the
jurisdiction of the court: it was contrary to Magna Charta, which gave
to every freeman the right of being tried by his peers; contrary to the
petition of right, by which courts-martial (and the present court was most
certainly a court-martial) had been forbidden; and contrary to the many
declarations of parliament, that the laws, the rights of the people, and
the courts of justice, should be maintained. But the court repelled[b] the
objections; Andrews and Benson suffered death, and Gell, who had not
been an accomplice, but only cognizant of the plot, was condemned[c] to
perpetual imprisonment, with the forfeiture of his property.[1]
These executions did not repress the eagerness of the royalists, nor relax
the vigilance of the council. In the beginning of December the friends of
Charles took up arms[d] in Norfolk, but the rising was premature; a body of
roundheads dispersed the insurgents; and twenty of the latter atoned for
their temerity with their lives. Still the failure of one plot did not
prevent
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 464, 468, 473, 474. Heath, 269, 270. See mention of
several discoveries in Carte's Letters, i. 443, 464, 472.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. July 13.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. August 22.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. Oct. 7.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Dec. 2.]
the formation of another; as long as Charles Stuart was in Scotland, the
ancient friends of his family secretly prepared for his reception in
England; and many of the Presbyterians, through enmity to the principles
of the Independents, devoted themselves to the interests of the prince.[1]
This party the council resolved to attack in their chief bulwark, the city;
and Love, one of the most celebrated of the ministers, was apprehended[a]
with several of his associates. At his trial, he sought to save his life by
an evasive protestation, which he uttered with the most imposing solemnity
in the presence of the Almighty. But it was clearly proved against him
that the meetings had been held in his house, the money collected for the
royalists had been placed on his table, and the letters received, and the
answers to be returned, had been read in his hearing. After judgment,[b]
both he and his friends presented[c] petitions in his favour; respite after
respite was obtained and the parliament, as if it had feared to decide
without instructions, referred[d] the case to Cromwell in Scotland. That
general was instantly assailed with letters from both the friends and the
foes of Love; he was silent; a longer time was granted by the house; but
he returned no answer, and the unfortunate minister lost his head[e] on
Tower-hill with the constancy and serenity of a martyr. Of his associates,
only one, Gibbons, a citizen, shared his fate.[2]
[Footnote 1: "It is plaine unto mee that they doe not judge us a lawfull
magistracy, nor esteeme anything treason that is acted by them to destroy
us, in order to bring the king of Scots as heed of the covenant."--Vane to
Cromwell, of "Love and his brethren." Milton's State Papers, 84.]
[Footnote 2: Milton's State Papers, 50, 54, 66, 75, 76. Whitelock, 492,
493, 495, 500. State Trials, v. 43-294. Heath, 288, 290. Leicester's
Journal, 107, 115, 123. A report, probably unfounded, was spread that
Cromwell granted him his life, but the despatch was waylaid, and detained,
or destroyed by the Cavaliers, who bore in remembrance Love's former
hostility to the royal cause.--Kennet, 185.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. May 7.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. June 5.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. June 11.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. July 15.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1651. August 22.]
2. To Charles it had been whispered by his secret advisers that the war
between the parliament and the Scots would, by withdrawing the attention of
the council from Ireland, allow the royal party to resume the ascendancy
in that kingdom. But this hope quickly vanished. The resources of the
commonwealth were seen to multiply with its wants; and its army in Ireland
was daily augmented by recruits in the island, and by reinforcements from
England. Ireton, to whom Cromwell, with the title of lord deputy, had
left[a] the chief command, pursued with little interruption the career of
his victorious predecessor. Sir Charles Coote met the men of Ulster at
Letterkenny; after a long and sanguinary action they were defeated; and the
next day their leader, MacMahon, the warrior bishop of Clogher, was made
prisoner by a fresh corps of troops from Inniskilling.[1] Lady Fitzgerald,
a name as illustrious in the military annals of Ireland as that of Lady
Derby in those of England, defended the fortress of Trecoghan, but neither
the efforts of Sir Robert Talbot within, nor the gallant attempt of Lord
Castlehaven without, could prevent its surrender.[2] Waterford, Carlow, and
Charlemont accepted honourable conditions, and the garrison of Duncannon,
reduced to a handful of men by the ravages of the plague, opened its
gates[b] to the enemy.[3] Ormond, instead of facing
[Footnote 1: Though he had quarter given and life promised, Coote ordered
him to be hanged. Yet it was by MacMahon's persuasion that O'Neil in
the preceding year had saved Coote by raising the siege of
Londonderry.--Clarendon, Short View, &c., in vol. viii. 145-149. But Coote
conducted the war like a savage. See several instances at the end of
Lynch's Cambresis Eversus.]
[Footnote 2: See Castlehaven's Memoirs, 120-124; and Carte's Ormond, ii.
116.]
[Footnote 3: Heath, 267, 370. Whitelock, 457, 459, 463, 464, 469.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. June 18.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. June 25.]
the conquerors in the field, had been engaged in a long and irritating
controversy with those of the Catholic leaders who distrusted his
integrity, and with the townsmen of Limerick and Galway, who refused to
admit his troops within their walls. Misfortune had put an end to his
authority; his enemies remarked that whether he were a real friend or a
secret foe, the cause of the confederates had never prospered under his
guidance; and the bishops conjured him,[a] now that the very existence of
the nation was at stake, to adopt measures which might heal the public
dissensions and unite all true Irishmen in the common defence. Since
the loss of Munster by the defection of Inchiquin's forces, they had
entertained an incurable distrust of their English allies; and to appease
their jealousy, he dismissed the few Englishmen who yet remained in the
service. Finding them rise in their demands, he called a general assembly
at Loughrea, announced his intention, or pretended intention, of quitting
the kingdom; and then, at the general request, and after some demur,
consented to remain. Hitherto the Irish had cherished the expectation that
the young monarch would, as he had repeatedly promised, come to Ireland,
and take the reins of government into his hands; they now, to their
disappointment, learned that he had accepted the invitation of the Scots,
their sworn and inveterate enemies. In a short time, the conditions to
which he had subscribed began to transpire; that he had engaged to annul
the late pacification between Ormond and the Catholics, and had bound
himself by oath,[b] not only not to permit the exercise of the Catholic
worship, but to root out the Catholic religion wherever it existed in any
of his dominions. A general gloom and despondency prevailed; ten bishops
and
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. March 28.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 6.]
ten clergymen assembled at James-town, and their first resolve was to
depute[a] two of their number to the lord lieutenant, to request that he
would put in execution his former design of quitting the kingdom, and
would leave his authority in the hands of a Catholic deputy possessing the
confidence of the nation. Without, however, waiting for his answer, they
proceeded to frame[b] a declaration, in which they charged Ormond with
negligence, incapacity, and perfidy; protested that, though they were
compelled by the great duty of self-preservation to withdraw from the
government of the king's lieutenant, they had no intention to derogate from
the royal authority; and pronounced that, in the existing circumstances,
the Irish people were no longer bound by the articles of the pacification,
but by the oath under which they had formerly associated for their
common protection. To this, the next day[c] they appended a form of
excommunication equally affecting all persons who should abet either
Ormond or Ireton, in opposition to the real interests of the Catholic
confederacy.[1]
The lord lieutenant, however, found that he was supported by some of the
prelates, and by most of the aristocracy. He replied[d] to the synod at
James-town, that nothing short of necessity should induce him to quit
Ireland without the order of the king; and the commissioners of trust
expostulated[e] with the bishops on their imprudence and presumption. But
at this moment arrived copies of the declaration which Charles had been
compelled to publish at Dunfermling, in Scotland. The whole population was
in a ferment. Their suspicions, they exclaimed, were now verified;
[Footnote 1: Ponce, Vindiciae Eversae, 236-257. Clarendon, viii. 151, 154,
156. Hibernia Dominicana, 691. Carte, ii. 118, 120, 123.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 10.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. August 12.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. August 31.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. Sept. 2.]
their fears and predictions accomplished. The king had pronounced them a
race of "bloody rebels;" he had disowned them for his subjects, he had
anulled the articles of pacification, and had declared[a] to the whole
world that he would exterminate their religion. In this excited temper of
mind, the committee appointed by the bishops published both the declaration
and the excommunication. A single night intervened; their passions had
leisure to cool; they repented[b] of their precipitancy; and, by the advice
of the prelates in the town of Galway, they published a third paper,
suspending the effect of the other two.
Ormond's first expedient was to pronounce the Dunfermling declaration a
forgery; for the king from Breda, previously to his voyage to Scotland, had
solemnly assured him that he would never, for any earthly consideration,
violate the pacification. A second message[c] informed him that it was
genuine, but ought to be considered of no force, as far as it concerned
Ireland, because it had been issued without the advice of the Irish privy
council.[1] This communication encouraged
[Footnote 1: Carte's letters, i. 391. Charles's counsellors at Breda had
instilled into him principles which he seems afterwards to have cherished
through life: "that honour and conscience were bugbears, and that the
king ought to govern himself rather by the rules of prudence and
necessity."--Ibid. Nicholas to Ormond, 435. At first Charles agreed to find
some way "how he might with honour and justice break the peace with the
Irish, if a free parliament in Scotland should think it fitting" afterwards
"to break it, but on condition that it should not be published till he had
acquainted Ormond and his friends, secured them, and been instructed how
with honour and justice he might break it in regard of the breach on their
part" (p. 396, 397). Yet a little before he had resolutely declared that no
consideration should induce him to violate the same peace (p. 374, 379).
On his application afterwards for aid to the pope, he excused it, saying,
"fuisse vim manifestam: jam enim statuerant Scoti presbyterani personam
suam parliamento Anglicano tradere, si illam declarationem ab ipsis factam
non approbasset." Ex originali penes me.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Sept. 15.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Sept. 16.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Oct. 15.]
the lord lieutenant to assume a bolder tone. He professed[a] himself
ready to assert, that both the king and his officers on one part, and the
Catholic population on the other, were bound by the provisions of the
treaty; but he previously required that the commissioners of trust should
condemn the proceedings of the synod at James-town, and join with him in
punishing such of its members as should persist in their disobedience. They
made proposals[b] to the prelates, and received for answer, that protection
and obedience were correlative; and, therefore, since the king had
publicly excluded them, under the designation of "bloody rebels," from
his protection, they could not understand how any officer acting by his
authority could lay claim to their obedience.[1]
This answer convinced Ormond that it was time for him to leave Ireland;
but, before his departure, he called a general assembly, and selected the
marquess of Clanricard, a Catholic nobleman, to command as his deputy.
To Clanricard, whose health was infirm, and whose habits were domestic,
nothing could be more unwelcome than such an appointment. Wherever he cast
his eyes he was appalled by the prospect before him. He saw three-fourths
of Ireland in the possession of a restless and victorious enemy; Connaught
and Clare, which alone remained to the royalists, were depopulated by
famine and pestilence; and political and religious dissension divided
the leaders and their followers, while one party attributed the national
disasters to the temerity of the men who presumed to govern under the curse
of excommunication; and the other charged their opponents with concealing
disloyal and interested views under the mantle of patriotism
[Footnote 1: Ponce, 257-261.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Oct. 23.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Oct. 29.]
and religion. Every prospect of successful resistance was gone; the
Shannon, their present protection from the foe, would become fordable
in the spring; and then the last asylum of Irish independence must be
overrun.[1] Under such discouraging circumstances it required all the
authority of Ormond and Castlehaven to induce him to accept an office which
opened no prospect of emolument or glory, but promised a plentiful harvest
of contradiction, hardship, and danger.
In the assembly which was held[a] at Loughrea, the majority of the members
disapproved of the conduct of the synod, but sought rather to heal by
conciliation than to perpetuate dissension. Ormond, having written[b] a
vindication of his conduct, and received[c] an answer consoling, if not
perfectly satisfactory to his feelings, sailed from Galway; but Clanricard
obstinately refused to enter on the exercise of his office, till reparation
had been made to the royal authority for the insult offered to it by the
James-town declaration. He required an acknowledgment, that it was not in
the power of any body of men to discharge the people from their obedience
to the lord deputy, as long as the royal authority was vested in him;
and at length obtained[d] a declaration to that effect, but with a
protestation, that by it "the confederates did not waive their right to the
faithful observance of the articles of pacification, nor bind themselves to
obey every chief governor who might be unduly nominated by the king, during
his unfree condition among the Scots."[2]
Aware of the benefit which the royalists in Scotland
[Footnote 1: See Clanricard's State of the Nation, in his Memoirs, part ii.
p. 24.]
[Footnote 2: Carte, ii. 137-140. Walsh, App. 75-137. Belling in Poncium,
26.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Nov. 25.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 2.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Dec. 7.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Dec. 24.]
derived from the duration of hostilities in Ireland, the parliamentary
leaders sought to put an end to the protracted and sanguinary struggle.
Scarcely had Clanricard assumed[a] the government, when Grace and Bryan,
two Catholic officers, presented themselves to the assembly with a message
from Axtel, the governor of Kilkenny, the bearers of a proposal for a
treaty of submission. By many the overture was hailed with transport. They
maintained that nothing but a general negotiation could put an end to those
private treaties which daily thinned their numbers, and exposed the more
resolute to inevitable ruin; that the conditions held out were better than
they had reason to expect now, infinitely better than they could expect
hereafter. Let them put the sincerity of their enemies to the test. If
the treaty should succeed, the nation would be saved; if it did not, the
failure would unite all true Irishmen in the common cause, who, if they
must fall, would not fall unrevenged. There was much force in this
reasoning; and it was strengthened by the testimony of officers from
several quarters, who represented that, to negotiate with the parliament
was the only expedient for the preservation of the people. But Clanricard
treated the proposal with contempt. To entertain it was an insult to him,
an act of treason against the king; and he was seconded by the eloquence
and authority of Castlehaven, who affected to despise the power of the
enemy, and attributed his success to their own divisions. Had the assembly
known the motives which really actuated these noblemen; that they had been
secretly instructed by Charles to continue the contest at every risk, as
the best means of enabling him to make head against Cromwell; that this,
probably the last opportunity of saving the lives
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Jan. 10.]
and properties of the confederates, was to be sacrificed to the mere chance
of gaining a victory for the Scots, their bitter and implacable enemies,[1]
many of the calamities which Ireland was yet doomed to suffer would,
perhaps, have been averted. But the majority allowed themselves to be
persuaded; the motion to negotiate with the parliament was rejected, and
the penalties of treason were denounced by the assembly, the sentence of
excommunication by the bishops, against all who should conclude any private
treaty with the enemy. Limerick and Galway, the two bulwarks of the
confederacy, disapproved of this vote, and obstinately refused to admit
garrisons within their walls, that they might not be overawed by the
military, but remain arbiters of their own fate.
The lord deputy was no sooner relieved from this difficulty, than he found
himself entangled in a negotiation of unusual delicacy and perplexity.
About the close of the last summer, Ormond had despatched the Lord Taafe
to Brussels, with instructions, both in his own name and the name of the
supreme council,[2] to solicit the aid of the duke of Lorrain, a prince of
the most restless and intriguing disposition, who was accustomed to sell at
a high price the services of his army to the neighbouring powers. The duke
received him graciously, made him a present of five thousand pounds, and
promised an additional aid of men and money, but on condition that he
should be declared protector royal of Ireland, with all the rights
belonging to that office--rights as undefined as the office itself was
hitherto unknown. Taafe hesitated, but was
[Footnote 1: Castlehaven's Memoirs, 116, 119, 120.]
[Footnote 2: Compare the papers in the second part of Clanricard's Memoirs,
17, 18, 27 (folio, London, 1757), with Carte's Ormond, ii. 143.]
encouraged to proceed by the queen mother, the duke of York, and De Vic,
the king's resident at Brussels. They argued[a] that, without aid to the
Irish, the king must succumb in Scotland; that the duke of Lorrain was the
only prince in Europe that could afford them succour; and that whatever
might be his secret projects, they could never be so prejudicial to the
royal interests as the subjugation of Ireland by the parliament.[1] Taafe,
however, took a middle way, and persuaded[b] the duke to send De Henin as
his envoy to the supreme council, with powers to conclude the treaty in
Ireland.
The assembly had just been dismissed[c] when this envoy arrived. By the
people, the clergy, and the nobility, he was received as an angel sent from
heaven. The supply of arms and ammunition which he brought, joined to his
promise of more efficient succour in a short time, roused them from their
despondency, and encouraged them to indulge the hope of making a stand
against the pressure of the enemy. Clanricard, left without instructions,
knew not how to act. He dared not refuse the aid so highly prized by the
[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 4, 5, 17, 27. Ormond was also of the same opinion.
He writes to Taafe that "nothing was done that were to be wished 'undone'";
that the supreme council were the best judges of their own condition; that
they had received permission from the king, for their own preservation,
"even to receive conditions from the enemy, which must be much more
contrary to his interests, than to receive helps from any other to resist
them, almost upon any terms."--Clanric. 33, 34. There is in the collection
of letters by Carte, one from Ormond to Clanricard written after the battle
of Worcester, in which that nobleman says that it will be without
scruple his advice, that "fitting ministers be sent to the pope, and apt
inducements proposed to him for his interposition, not only with all
princes and states". The rest of the letter is lost, or Carte did not
choose to publish it; but it is plain from the first part that he thought
the only chance for the restoration of the royal authority was in the aid
to be obtained from the pope and the Catholic powers.--Carte's Letters, i.
461.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. November.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 31.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Feb. 25.]
people; he dared not accede to demands so prejudicial to the king's
authority. But if the title of protector royal sounded ungratefully in his
ears, it was heard with very different feelings by the confederates, who
had reason to conclude that, if the contest between Cromwell and the Scots
should terminate in favour of the latter, the Irish Catholics would still
have need of a protector to preserve their religion from the exterminating
fanaticism of the kirk. Clanricard, was, however, inexorable, and his
resolution finally triumphed over the eagerness of his countrymen and the
obstinacy of the envoy. From the latter he obtained[a] an additional sum of
fifteen thousand pounds, on the easy condition of naming agents to conduct
the negotiation at Brussels, according to such instructions as they should
receive from the queen dowager, the duke of York, and the duke of Ormond.
The lord deputy rejoiced that he had shifted the burthen from his
shoulders. De Henin was satisfied, because he knew the secret sentiments of
those to whose judgment the point in question had been referred.[1]
Taafe, having received his instructions in Paris (but verbal, not written
instructions, as Clanricard had required), joined[b] his colleagues, Sir
Nicholas Plunket, and Geoffrey Brown, in Brussels, and, after a long but
ineffectual struggle, subscribed to the demands of the duke of Lorrain.[2]
That prince, by the treaty, engaged[c] to furnish for the protection of
Ireland, all such supplies of arms, money, ammunition, shipping, and
provisions, as the necessity of the case might require; and in return the
agents, in the name of the
[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 1-16.]
[Footnote 2: Id. 31, 58. It is certain from Clanricard's papers that the
treaty was not concluded till after the return of Taafe from Paris (p.
58).]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. March 27.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. July 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. July 27.]
people and kingdom of Ireland, conferred on him, his heirs and successors,
the title of protector royal, together with the chief civil authority and
the command of the forces, but under the obligation of restoring both, on
the payment of his expenses, to Charles Stuart, the rightful sovereign.[1]
There cannot be a doubt that each party sought to overreach the other.
Clanricard was surprised that he heard nothing from his agents, nothing
from the queen or the duke of Ormond. After a silence of several months, a
copy of the treaty[a] arrived. He read it with indignation; he asserted[b]
that the envoys had transgressed their instructions; he threatened to
declare them traitors by proclamation. But Charles had now arrived in Paris
after the defeat at Worcester, and was made acquainted[c] with the whole
intrigue. He praised the loyalty of the deputy, but sought to mitigate his
displeasure against the three agents, exhorted him to receive them again
into his confidence, and advised him to employ their services, as if the
treaty had never existed. To the duke of Lorrain he despatched[d] the
earl of Norwich, to object to the articles which bore most on the royal
authority, and to re-commence the negotiation.[2] But the unsuccessful
termination of the Scottish war taught that prince to look upon the project
as hopeless; while he hesitated, the court of Brussels obtained proofs that
he was intriguing with the French minister; and, to the surprise of Europe,
he was suddenly arrested in Brussels, and conducted a prisoner to Toledo in
Spain.[3]
Clanricard, hostile as he was to the pretensions of the duke of Lorrain,
had availed himself of the money
[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 34.]
[Footnote 2: Id. 36-41, 47, 50-54, 58. Also Ponce, 111-124.]
[Footnote 3: Thurloe, ii. 90, 115, 127, 136, 611.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 12.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 20.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. Feb. 10.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. March 23.]
received from that prince to organize a new force, and oppose every
obstacle in his power to the progress of the enemy. Ireton, who anticipated
nothing less than the entire reduction of the island, opened[a] the
campaign with the siege of Limerick. The conditions which he offered were
refused by the inhabitants, and, at their request, Hugh O'Neil, with three
thousand men, undertook the defence of the city, but with an understanding
that the keys of the gates and the government of the place should remain in
the possession of the mayor. Both parties displayed a valour and obstinacy
worthy of the prize for which they fought. Though Lord Broghill defeated
Lord Muskerry, the Catholic commander in Munster; though Coote, in defiance
of Clanricard, penetrated from the northern extremity of Connaught, as far
as Athenree and Portumna; though Ireton, after several fruitless attempts,
deceived the vigilance of Castlehaven, and established himself on the
right bank of the Shannon; and though a party within the walls laboured
to represent their parliamentary enemies as the advocates of universal
toleration; nothing could shake the constancy of the citizens and the
garrison. They harassed the besiegers by repeated sorties; they repelled
every assault; and on one occasion[b] they destroyed the whole corps, which
had been landed on "the island." Even after the fatal battle of Worcester,
to a second summons they returned a spirited refusal. But in October a
reinforcement of three thousand men from England arrived in the camp; a
battery was formed of the heavy cannon landed from the shipping in the
harbour; and a wide breach in the wall admonished the inhabitants to
prepare for an assault. In this moment of suspense, with the dreadful
example of Drogheda and
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. June 11.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. July 15.]
Wexford before their eyes, they met at the town-hall. It was in vain that
O'Neil remonstrated; that the bishops of Limerick and Emly entreated and
threatened, Stretch, the mayor, gave[a] the keys to Colonel Fanning, who
seized St. John's gate, turned the cannon on the city, and admitted two
hundred of the besiegers. A treaty was now[b] concluded; and, if the
garrison and inhabitants preserved their lives and property, it was by
abandoning twenty-two individuals to the mercy of the conqueror. Of
these some made their escape; Terence O'Brien, bishop of Emly, Wallis,
a Franciscan friar, Major-General Purcell, Sir Godfrey Galway, Baron,
a member of the council, Stretch, the mayor of the city, with Fanning
himself, and Higgin, were immolated as an atonement for the obstinate
resistance of the besiegers.[1] By Ireton O'Neil was also doomed to die,
but the officers who formed the court, in admiration of his gallantry,
sought to save his life. Twice they condemned him in obedience to the
commander-in-chief, who pronounced his spirited defence of Clonmel an
unpardonable crime against the state; but the third time the deputy was
persuaded to leave them to the exercise of their own judgment; and they
pronounced in favour of their brave but unfortunate captive. Ireton himself
did not long survive. When he condemned[c] the bishop of Emly to die, that
prelate had exclaimed, "I appeal to the tribunal of God, and summon thee
to meet me at that bar." By many these words were deemed prophetic; for in
less than a month the
[Footnote 1: See the account of their execution in pp. 100, 101 of the
Descriptio Regni Hiberniae per Antonium Prodinum, Romae, 1721, a work made
up of extracts from the original work of Bruodin, Propugnaculum Catholicae
Veritatis, Pragae, 1669. The extract referred to in this note is taken from
1. iv. c. xv. of the original work.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 23.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 27.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Nov. 25.]
victorious general fell a victim to the pestilential disease which ravaged
the west of Ireland. His death proved a severe loss to the commonwealth,
not only on account of his abilities as an officer and a statesman, but
because it removed the principal check to the inordinate ambition of
Cromwell.[1]
During the next winter the confederates had leisure to reflect on their
forlorn condition. Charles, indeed, a second time an exile, solicited[a]
them to persevere;[2] but it was difficult to persuade men to hazard their
lives and fortunes without the remotest prospect of benefit to themselves
or to the royal cause; and in the month of March Colonel Fitzpatric, a
celebrated chieftain in the county of Meath, laid down[b] his arms, and
obtained in return the possession of his lands. The example alarmed
the confederates; and Clanricard, in their name, proposed[c] a general
capitulation: it was refused by the stern policy of Ludlow, who assumed the
command on the death of Ireton; a succession of surrenders followed; and
O'Dwyer, the town of Galway, Thurlogh O'Neil, and the earl of Westmeath,
accepted the terms dictated by the enemy; which were safety for their
persons and personal property, the restoration of part of their landed
estates, according to the qualifications to be determined by parliament,
and permission to reside within the commonwealth, or to enter with a
certain number of followers into the service of any foreign prince in amity
with England. The benefit of these articles did not extend to persons who
had taken
[Footnote 1: Ludlow, i. 293, 296, 298, 299, 300, 307, 310, 316-324. Heath,
304, 305. Ireton's letter, printed by Field, 1651. Carte, ii. 154. The
parliament ordered Ireton's body to be interred at the public expense. It
was conveyed from Ireland to Bristol, and thence to London, lay in state
in Somerset House, and on February 6th was buried in Henry the Seventh's
chapel.--Heath, 305.]
[Footnote 2: Clanricard, 51.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Jan. 31.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. March 7.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. March 24.]
up arms in the first year of the contest, or had belonged to the first
general assembly, or had committed murder, or had taken orders in the
church of Rome. There were, however, several who, in obedience to the
instructions received from Charles, resolved to continue hostilities to the
last extremity. Lord Muskerry collected five thousand men on the borders of
Cork and Kerry, but was obliged to retire before his opponents: his strong
fortress of Ross opened[a] its gates; and, after some hesitation, he made
his submission. In the north, Clanricard reduced Ballyshannon and Donnegal;
but there his career ended; and Coote drove[b] him into the Isle of
Carrick, where he was compelled to accept the usual conditions. The last
chieftain of note who braved[c] the arms of the commonwealth was Colonel
Richard Grace: he beat up the enemy's quarters; but was afterwards driven
across the Shannon with the loss of eight hundred of his followers. Colonel
Sanchey pursued[d] him to his favourite retreat; his castle of Inchlough
surrendered,[e] and Grace capitulated with twelve hundred and fifty men.[1]
There still remained a few straggling parties on the mountains and amidst
the morasses, under MacHugh, and Byrne, and O'Brian, and Cavanagh: these,
however, were subdued in the course of the winter; the Isle of Inisbouffin
received[f] a garrison, and a new force, which appeared in Ulster, under
the Lord Iniskilling, obtained,[g] what was chiefly sought, the usual
articles of transportation. The subjugation of Ireland was completed.[2]
[Footnote 1: On this gallant and honourable officer, who on several
subsequent occasions displayed the most devoted attachment to the house of
Stuart, see a very interesting article in Mr. Sheffield Grace's "Memoirs of
the Family of Grace," p. 27.]
[Footnote 2: Ludlow, i. 341, 344, 347, 352, 354, 357, 359, 360. Heath, 310,
312, 324, 333, 344. Journals, April 8, 21, May 18, 25, Aug. 18.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. July 5.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. May 18.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. July.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. June 20.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1652. Aug. 1.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1652. January.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1652. May 18.]
3. Here, to prevent subsequent interruption, I may be allowed to describe
the state of this unhappy country, while it remained under the sway of the
commonwealth.
On the death of Ireton, Lambert had been appointed lord deputy; but by
means of a female intrigue he was set aside in favour of Fleetwood, who had
married Ireton's widow.[1] To Fleetwood was assigned the command of the
forces without a colleague; but in the civil administration were joined
with him four other commissioners, Ludlow, Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. By
their instructions they were commanded[a] and authorized to observe, as far
as it was possible, the laws of England in the exercise of the government
and the administration of justice; to "endeavour the promulgation of the
gospel, and the power of true religion, and holiness;" to remove all
disaffected or suspected persons from office; to allow no papist or
delinquent to hold any place of trust, to practise as barrister or
solicitor, or to keep school for
[Footnote 1: Journals, Jan. 30, June 15, July 9. Lambert's wife and
Ireton's widow met in the park. The first, as her husband was in
possession, claimed the precedency, and the latter complained of the
grievance to Cromwell, her father, whose patent of lord lieutenant was on
the point of expiring. He refused to have it renewed; and, as there could
be no deputy where there was no principal, Lambert's appointment of deputy
was in consequence revoked. But Mrs. Ireton was not content with this
triumph over her rival. She married Fleetwood, obtained for him, through
her father's interest, the chief command in place of Lambert, and returned
with him to her former station in Ireland. Cromwell, however, paid for
the gratification of his daughter's vanity. That he might not forfeit the
friendship of Lambert, whose aid was necessary for his ulterior designs,
he presented him with a considerable sum to defray the charges of the
preparations which he had made for his intended voyage to Ireland,--Ludlow,
i. 355, 360. Hutchinson, 196. Lambert, however, afterwards discovered that
Cromwell had secretly instigated Vane and Hazlerig to oppose his going to
Ireland, and, in revenge, joined with them to depose Richard Cromwell for
the sin of his father.--Thurloe, vii. 660.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. August 24.]
the education of youth; to impose monthly assessments not exceeding forty
thousand pounds in amount for the payment of the forces, and to imprison or
discharge any person, or remove him from his dwelling into any other place
or country, or permit him to return to his dwelling, as they should see
cause for the advantage of the commonwealth.[1]
I. One of the first cares of the commissioners was to satisfy the claims of
vengeance. In the year 1644 the Catholic nobility had petitioned the
king that an inquiry might be made into the murders alleged to have been
perpetrated on each side in Ireland, and that justice might be executed on
the offenders without distinction of country or religion. To the conquerors
it appeared more expedient to confine the inquiry to one party; and a high
court of justice was established to try Catholics charged with having shed
the blood of any Protestant out of battle since the commencement of the
rebellion in 1641. Donnelan, a native, was appointed president, with
commissary-general Reynolds, and Cook, who had acted as solicitor at the
trial of Charles I., for his assessors. The court sat in great state at
Kilkenny, and thence made its circuit through the island by Waterford,
Cork, Dublin, and other places. Of the justice of its proceedings we have
not the means of forming a satisfactory notion; but the cry for blood was
too violent, the passions of men were too much excited, and the forms of
proceeding too summary to allow the judges to weigh with cool and cautious
discrimination the different cases which came before them. Lords Muskerry
and Clanmaliere, with Maccarthy Reagh, whether they owed it to their
innocence or to the influence of
[Footnote 1: Journals, Aug. 34.]
friends, had the good fortune to be acquitted; the mother of Colonel
Fitzpatric was burnt; Lord Mayo, colonels Tool, Bagnal, and about two
hundred more, suffered death by the axe or by the halter. It was, however,
remarkable, that the greatest deficiency of proof occurred in the province
where the principal massacres were said to have been committed. Of the
men of Ulster, Sir Phelim O'Neil is the only one whose conviction, and
execution, have been recorded.[1]
II. Cromwell had not been long in the island before he discovered that
it was impossible to accomplish the original design of extirpating the
Catholic population; and he therefore adopted the expedient of allowing
their leaders to expatriate themselves with a portion of their countrymen,
by entering into the service of foreign powers. This plan was followed
by his successors in the war, and was perfected by an act of parliament,
banishing all the Catholic officers. Each chieftain, when he surrendered,
stipulated for a certain number of men: every facility was furnished him
to complete his levy; and the exiles hastened to risk their lives in the
service of the Catholic powers who hired them; many in that of Spain,
others of France, others of Austria, and some of the republic of Venice.
Thus the obnoxious population was reduced by the number of thirty, perhaps
forty thousand able-bodied men; but it soon became a question how to
dispose of their wives and families, of the wives and families of those who
had perished by the ravages of disease and the casualties of war, and of
the multitudes who, chased from their homes and employments, were reduced
to a state of titter destitution. These at different times, to the amount
of several
[Footnote 1: Ludlow, ii. 2, 5, 8-11. Heath, 332, 333.]
thousands, were collected in bodies, driven on shipboard, and conveyed to
the West Indies.[1] Yet with all these drains on the one party, and the
continual accession of English and Scottish colonists on the other, the
Catholic was found to exceed the Protestant population in the proportion of
eight to one.[2] Cromwell, when he had reached the zenith of his power, had
recourse to a new expedient. He repeatedly solicited the fugitives, who, in
the reign of the late king, had settled in New England, to abandon their
plantations and accept of lands in Ireland. On their refusal, he made the
same offer to the Vaudois, the Protestants of Piedmont, but was equally
unsuccessful. They preferred their native valleys, though
[Footnote 1: According to Petty (p. 187), six thousand boys and women were
sent away. Lynch (Cambrensis Eversus, in fine) says that they were sold
for slaves. Bruodin, in his Propugnaculum (Pragae, anno 1660) numbers the
exiles at one hundred thousand. Ultra centum millia omnis sexus et aetatis,
e quibus aliquot millia in diversas Americae tabaccarias insulas relegata
sunt (p. 692). In a letter in my possession, written in 1656, it is said:
Catholicos pauperea plenis navibus mittunt in Barbados et insulas Americae.
Credo jam sexaginta millia abivisse. Expulsis enim ab initio in Hispaniam
et Belgium maritis, jam uxores et proles in Americam destinantur.--After
the conquest of Jamaica in 1655, the protector, that he might people it,
resolved to transport a thousand Irish boys and a thousand Irish girls to
the island. At first, the young women only were demanded to which it is
replied: "Although we must use force in taking them up, yet, it being so
much for their own good, and likely to be of so great advantage to the
public, it is not in the least doubted that you may have such number of
them as you shall think fit."--Thurloe, iv. 23. In the next letter II.
Cromwell says: "I think it might be of like advantage to your affairs
there, and ours here, if you should think fit to send one thousand five
hundred or two thousand young boys of twelve or fourteen years of age to
the place aforementioned. We could well spare them, and they would be of
use to you; and who knows but it may be a means to make them Englishmen, I
mean rather Christians?" (p. 40). Thurloe answers: "The committee of the
council have voted one thousand girls, and as many youths, to be taken up
for that purpose" (p. 75).]
[Footnote 2: Petty, Polit. Arithmetic, 29.]
under the government of a Catholic sovereign, whose enmity they had
provoked, to the green fields of Erin, and all the benefits which
they might derive from the fostering care and religions creed of the
protector.[1]
III. By an act,[a] entitled an act for the settlement of Ireland, the
parliament divided the royalists and Catholics into different classes, and
allotted to each class an appropriate degree of punishment. Forfeiture of
life and estate was pronounced against all the great proprietors of lands,
banishment against those who had accepted commissions; the forfeiture
of two-thirds of their estates against all who had borne arms under the
confederates of the king's lieutenant, and the forfeiture of one-third
against all persons whomsoever who had not been in the actual service of
parliament, or had not displayed their constant good affection to the
commonwealth of England. This was the doom of persons of property: to all
others, whose estates, real and personal, did not amount to the value of
ten pounds, a full and free pardon was graciously offered.[2]
Care, however, was taken that the third parts, which by this act were to be
restored to the original proprietors, were not to be allotted to them out
of their former estates, but "in such places as the parliament, for the
more effectual settlement of the peace of the nation, should think fit to
appoint." When the first plan of extermination had failed, another project
was adopted of confining the Catholic landholders to Connaught and Clare,
beyond the river Shannon, and of dividing the remainder of the island,
Leinster, Munster, and Ulster, among Protestant colonists. This, it
[Footnote 1: Hutchinson, Hist. of Massachusetts, 190. Thurloe, iii. 459.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, Aug. 12, 1652. Scobell, ii. 197, Ludlow, i. 370.
In the Appendix I have copied this act correctly from the original in the
possession of Thomas Lloyd, Esq. See note (F).]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Aug. 12.]
was said, would prevent the quarrels which must otherwise arise between
the new planters and the ancient owners; it would render rebellion more
difficult and less formidable; and it would break the hereditary influence
of the chiefs over their septs, and of the landlords over their tenants.
Accordingly the little parliament, called by Cromwell and his officers,
passed a second act,[a] which assigned to all persons, claiming under the
qualifications described in the former, a proportionate quantity of land
on the right bank of the Shannon; set aside the counties of Limerick,
Tipperary, and Waterford in Munster, of King's County, Queen's County,
West Meath, and East Meath in Leinster, and of Down, Antrim, and Armagh
in Ulster, to satisfy in equal shares the English adventurers who had
subscribed money in the beginning of the contest, and the arrears of the
army that had served in Ireland since Cromwell took the command; reserved
for the future disposal of the government the forfeitures in the counties
of Dublin, Cork, Kildare, and Carlow; and charged those in the remaining
counties with the deficiency, if their should be any in the first ten, with
the liquidation of several public debts, and with the arrears of the Irish
army contracted previously to the battle of Rathmines.
To carry this act into execution, the commissioners, by successive
proclamations, ordered all persons who claimed under qualifications, and
in addition, all who had borne arms against the parliament, to "remove and
transplant" themselves into Connaught and Clare before the first of May,
1654.[1] How many
[Footnote 1: See on this question "The Great Subject of Transplantation in
Ireland discussed," 1654. Laurence, "The Interest of England in the Irish
Transplantation stated," 1654; and the answer to Laurence by Vincent
Gookin, the author of the first tract.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1653. Sept. 26.]
were prevailed upon to obey, is unknown; but that they amounted to a
considerable number is plain from the fact that the lands allotted to
them in lieu of their third portions extended to more than eight hundred
thousand English acres. Many, however, refused. Retiring into bogs and
fastnesses, they formed bodies of armed men, and supported themselves and
their followers by the depredations which they committed on the occupiers
of their estates. They were called Raperees and Tories;[1] and so
formidable did they become to the new settlers, that in certain districts,
the sum of two hundred pounds was offered for the head of the leader of the
band, and that of forty pounds for the head of any one of the privates.[2]
To maintain this system of spoliation, and to coerce the vindictive
passions of the natives, it became necessary to establish martial law, and
to enforce regulations the most arbitrary and oppressive. No Catholic was
permitted to reside within any garrison or market town, or to remove more
than one mile from his own dwelling without a passport describing his
person, age, and occupation; every meeting of four persons besides the
family was pronounced an illegal and treasonable assembly; to carry arms,
or to have arms at home, was made a capital offence; and any transplanted
Irishman, who was found on the left bank of the Shannon, might be put to
death by the first person who met him, without the order of a magistrate.
Seldom has any nation been reduced to a state of bondage more galling and
oppressive. Under
[Footnote 1: This celebrated party name, "Tory," is derived from
"toruighim," to pursue for the sake of plunder.--O'Connor, Bib. Stowensis,
ii. 460.]
[Footnote 2: Burton's Diary, ii. 210.]
the pretence of the violation of these laws, their feelings were outraged,
and their blood was shed with impunity. They held their property, their
liberty, and their lives, at the will of the petty despots around them,
foreign planters, and the commanders of military posts, who were
stimulated by revenge and interest to depress and exterminate the native
population.[1]
IV. The religion of the Irish proved an additional source of solicitude
to their fanatical conquerors. By one of the articles concluded with Lord
Westmeath, it was stipulated that all the inhabitants of Ireland should
enjoy the benefit of an act lately passed in England "to relieve peaceable
persons from the rigours of former acts in matters of religion;" and that
no Irish recusant should be compelled to assist at any form of service
contrary to his conscience. When the treaty was presented for ratification,
this concession shocked and scandalized the piety of the saints. The first
part was instantly negatived; and, if the second was carried by a small
majority through the efforts of Marten and Vane, it was with a proviso that
"the article should not give any the least allowance, or countenance,
or toleration, to the exercise of the Catholic worship in any manner
whatsoever."[2]
In the spirit of these votes, the civil commissioners ordered by
proclamation[a] all Catholic clergymen to quit Ireland within twenty days,
under the penalties of high treason, and forbade all other persons to
harbour any such clergymen under the pain of death. Additional provisions
tending to the same object followed in succession. Whoever knew of the
concealment
[Footnote 1: Bruodin, 693. Hibernia Dominicana, 706.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1652, June 1.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Jan. 6.]
of a priest, and did not reveal it to the proper authorities, was made
liable to the punishment of a public whipping and the amputation of his
ears; to be absent on a Sunday from the service at the parish church,
subjected the offender to a fine of thirty pence; and the magistrates were
authorized to take away the children of Catholics and send them to England
for education, and to tender the oath of abjuration to all persons of
the age of one and twenty years, the refusal of which subjected them to
imprisonment during pleasure, and to the forfeiture of two-thirds of their
estates real and personal.[1]
During this period the Catholic clergy were exposed to a persecution far
more severe than had ever been previously experienced in the island. In
former times the chief governors dared not execute with severity the laws
against the Catholic priesthood, and the fugitives easily found security on
the estates of the great landed proprietors. But now the Irish people lay
prostrate at the feet of their conquerors; the military were distributed in
small bodies over the country; their vigilance was sharpened by religious
antipathy and the hope of reward; and the means of detection were
facilitated by the prohibition of travelling without a license from the
magistrates. Of the many priests who still remained in the country, several
were discovered, and forfeited their lives on the gallows; those who
escaped detection concealed themselves in the caverns of the mountains, or
in lonely hovels raised in the midst of the morasses, whence they issued
during the night to carry the consolations
[Footnote 1: Hibernia Dominicana, 707. Bruodin, 696. Porter, Compendium
Annalium Eecclesiasticorum (Romae, 1690), p. 292.]
of religion to the huts of their oppressed and suffering countrymen.[1]
3. In Scotland the power of the commonwealth was as firmly established as
in Ireland. When Cromwell hastened in pursuit of the king to Worcester, he
left Monk with eight thousand men to complete the conquest of the kingdom.
Monk invested Stirling; and the Highlanders who composed the garrison,
alarmed by the explosion of the shells from the batteries, compelled[a] the
governor to capitulate. The maiden castle, which had never been violated by
the presence of a conqueror,[2] submitted to the English "sectaries;" and,
what was still more humbling to the pride of the nation, the royal robes,
part of the regalia, and the national records, were irreverently torn from
their repositories, and sent to London as the trophies of victory. Thence
the English general marched forward to Dundee, where he received a proud
defiance from Lumsden, the governor. During the preparations for the
assault, he learned that the Scottish lords, whom Charles had intrusted
with the government in his absence, were holding a meeting on the moor at
Ellet, in Angus. By his order, six hundred horse, under the colonels Alured
and Morgan, aided, as it was believed, by treachery, surprised them at an
early hour in the morning.[b] Three hundred prisoners were made, including
the two committees of
[Footnote 1: MS. letters in my possession. Bruodin, 696. A proclamation
was also issued ordering all nuns to marry or leave Ireland. They were
successively transported to Belgium, France, and Spain, where they were
hospitably received in the convents of their respective orders.]
[Footnote 2: "Haec nobis invicta tulerunt centum sex proavi, 1617," was the
boasting inscription which King James had engraved on the wall.--Clarke's
official account to the Speaker, in Cary, ii. 327. Echard, 697.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Aug. 14.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Aug. 28.]
the estates and the kirk, several peers, and all the gentry of the
neighbourhood; and these, with such other individuals as the general deemed
hostile and dangerous to the commonwealth, followed the regalia and records
of their country to the English capital. At Dundee a breach was soon made
in the wall: the defenders shrunk from the charge of the assailants;
and the governor and garrison were massacred.[a] I must leave it to the
imagination of the reader to supply the sufferings of the inhabitants from
the violence, the lust, and the rapacity of their victorious enemy. In
Dundee, on account of its superior strength, many had deposited their most
valuable effects; and all these, with sixty ships and their cargoes in the
harbour, became the reward of the conquerors.[1]
Warned by this awful example, St. Andrews, Aberdeen, and Montrose opened
their gates; the earl of Huntley and Lord Balcarras submitted; the few
remaining fortresses capitulated in succession; and if Argyle, in the midst
of his clan, maintained a precarious and temporary independence, it was not
that he cherished the expectation of evading the yoke, but that he sought
to draw from the parliament the acknowledgment of a debt which he claimed
of the English
[Footnote 1: Heath, 301, 302. Whitelock, 508. Journals, Aug. 27.
Milton's S. Pap. 79. Balfour, iv. 314, 315. "Mounche commaundit all, of
quhatsummeuer sex, to be putt to the edge of the sword. Ther wer 800
inhabitants and souldiers killed, and about 200 women and children. The
plounder and buttie they gatte in the toune, exceided 2 millions and a
halffe" (about 200,000). That, however, the whole garrison was not put to
the sword appears from the mention in the Journals (Sept. 12) of a list of
officers made prisoners, and from Monk's letter to Cromwell. "There was
killed of the enemy about 500, and 200 or thereabouts taken prisoners.
The stubbornness of the people enforced the soldiers to plunder the
town."--Cary's Memorials, ii. 351.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651 Sept. 1.]
government.[1] To destroy the prospect, by showing the hopelessness of
resistance, the army was successively augmented to the amount of twenty
thousand men;[2] citadels were marked out to be built of stone at Ayr,
Leith, Perth, and Inverness; and a long chain of military stations drawn
across the Highlands served to curb, if it did not tame, the fierce and
indignant spirit of the natives. The parliament declared the lands and
goods of the crown public property, and confiscated the estates of all who
had joined the king or the duke of Hamilton in their invasions of England,
unless they were engaged in trade, and worth no more than five pounds, or
not engaged in trade, and worth only one hundred pounds. All authority
derived from any other source than the parliament of England was
abolished[a] by proclamation; the different sheriffs, and civil officers of
doubtful fidelity, were removed for others attached to the commonwealth; a
yearly tax of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds was imposed in lieu of
free quarters for the support of the army; and English judges, assisted by
three or four natives, were appointed to go the circuits, and to supersede
the courts of session.[3] It was with grief
[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 315. Heath, 304, 308, 310, 313. Whitelock, 514,
534, 543.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, Dec. 2, 1652.]
[Footnote 3: Ludlow, 345. Heath, 313, 326. Whitelock, 528, 542. Journals,
Nov. 19. Leicester's Journal, 129. The English judges were astonished at
the spirit of litigation and revenge which the Scots displayed during the
circuit. More than one thousand individuals were accused before them of
adultery, incest, and other offences, which they had been obliged to
confess in the kirk during the last twenty or thirty years. When no other
proof was brought, the charge was dismissed. In like manner sixty persons
were charged with witchcraft. These were also acquitted; for, though they
had confessed the offence, the confession had been drawn from them by
torture. It was usual to tie up the supposed witch by the thumbs, and to
whip her till she confessed; or to put the flame of a candle to the soles
of the feet, between the toes, or to parts of the head, or to make the
accused wear a shirt of hair steeped in vinegar &c.--See Whitelock, 543,
544, 545, 547, 548.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Jan. 22.]
and shame that the Scots yielded to these innovations; though they were
attended with one redeeming benefit, the prevention of that anarchy and
bloodshed which must have followed, had the Cavaliers and Covenanters, with
forces nearly balanced, and passions equally excited, been left to wreck
their vengeance on each other. But they were soon threatened with what in
their eyes was a still greater evil. The parliament resolved to incorporate
the two countries into one commonwealth, without kingly government or the
aristocratical influence of a house of peers. This was thought to fill up
the measure of Scottish misery. There is a pride in the independence of his
country, of which even the peasant is conscious; but in this case not only
national but religious feelings were outraged. With the civil consequences
of an union which would degrade Scotland to the state of a province,
the ministers in their ecclesiastical capacity had no concern; but they
forbade[a] the people to give consent or support to the measure, because it
was contrary to the covenant, and tended "to draw with it a subordination
of the kirk to the state in the things of Christ."[1] The parliamentary
commissioners (they were eight, with St. John and Vane at their head),
secure of the power of the sword, derided the menaces of the kirk. They
convened at Dalkeith the representatives of the counties and burghs,
who were ordered to bring with them full powers to treat and conclude
respecting the incorporation of the two countries. Twenty-eight
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 521. Heath, 307.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Jan. 21]
out of thirty shires, and forty-four out of fifty-eight burghs, gave
their consent; and the result was a second meeting at Edinburgh, in
which twenty-one deputies were chosen to arrange the conditions with the
parliamentary commissioners at Westminster. There conferences were held,[a]
and many articles discussed; but, before the plan could be amicably
adjusted, the parliament itself, with all its projects, was overturned[b]
by the successful ambition of Cromwell.[1]
4. From the conquest of Ireland and Scotland we may now turn to the
transactions between the commonwealth and foreign powers. The king of
Portugal was the first who provoked its anger, and felt its vengeance. At
an early period in 1649, Prince Rupert, with the fleet which had revolted
from the parliament to the late king, sailed[c] from the Texel, swept the
Irish Channel, and inflicted severe injuries on the English commerce. Vane,
to whose industry had been committed the care of the naval department, made
every exertion to equip a formidable armament, the command of which
was given to three military officers, Blake, Dean, and Popham. Rupert
retired[d] before this superior force to the harbour of Kinsale; the
batteries kept his enemies at bay; and the Irish supplied him with men and
provisions. At length the victories of Cromwell by land admonished him to
quit his asylum; and, with the loss of three ships, he burst[e] through the
blockading squadron, sailed to the coast of Spain, and during the winter
months sought shelter in the waters of the Tagus. In spring, Blake
appeared[f] with eighteen men-of-war at the mouth of the river; to his
request that he
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1652, March 16, 24, 26, April 2, May 14, Sept. 15,
29, Oct. 29, Nov. 23.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 22.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 12.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. March.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. May.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. October.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1650. March.]
might be allowed to attack the pirate at his anchorage, he received from
the king of Portugal a peremptory refusal; and, in his attempt to force
his way up the river he was driven back by the fire from the batteries. In
obedience to his instructions, he revenged himself on the Portuguese trade,
and Don John, by way of reprisal, arrested the English merchants, and
took possession of their effects. Alarmed, however, by the losses of his
subjects, he compelled[a] Rupert to quit the Tagus,[1] and despatched[b]
an envoy, named Guimaraes, to solicit an accommodation. Every paper which
passed between this minister and the commissioners was submitted to the
parliament, and by it approved, or modified, or rejected. Guimaraes
subscribed[c] to the preliminaries demanded by the council, that the
English merchants arrested in Portugal should be set at liberty, that they
should receive an indemnification for their losses, and that the king of
Portugal should pay a sum of money towards the charges of the English
fleet; but he protracted the negotiation, by disputing dates and details,
and was haughtily commanded[d] to quit the territory of the commonwealth.
Humbling as it was to Don John, he had no resource; the Conde de Camera was
sent,[e] with the title of ambassador extraordinary; he assented to every
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 134, 142, 155. Heath, 254, 256, 275. Whitelock,
406, 429, 449, 463, 475. Clarendon, iii. 338. Rupert sailed into the
Mediterranean, and maintained himself by piracy, capturing not only English
but Spanish and Genoese ships. All who did not favour him were considered
as enemies. Driven from the Mediterranean by the English, he sailed to the
West Indies, where he inflicted greater losses on the Spanish than the
English trade. Here his brother, Prince Maurice, perished in a storm; and
Rupert, unable to oppose his enemies with any hope of success, returned to
Europe, and anchored in the harbour of Nantes, in March, 1652. He sold his
two men-of-war to Cardinal Mazarin.--Heath, 337. Whitelock, 552. Clarendon,
iii. 513, 520.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. October.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 17.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. April 22.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. May 16.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1652. July 7.]
demand; but the progress of the treaty was interrupted by the usurpation
of Cromwell, and another year elapsed before it was[a] concluded. By
it valuable privileges were granted to the English traders; four
commissioners,--two English and two Portuguese, were appointed[b] to settle
all claims against the Portuguese government; and it was agreed[c] that an
English commissary should receive one-half of all the duties paid by the
English merchants in the ports of Portugal, to provide a sufficient fund
for the liquidation of the debt.[1]
5. To Charles I. (nor will it surprise us, if we recollect his treatment
of the Infanta) the court of Spain had always behaved with coldness and
reserve. The ambassador Cardenas continued to reside in London, even
after the king's execution, and was the first foreign minister whom the
parliament honoured with a public audience. He made it his chief object
to cement the friendship between the commonwealth and his own country,
fomented the hostility of the former against Portugal and the United
Provinces, the ancient enemies of Spain, and procured the assent of his
sovereign that an accredited minister from the parliament should be
admitted by the court of Madrid. The individual selected[d] for this office
was Ascham, a man who, by his writings, had rendered himself peculiarly
obnoxious to the royalists. He landed[e] near Cadiz, proceeded under an
escort for his protection to Madrid, and repaired[f] to an inn, till a
suitable residence could be procured. The next day,[g] while he was sitting
at dinner with Riba, a renegado friar, his interpreter,
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1650, Dec. 17; 1651, April 4, 11, 22, May 7, 13, 16;
1652, Sept. 30, Dec. 15; 1653, Jan. 5. Whitelock, 486. Dumont, vi. p. ii.
82.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Jan. 5.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. July 10.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. July 14.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Jan. 31.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. April 3.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. May 26.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1650. May 27.]
six Englishmen entered the house; four remained below to watch; two burst
into the room, exclaiming, "Welcome, gallants, welcome;" and in a moment
both the ambassador and the interpreter lay on the floor weltering in their
blood. Of the assassins, one, a servant to Cottington and Hyde, the envoys
from Charles, fled to the house of the Venetian ambassador, and escaped;
the other five took refuge in a neighbouring chapel, whence, by the king's
order, they were conducted to the common goal. When the criminal process
was ended, they all received judgment of death. The crime, it was
acknowledged, could not be justified; yet the public feeling was in favour
of the criminals: the people, the clergy, the foreign ambassadors, all
sought to save them from punishment; and, though the right of sanctuary
did not afford protection to murderers, the king was, but with difficulty,
persuaded to send them back to their former asylum. Here, while they
remained within its precincts, they were safe; but the moment they left the
sanctuary, their lives became forfeited to the law. The people supplied
them with provisions, and offered the means of escape. They left Madrid;
the police pursued; Sparkes, a native of Hampshire, was taken about three
miles from the city; and the parliament, unable to obtain more, appeared to
be content with the blood of this single victim.[1]
6. These negotiations ended peaceably; those between the commonwealth and
the United Provinces, though commenced with friendly feelings, led to
hostilities. It might have been expected that the Dutch, mindful of the
glorious struggle for liberty maintained
[Footnote 1: Compare Clarendon, iii. 369, with the Papers in Thurloe, i.
148-153, 202, and Harleian Miscellany, iv. 280.]
by their fathers, and crowned with success by the treaty of Munster, would
have viewed with exultation the triumph of the English republicans. But
William the Second, prince of Orange, had married[a] a daughter of Charles
I.; his views and interests were espoused by the military and the people;
and his adherents possessed the ascendancy in the States General and in all
the provincial states, excepting those of West Friesland and Holland.
As long as he lived, no atonement could be obtained for the murder of
Dorislaus, no audience for Strickland, the resident ambassador, though that
favour was repeatedly granted to Boswell, the envoy of Charles.[1] However,
in November the prince died[b] of the small-pox in his twenty-fourth year;
and a few days later[c] his widow was delivered of a son, William III., the
same who subsequently ascended the throne of England. The infancy of his
successor emboldened the democratical party; they abolished the office of
stadtholder, and recovered the ascendancy in the government. On the news of
this revolution, the council advised that St. John, the chief justice of
the Common Pleas, and Strickland, the former envoy, should be appointed
ambassadors extraordinary to the States General. St. John, with the fate
of Ascham before his eyes, sought to escape this dangerous mission; he
alleged[d] the infirmity of his health and the insalubrity of the climate;
but the parliament derided his timidity, and his petition was dismissed on
a division by a considerable majority.[2]
Among the numerous projects which the English leaders cherished under the
intoxication of success, was that of forming, by the incorporation of the
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 112, 113, 114, 124.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1651, Jan. 21, 23, 28.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1646. Dec. 8.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Nov. 6.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Nov. 14.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. Jan. 28.]
United Provinces with the commonwealth, a great and powerful republic,
capable of striking terror into all the crowned heads of Europe. But so
many difficulties were foreseen, so many objections raised, that the
ambassadors received instructions to confine themselves to the more sober
proposal of "a strict and intimate alliance and union, which might give to
each a mutual and intrinsical interest" in the prosperity of the other.
They made their public entry into the Hague[a] with a parade and retinue
becoming the representatives of a powerful nation; but external splendour
did not check the popular feeling, which expressed itself by groans
and hisses, nor intimidate the royalists, who sought every occasion of
insulting "the things called ambassadors."[1] The States had not forgotten
the offensive delay of the parliament to answer their embassy of
intercession for the life of Charles I.; nor did they brook the superiority
which it now assumed, by prescribing a certain term within which the
negotiation should be concluded. Pride was met with equal pride; the
ambassadors were compelled to solicit a prolongation of their powers,[b]
and the treaty began to proceed with greater rapidity. The English
proposed[c] a confederacy for the preservation of the liberties of each
nation against all the enemies
[Footnote 1: Thus they are perpetually called in the correspondence of the
royalists.--Carte's Letters, i. 447, 469; ii. 11. Strickland's servants
were attacked at his door by six cavaliers with drawn swords; an attempt
was made to break into St. John's bedchamber; Edward, son to the queen of
Bohemia, publicly called the ambassadors rogues and dogs; and the young
duke of York accidentally meeting St. John, who refused to give way to
him, snatched the ambassador's hat off his head and threw it in his face,
saying, "Learn, parricide, to respect the brother of your king." "I scorn,"
he replied, "to acknowledge either, you race of vagabonds." The duke
drew his sword, but mischief was prevented by the interference of the
spectators,--New Parl. Hist. iii. 1, 364.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. March 10.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. April 17.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. May 10.]
of either by sea and land, and a renewal of the whole treaty of 1495, with
such modifications as might adapt it to existing times and circumstances.
The States, having demanded in vain an explanation of the proposed
confederacy,[a] presented a counter project;[b] but while the different
articles remained under discussion, the period prefixed by the parliament
expired, and the ambassadors departed. To whom the failure of the
negotiation was owing became a subject of controversy. The Hollanders
blamed the abrupt and supercilious carriage of St. John and his colleague;
the ambassadors charged the States with having purposely created delay,
that they might not commit themselves by a treaty with the commonwealth,
before they had seen the issue of the contest between the king of Scotland
and Oliver Cromwell.[1]
In a short time that contest was decided in the battle of Worcester,
and the States condescended to become petitioners in their turn. Their
ambassadors arrived in England with the intention of resuming the
negotiation where it had been interrupted by the departure of St. John and
his colleague. But circumstances were now changed; success had enlarged
the pretensions of the parliament; and the British, instead of shunning,
courted a trial of strength with the Belgic lion. First, the Dutch
merchantmen were visited under the pretext of searching for munitions of
war, which they were carrying to the enemy; and then, at the representation
of certain merchants, who conceived themselves to have been injured by the
Dutch navy, letters of marque were granted to several individuals, and more
than eighty prizes brought into
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 179, 183, 188-195. Heath, 285-287. Carte's
Letters, i. 464. Leicester's Journal, 107. Parl. History, xx. 496.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. June 14.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. June 20.]
the English ports.[1] In addition, the navigation act had been passed and
carried into execution,[a] by which it was enacted that no goods, the
produce of Africa, Asia, and America, should be imported into this country
in ships which were not the property of England or its colonies; and that
no produce or manufacture of any part of Europe should be imported,
unless in ships the property of England or of the country of which such
merchandise was the proper growth or manufacture.[2] Hitherto the Dutch
had been the common carriers of Europe; by this act, the offspring of St.
John's resentment, one great and lucrative branch of their commercial
prosperity was lopped off, and the first, but fruitless demand of the
ambassadors was that, if not repealed, it should at least be suspended
during the negotiation.
The Dutch merchants had solicited permission to indemnify themselves by
reprisals; but the States ordered a numerous fleet to be equipped, and
announced to all the neighbouring powers that their object was, not to make
war, but to afford protection to their commerce. By the council of state,
the communication was received as a menace; the English ships of war were
ordered to exact in the narrow seas the same honour to the flag of the
commonwealth as had been formerly paid to that of the king; and the
[Footnote 1: It seems probable that the letters of marque were granted not
against the Dutch, but the French, as had been done for some time, and
that the Dutch vessels were detained under pretence of their having French
property on board. Suivant les pretextes de reprisailles contre les
François et autres.--Dumont, vi. ii. 32.]
[Footnote 2: An exception was made in favour of commodities from the Levant
seas, the West Indies, and the ports of Spain and Portugal, which might be
imported from the usual places of trading, though they were not the growth
of the said places. The penalty was the forfeiture of the ship and cargo,
one moiety to the commonwealth, the other to the informer.--New Parl. Hist.
iii. 1374.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 9.]
ambassadors were reminded of the claim of indemnification for the losses
sustained by the English in the East Indies, of a free trade from
Middleburgh to Antwerp, and of the tenth herring which was due from the
Dutch fishermen for the permission to exercise their trade in the British
seas.
While the conferences were yet pending, Commodore Young met[a] a fleet of
Dutch merchantmen under convoy in the Channel; and, after a sharp action,
compelled the men-of-war to salute the English flag. A few days later[b]
the celebrated Van Tromp appeared with two-and-forty sail in the Downs. He
had been instructed to keep at a proper distance from the English coast,
neither to provoke nor to shun hostility, and to salute or not according to
his own discretion; but on no account to yield to the newly-claimed right
of search.[1] To Bourne, the English, commander, he apologized for
his arrival, which, he said, was not with any hostile design, but in
consequence of the loss of several anchors and cables on the opposite
coast. The next day[c] he met Blake off the harbour of Dover; an action
took place between the rival commanders; and, when the fleets separated in
the evening, the English cut off two ships of thirty guns, one of which
they took, the other they abandoned, on account of the damage which it had
received.
It was a question of some importance who was the aggressor. By Blake it was
asserted that Van Tromp had gratuitously come to insult the English fleet
in its own roads, and had provoked the engagement by firing the first
broadside. The Dutchman replied that
[Footnote 1: Le Clerc, i. 315. The Dutch seem to have argued that the
salute had formerly been rendered to the king, not to the nation.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. May 12.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. May 18.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. May 19.]
he was cruising for the protection of trade; that the weather had driven
him on the English coast; that he had no thought of fighting till he
received the fire of Blake's ship; and that, during the action, he had
carefully kept on the defensive, though he might with his great superiority
of force have annihilated the assailants.[1]
The reader will probably think, that those who submitted to solicit the
continuance of peace were not the first to seek the commencement of
hostilities. Immediately after the action at sea, the council ordered the
English commanders to pursue, attack, and destroy all vessels the property
of the United Provinces; and, in the course of a month, more than seventy
sail of merchantmen, besides several men-of-war, were captured, stranded,
or burnt. The Dutch, on the contrary, abstained from reprisals; their
ambassadors thrice assured the council that the battle had happened without
the knowledge, and to the deep regret of the States;[a] and on each
occasion earnestly deprecated the adoption of hasty and violent measures,
which might lead to consequences highly prejudicial to both nations.
They received an answer,[b] which, assuming it as proved that the States
intended to usurp the rights of England on the sea, and to
[Footnote 1: The great argument of the parliament in their declaration is
the following: Tromp came out of his way to meet the English fleet, and
fired on Blake without provocation; the States did not punish him, but
retained him in the command; therefore he acted by their orders, and the
war was begun by them. Each of these assertions was denied on the other
side. Tromp showed the reasons which led him into the track of the English
fleet; and the States asserted, from the evidence before them, that Tromp
had ordered his sails to be lowered, and was employed in getting ready
his boat to compliment the English admiral at the time when he received a
broadside from the impatience of Blake.--Dumont, vi. p. ii. 33. Le Clerc,
i. 315, 317. Basnage, i. 254. Heath, 315-320.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. May 24, 27, June 3.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. June 5.]
destroy the navy, the bulwark of those rights, declared that it was the
duty of parliament to seek reparation for the past, and security for the
future.[1]
Soon afterwards Pauw, the grand pensionary, arrived.[a] He repeated with
the most solemn asseverations from his own knowledge the statement of the
ambassadors;[b] proposed that a court of inquiry, consisting of an equal
number of commissioners from each nation, should be appointed, and
exemplary punishment inflicted on the officer who should be found to have
provoked the engagement; and demanded that hostilities should cease, and
the negotiation be resumed. Receiving no other answer than had been already
given to his colleagues, he asked[c] what was meant by "reparation and
security;" and was told by order of parliament, that the English government
expected full compensation for all the charges to which it had been put
by the preparations and attempts of the States, and hoped to meet with
security for the future in an alliance which should render the interests
of both nations consistent with each other. These, it was evident, were
conditions to which the pride of the States would refuse to stoop; Pauw
demanded[d] an audience of leave of the parliament; and all hope of
reconciliation vanished.[2]
If the Dutch had hitherto solicited peace, it was not that they feared the
result of war. The sea was their native element; and the fact of their
maritime superiority had long been openly or tacitly acknowledged by all
the powers of Europe. But they wisely
[Footnote 1: Heath, 320, 321.]
[Footnote 2: Compare the declaration of parliament of July 9 with that of
the States General of July 23, Aug. 2. See also Whitelock, 537; Heath,
315-322; the Journals, June 5, 11, 25, 30; and Le Clerc, i. 318-321.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. June 11.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. June 17.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. June 25.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. June 30.]
judged that no victory by sea could repay them for the losses which they
must sustain from the extinction of their fishing trade, and the suspension
of their commerce.[1] For the commonwealth, on the other hand, it was
fortunate that the depredations of Prince Rupert had turned the attention
of the leaders to naval concerns. Their fleet had been four years in
commission: the officers and men were actuated by the same spirit of civil
liberty and religious enthusiasm which distinguished the land army; Ayscue
had just returned from the reduction of Barbadoes with a powerful squadron;
and fifty additional ships were ordered to be equipped, an object easily
accomplished at a time when any merchantman capable of carrying guns could,
with a few alterations, be converted into a man-of-war.[2] Ayscue with the
smaller division of the fleet remained at home to scour the Channel.[a]
Blake sailed to the north, captured the squadron appointed to protect the
Dutch fishing-vessels, exacted from the busses the duty of every tenth
herring, and sent them home with a prohibition to fish again without a
license from the English government. In the mean while Van Tromp sailed
from the Texel with seventy men-of-war. It was expected in Holland that he
would sweep the English navy from the face of the ocean. His first attempt
was to surprise Ayscue, who was saved by a calm followed by a change of
wind. He then sailed to the north in search of Blake. But
[Footnote 1: The fishery employed in various ways one hundred thousand
persons.--Le Clerc, 321.]
[Footnote 2: From a list of hired merchantmen converted into men-of-war, it
appears that a ship of nine hundred tons burthen made a man-of-war of sixty
guns; one of seven hundred tons, a man-of-war of forty-six; four hundred,
of thirty-four; two hundred, of twenty; one hundred, of ten; sixty, of
eight; and that about five or six men were allowed for each gun.--Journals,
1651, May 29.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. July 19.]
his fleet was dispersed by a storm; five of his frigates fell into the
hands of the English; and on his return he was received with murmurs and
reproaches by the populace. Indignant at a treatment which he had not
deserved, he justified his conduct before the States, and then laid down
his commission.[1]
De Ruyter, a name almost equally illustrious on the ocean, was appointed
his successor. That officer sailed to the mouth of the Channel, took under
his charge a fleet of merchantmen, and on his return was opposed by Ayscue
with nearly an equal force. The English. commander burst through the enemy,
and was followed by nine sail; the rest of the fleet took no share in the
action, and the convoy escaped. The blame rested not with Ayscue, but with
his inferior officers; but the council took the opportunity to lay him
aside, not that they doubted his courage or abilities, but because he was
suspected of a secret leaning to the royal cause. To console him for his
disgrace, he received a present of three hundred pounds, with a grant of
land of the same annual rent in Ireland.[2]
De Witte now joined De Ruyter,[a] and took the command. Blake accepted the
challenge of battle, and night alone separated the combatants. The next
morning the Dutch fled, and were pursued as far as the Goree. Their ships
were in general of smaller dimensions, and drew less water than those of
their adversaries, who dared not follow among the numerous sand-banks with
which the coast is studded.[3]
Blake, supposing that naval operations would be suspended during the
winter, had detached several
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 538, 539, 540, 541. Heath, 322. Le Clerc, i. 321.]
[Footnote 2: Heath, 323. Le Clerc, i. 322.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. 326. Ludlow, i. 367. Whitelock, 545. Le Clerc, i. 324.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Sept. 28.]
squadrons to different ports, and was riding in the Downs with thirty-seven
sail, when he was surprised by the appearance[a] of a hostile fleet of
double that number, under the command of Van Tromp, whose wounded pride had
been appeased with a new commission. A mistaken sense of honour induced the
English admiral to engage in the unequal contest. The battle[b] raged from
eleven in the morning till night. The English, though they burnt a large
ship and disabled two others, lost five sail either sunk or taken; and
Blake, under cover of the darkness, ran up the river as far as Leigh. Van
Tromp sought his enemy at Harwich and Yarmouth; returning, he insulted the
coast as he passed; and continued to cruise backwards and forwards from the
North Foreland to the Isle of Wight.[1]
The parliament made every exertion to wipe away this disgrace. The ships
were speedily refitted; two regiments of infantry embarked to serve as
marines; a bounty was offered for volunteers; the wages of the seamen were
raised; provision was made for their families during their absence on
service; a new rate for the division of prize-money was established; and,
in aid of Blake, two officers, whose abilities had been already tried,
Deane and Monk, received the joint command of the fleet. On the other hand,
the Dutch were intoxicated with their success; they announced it to the
world, in prints, poems, and publications; and Van Tromp affixed a broom to
the head of his mast as an emblem of his triumph. He had gone to the Isle
of Rhée to take the homeward-bound trade under his charge, with orders to
resume his station at the mouth of the Thames, and to prevent the egress of
[Footnote 1: Heath, 329. Ludlow, ii. 3. Neuville, iii. 68.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Nov. 29.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. Nov. 30.]
the English. But Blake had already stationed himself with more than seventy
sail across the Channel, opposite the Isle of Portland, to intercept the
return of the enemy. On the 18th of February the Dutch fleet, equal in
number, with three hundred merchantmen under convoy, was discovered[a]
near Cape La Hogue, steering along the coast of France. The action was
maintained with the most desperate obstinacy. The Dutch lost six sail,
either sunk or taken, the English one, but several were disabled, and Blake
himself was severely wounded.
The following morning[b] the enemy were seen opposite Weymouth, drawn up in
the form of a crescent covering the merchantmen. Many attempts were made to
break through the line; and so imminent did the danger appear to the Dutch
admiral, that he made signal for the convoy to shift for themselves. The
battle lasted at intervals through the night; it was renewed with greater
vigour near Boulogne in the morning;[c] till Van Tromp, availing himself of
the shallowness of the coast, pursued his course homeward unmolested by the
pursuit of the enemy. The victory was decidedly with the English; the loss
in men might be equal on both sides; but the Dutch themselves acknowledged
that nine of their men-of-war and twenty-four of the merchant vessels had
been either sunk or captured.[1]
This was the last naval victory achieved under the auspices of the
parliament, which, though it wielded the powers of government with an
energy that surprised
[Footnote 1: Heath, 335. Whitelock, 551. Leicester's Journal, 138. Le
Clerc, i. 328. Basnage, i. 298-301. By the English admirals the loss of the
Dutch was estimated at eleven men-of-war and thirty merchantmen.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. Feb. 18.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. Feb. 19.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1653. Feb. 20.]
the several nations of Europe, was doomed to bend before the superior
genius or ascendancy of Cromwell. When that adventurer first formed the
design of seizing the supreme authority, is uncertain; it was not till
after the victory at Worcester that he began gradually and cautiously to
unfold his object. He saw himself crowned with the laurels of conquest; he
held the command in chief of a numerous and devoted army; and he dwelt with
his family in a palace formerly the residence of the English monarchs. His
adversaries had long ago pronounced him, in all but name, "a king;" and his
friends were accustomed to address him in language as adulatory as ever
gratified the ears of the most absolute sovereign.[1] His importance was
perpetually forced upon his notice by the praise of his dependants, by the
foreign envoys who paid court to him, and by the royalists who craved
his protection. In such circumstances, it cannot be surprising if the
victorious general indulged the aspirings of ambition; if the stern
republican, however he might hate to see the crown on the brows of another,
felt no repugnance to place it upon his own.
The grandees of the army felt that they no longer possessed the chief sway
in the government. War had called them away to their commands in Scotland
and Ireland; and, during their absence, the conduct of affairs had devolved
on those who, in contradistinction, were denominated the statesmen. Thus,
by the course
[Footnote 1: The general officers conclude their despatches to him thus:
"We humbly lay ourselves with these thoughts, in this emergency, at your
excellency's feet."--Milton's State Papers, 71. The ministers of Newcastle
make "their humble addresses to his godly wisdom," and present "their
humble suits to God and his excellency" (Jn 82); and the petitioners
from different countries solicit him to mediate for them to the parliament,
"because God has not put the sword in his hand in vain."--Whitelock, 517.]
of events, the servants had grown into masters, and the power of the
senate had obtained the superiority over the power of the sword. Still
the officers in their distant quarters jealously watched, and severely
criticised the conduct of the men at Westminster. With want of vigour in
directing the military and naval resources of the country, they could not
be charged; but it was complained that they neglected the internal economy
of government; that no one of the objects demanded in the "agreement of
the people" had been accomplished; and that, while others sacrificed
their health and their lives in the service of the commonwealth, all the
emoluments and patronage were monopolized by the idle drones who remained
in the capital.[1]
On the return of the lord-general, the council of officers had been
re-established at Whitehall;[a] and their discontent was artfully employed
by Cromwell in furtherance of his own elevation. When he resumed his seat
in the house, he reminded the members of their indifference to two measures
earnestly desired by the country, the act of amnesty and the termination of
the present parliament. Bills for each of these objects had been introduced
as far back as 1649; but, after some progress, both were suffered to sleep
in the several committees; and this backwardness of the "statesmen" was
attributed to their wish to enrich themselves by forfeitures, and to
perpetuate their power by perpetuating the parliament. The influence of
Cromwell revived both questions. An act of oblivion was obtained,[b] which,
with some exceptions, pardoned all offences committed before the battle of
Worcester, and relieved the minds of the royalists from the apprehension
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 549.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Sept. 16.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. Feb. 24.]
of additional forfeitures. On the question of the expiration of parliament,
after several warm debates, the period had been fixed[a] for the 3rd of
November, 1654; a distance of three years, which, perhaps, was not the less
pleasing to Cromwell, as it served to show how unwilling his adversaries
were to resign their power. The interval was to be employed in determining
the qualifications of the succeeding parliament.[1]
In the winter, the lord-general called a meeting of officers and members at
the house of the speaker; and it must have excited their surprise, when
he proposed to them to deliberate, whether it were better to establish
a republic, or a mixed form of monarchical government. The officers in
general pronounced in favour of a republic, as the best security for the
liberties of the people; the lawyers pleaded unanimously for a limited
monarchy, as better adapted to the laws, the habits, and the feelings of
Englishmen. With the latter Cromwell agreed, and inquired whom in that case
they would choose for king. It was replied, either Charles Stuart or
the duke of York, provided they would comply with the demands of the
parliament; if they would not, the young duke of Gloucester, who could not
have imbibed the despotic notions of his elder brothers. This was not the
answer which Cromwell sought: he heard it with uneasiness; and, as often as
the subject was resumed, diverted the conversation to some other question.
In conclusion, he gave his opinion, that, "somewhat of a monarchical
government would be most effectual, if it could be established with safety
to the liberties of the people,
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1651, Nov. 4, 14, 15, 18, 27; 1652, Feb. 24.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Nov. 18.]
as Englishmen and Christians."[1] That the result of the meeting
disappointed his expectations, is evident; but he derived from it this
advantage, that he had ascertained the sentiments of many, whose aid he
might subsequently require. None of the leaders from the opposite party
appear to have been present.[1]
Jealous, however, of his designs, "the statesmen" had begun to fight him
with his own weapons. As the commonwealth had no longer an enemy to contend
with on the land, they proposed[a] a considerable reduction in the number
of the forces, and[b] a proportionate reduction of the taxes raised for
their support. The motion was too reasonable in itself, and too popular
in the country, to be resisted with safety: one-fourth of the army was
disbanded,[c] and the monthly assessment lowered from one hundred and
twenty thousand pounds to ninety thousand pounds. Before the expiration of
six months, the question of a further reduction was brought forward;[d]
but the council of war took the alarm, and a letter from Cromwell to the
speaker[e] induced the house to continue its last vote. In a short time[f]
it was again mentioned; but the next day[g] six officers appeared at the
bar of the house with a petition from the army, which, under pretence of
praying for improvements, tacitly charged the members with the neglect of
their duty. It directed their attention to the propagation of the
gospel, the reform of the law, the removal from office of scandalous and
disaffected persons, the abuses in the excise and the treasury, the arrears
due to the army, the violation of articles granted to the enemy, and the
qualifications of future and successive parliaments. Whitelock remonstrated
with Cromwell on the danger
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 516.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 2.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. Oct. 7.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Dec. 19.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. June 5.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1652. June 15.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1652. August 12.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1652. August 13.]
of permitting armed bodies to assembly and petition. He slighted the
advice.[1]
Soon afterwards[a] the lord-general requested a private and confidential
interview with that lawyer. So violent, he observed, was the discontent
of the army, so imperious the conduct of the parliament, that it would be
impossible to prevent a collision of interests, and the subsequent ruin of
the good cause, unless there were established "some authority so full and
so high" as to be able to check these exorbitances, and to restrain both
the army and the parliament. Whitelock replied, that, for the army,
his excellency had hitherto kept and would continue to keep it in due
subordination; but with respect to the parliament, reliance must be placed
on the good sense and virtue of the majority. To control the supreme power
was legally impossible. All, even Cromwell himself, derived their authority
from it. At these words the lord-general abruptly exclaimed, "What, if a
man should take upon him to be king?" The commissioner answered that the
title would confer no additional benefit on his excellency. By his command
of the army, his ascendancy in the house, and his reputation, both at home
and abroad, he already enjoyed, without the envy of the name, all the power
of a king. When Cromwell insisted that the name would give security to his
followers, and command the respect of the people, Whitelock rejoined, that
it would change the state of the controversy between the parties, and
convert a national into a personal quarrel. His friends had cheerfully
fought with him to establish a republican in place of monarchical
government; would they equally
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 541. Journals, 1651; Dec. 19; 1652, June 15, Aug.
12, 13.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Nov. 8.]
fight with him in favour of the house of Cromwell against the house of
Stuart?[1] In conclusion, Cromwell conjured him to give his advice without
disguise or qualification, and received this answer, "Make a private
treaty with the son of the late king, and place him on the throne, but on
conditions which shall secure to the nation its rights, and to yourself the
first place beneath the throne." The general coldly observed that a matter
of such importance and difficulty deserved mature consideration. They
separated; and Whitelock soon discovered that he had forfeited his
confidence.[2]
At length Cromwell fixed on a plan to accomplish his purpose by procuring
the dissolution of the parliament, and vesting for a time the sovereign
authority in a council of forty persons, with himself at their head. It was
his wish to effect this quietly by the votes of parliament--his resolution
to effect it by open force, if such votes were refused. Several meetings
were held by the officers and members at the lodgings of the lord-general
in Whitehall. St. John and a few others gave their assent; the rest, under
the guidance
[Footnote 1: Henry, duke of Gloucester, and the princess Elizabeth were in
England at the last king's death. In 1650 the council proposed to send the
one to his brother in Scotland, and the other to her sister in Holland,
allowing to each one thousand pounds per annum, as long as they should
behave inoffensively.--Journals, 1650, July 24, Sept. 11. But Elizabeth
died on Sept. 8 of the same year, and Henry remained under the charge
of Mildmay, governor of Carisbrook Castle, till a short time after this
conference, when Cromwell, as if he looked on the young prince as a rival,
advised his tutor Lovell, to ask permission to convey him to his sister,
the princess of Orange. It was granted, with the sum of five hundred pounds
to defray the expense of the journey.--Leicester's Journal, 103. Heath,
331. Clarendon, iii. 525, 526.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 548-551. Were the minutes of this conversation
committed to paper immediately, or after the Restoration? The credit due to
them depends on this circumstance.]
of Whitelock and Widdrington, declared that the dissolution would be
dangerous, and the establishment of the proposed council unwarrantable.
In the mean time, the house resumed the consideration of the new
representative body, and several qualifications were voted; to all of which
the officers raised objections, but chiefly to the "admission of neuters,"
a project to strengthen the government by the introduction of the
Presbyterian interest.[1] "Never," said Cromwell, "shall any of that
judgment, who have deserted the good cause, be admitted to power." On the
last meeting,[a] held on the 19th of April, all these points were long and
warmly debated. Some of the officers declared that the parliament must be
dissolved "one way or other;" but the general checked their indiscretion
and precipitancy; and the assembly broke up at midnight, with an
understanding that the leading men on each side should resume the subject
in the morning.[2]
At an early hour the conference was recommenced,[b] and after a short time
interrupted, in consequence of the receipt of a notice by the general that
it was the intention of the house to comply with the desires of the army.
This was a mistake: the opposite party, led by Vane, who had discovered the
object of Cromwell,
[Footnote 1: From Ludlow (ii. 435) it appears that by this bill the number
of members for boroughs was reduced, of representatives of counties
increased. The qualification of an elector was the possession for his
own use of an estate real or personal of the value of two hundred
pounds.--Journ. 30th March, 1653. It is however singular that though the
house continued to sit till April 19th--the only entry on the journals
respecting this bill occurs on the 13th--making it a qualification of the
candidates that they should be "persons of known integrity, fearing God,
and not scandalous in their conversation."--Journal, ibid.]
[Footnote 2: Compare Whitelock's narrative of this meeting (p. 554) with
Cromwell's, in Milton's State Papers, 109.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653 April 19.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1653 April 20.]
had indeed resolved to pass a bill of dissolution, not, however, the bill
proposed by the officers, but their own bill, containing all the obnoxious
provisions; and to pass it that very morning, that it might obtain the
force of law before their adversaries could have time to appeal to the
power of the sword.[1] While Harrison "most sweetly and humbly" conjured
them to pause before they took so important a step, Ingoldsby hastened
to inform the lord-general at Whitehall. His resolution was immediately
formed, and a company of musketeers received orders to accompany him to the
house.
At this eventful moment, big with the most important consequences both to
himself and his country, whatever were the workings of Cromwell's mind, he
had the art to conceal them from the eyes of the beholders. Leaving the
military in the lobby, he entered the house, and composedly seated himself
on one of the outer benches. His dress was a plain suit of black cloth,
with grey worsted stockings. For a while he seemed to listen with interest
to the debate; but, when the speaker was going to put the question, he
whispered to Harrison, "This is the time: I must do it;" and rising, put
off his hat to address the house. At first his language was decorous and
even laudatory. Gradually he became more warm and animated: at last
he assumed all the vehemence of passion, and indulged in personal
vituperation. He charged the members with self-seeking and profaneness;
with the frequent denial of justice, and numerous
[Footnote 1: These particulars may be fairly collected from Whitelock, 554,
compared with the declaration of the officers, and Cromwell's speech to
his parliament. The intention to dissolve themselves is also asserted by
Hazlerig.--Burton's Diary, iii. 98.]
acts of oppression; with idolizing the lawyers, the constant advocates of
tyranny; with neglecting the men who had bled for them in the field, that
they might gain the Presbyterians who had apostatized from the cause;
and with doing all this in order to perpetuate their own power, and to
replenish their own purses. But their time was come; the Lord had disowned
them; he had chosen more worthy instruments to perform his work. Here the
orator was interrupted by Sir Peter Wentworth, who declared that he
never before heard language so unparliamentary, language, too, the more
offensive, because it was addressed to them by their own servant, whom they
had too fondly cherished, and whom, by their unprecedented bounty, they had
made what he was. At these words Cromwell put on his hat, and, springing
from his place, exclaimed, "Come, come, sir, I will put an end to your
prating." For a few seconds, apparently in the most violent agitation, he
paced forward and backward, and then, stamping on the floor, added, "You
are no parliament. I say you are no parliament: bring them in, bring them
in." Instantly the door opened, and Colonel Worseley entered, followed by
more than twenty musketeers. "This," cried Sir Henry Vane, "is not honest.
It is against morality and common honesty." "Sir Henry Vane," replied
Cromwell, "O Sir Henry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane! He
might have prevented this. But he is a juggler, and has not common honesty
himself." From Vane he directed his discourse to Whitelock, on whom he
poured a torrent of abuse; then, pointing to Challoner, "There," he
cried, "sits a drunkard;" next, to Marten and Wentworth, "There are two
whoremasters:" and afterwards, selecting different members in succession,
described them as dishonest and corrupt livers, a shame and a scandal to
the profession of the gospel. Suddenly, however, checking himself, he
turned to the guard, and ordered them to clear the house. At these words
Colonel Harrison took the speaker by the hand, and led him from the chair;
Algernon Sidney was next compelled to quit his seat; and the other members,
eighty in number, on the approach of the military, rose and moved towards
the door. Cromwell now resumed his discourse. "It is you," he exclaimed,
"that have forced me to do this. I have sought the Lord both day and night,
that he would rather slay me, than put me on the doing of this work."
Alderman Allen took advantage of these words to observe, that it was not
yet too late to undo what had been done; but Cromwell instantly charged him
with peculation, and gave him into custody. When all were gone, fixing his
eye on the mace, "What," said he, "shall we do with this fool's bauble?
Here, carry it away." Then, taking the act of dissolution from the clerk,
he ordered the doors to be locked, and, accompanied by the military,
returned to Whitehall.
That afternoon the members of the council assembled in their usual place of
meeting. Bradshaw had just taken the chair, when the lord-general entered,
and told them, that if they were there as private individuals, they
were welcome; but, if as the council of state, they must know that the
parliament was dissolved, and with it also the council. "Sir," replied
Bradshaw, with the spirit of an ancient Roman, "we have heard what you did
at the house this morning, and before many hours all England will know it.
But, sir, you are mistaken to think that the parliament is dissolved. No
power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves. Therefore take you
notice of that." After this protest they withdrew.[1]
Thus, by the parricidal hands of its own children, perished the long
parliament, which, under a variety of forms, had, for more than twelve
years, defended and invaded the liberties of the nation. It fell without a
struggle or a groan, unpitied and unregretted. The members slunk away to
their homes, where they sought by submission to purchase the forbearance
of their new master; and their partisans, if partisans they had, reserved
themselves in silence for a day of retribution, which came not before
Cromwell slept in his grave. The royalists congratulated each other on an
event which they deemed a preparatory step to the restoration of the king;
the army and navy, in numerous addresses, declared that they would live or
die, stand or fall, with the lord-general, and in every part of the country
the congregations of the saints magnified the arm of the Lord which had
broken the mighty, that in lieu of the sway of mortal men, "the fifth
monarchy, the reign of Christ, might be established upon earth."[2]
It would, however, be unjust to the memory of those who exercised the
supreme power after the death of the king, not to acknowledge that there
existed among them men capable of wielding with energy the destinies of a
great empire. They governed only four years; yet, under their auspices, the
conquests of Ireland and Scotland were achieved, and a navy was
[Footnote 1: See the several accounts in Whitelock, 554; Ludlow, ii. 19 23;
Leicester's Journal, 139; Hutchinson, 332; Several Proceedings, No. 186,
and Burton's Diary, iii. 98.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 555-558. Milton's State Papers, 90-97. Ellis,
Second Series, iii. 368.]
created, the rival of that of Holland and the terror of the rest of
Europe.[1] But there existed an essential error in their form of
government. Deliberative assemblies are always slow in their proceedings;
yet the pleasure of parliament, as the supreme power, was to be taken
on every subject connected with the foreign relations, or the internal
administration of the country; and hence it happened that, among the
immense variety of questions which came before it, those commanded
immediate attention which were deemed of immediate necessity; while the
others, though often of the highest importance to the national welfare,
were first postponed, then neglected, and ultimately forgotten. To this
habit of procrastination was perhaps owing the extinction of its authority.
It disappointed the hopes of the country, and supplied Cromwell with the
most plausible argument in defence of his conduct.
Of the parliamentary transactions up to this period, the principal have
been noticed in the preceding pages. I shall add a few others which may
be thought worthy the attention of the reader. 1. It was complained that,
since the abolition of the spiritual tribunals, the sins of incest,
adultery, and fornication had been multiplied, in consequence of the
impunity with which they might be committed; and, at the prayer of the
godly, they were made[a] criminal offences, cognizable by the criminal
courts, and punishable, the two first with death, the last with three
months' imprisonment.
[Footnote 1: "We intended," says Scot, "to have gone off with a good
savour, but we stayed to end the Dutch war. We might have brought them to
oneness with us. Their ambassadors did desire a coalition. This we might
have done in four or five months. We never bid fairer for being masters of
the whole world."--Burton's Diary, iii. 112.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. May 16.]
But it was predicted at the time, and experience verified the prediction,
that the severity of the punishment would defeat the purpose of the law. 2.
Scarcely a petition was presented, which did not, among other things, pray
for the reformation of the courts of justice; and the house, after several
long debates, acquiesced[a] in a measure, understood to be only the
forerunner of several others,[b] that the law books should be written, and
law proceedings be conducted in the English language.[1] 3. So enormous
were the charges of the commonwealth, arising from incessant war by sea or
land, that questions of finance continually engaged the attention of the
house. There were four principal sources of revenue; the customs, the
excise, the sale of fee-farm rents,[2] of the lands of the crown, and of
those belonging to the bishops, deans, and chapters, and the sequestration
and forfeiture of the estates of papists and delinquents. The ordinances
for the latter had been passed as early as the year 1643, and in the course
of the seven succeeding years, the harvest had been reaped and gathered.
Still some gleanings might remain; and in 1650, an act was passed[c] for
the better ordering and managing such estates; the former compositions
were subjected to examination; defects and concealments were detected;
and proportionate fines were in numerous cases exacted. In 1651, seventy
individuals, most of them of high rank, all of opulent fortunes, who
had imprudently displayed their attachment to the royal cause, were
condemned[d] to forfeit their property,
[Footnote 1: Journals, May 10, Nov. 22. Whitelock, 478-483.]
[Footnote 2: The clear annual income from the fee-farm rents amounted to
seventy-seven thousand pounds. In Jan. 1651, twenty-five thousand three
hundred pounds of this income had been sold for two hundred and twenty-five
thousand six hundred and fifty pounds.--Journals, Jan. 8.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Nov. 8.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Nov. 22.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Jan. 22.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. July 16.]
both real and personal, for the benefit of the commonwealth. The fatal
march of Charles to Worcester furnished grounds for a new proscription
in 1652. First[a] nine-and-twenty, then[b] six hundred and eighty-two
royalists were selected for punishment. It was enacted that those in the
first class should forfeit their whole property; while to those in the
second, the right of pre-emption was reserved at the rate of one-third part
of the clear value, to be paid within four months.[1]
4. During the late reign, as long as the Presbyterians retained their
ascendancy in parliament, they enforced with all their power uniformity of
worship and doctrine. The clergy of the established church were ejected
from their livings, and the professors of the Catholic faith were condemned
to forfeit two-thirds of their property, or to abjure their religion. Nor
was the proof of recusancy to depend, as formerly, on the slow process of
presentation and conviction; bare suspicion was held a sufficient ground
for the sequestrator to seize his prey; and the complainant was told that
he had the remedy in his own hands, he might take the oath of abjuration.
When the Independents succeeded to the exercise of the supreme power, both
the persecuted parties indulged a hope of more lenient treatment, and both
were disappointed. The Independents, indeed, proclaimed themselves the
champions of religious liberty; they repealed the statutes imposing
penalties for absence from church; and they declared
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1651, July 16; 1652, Aug. 4, Nov. 18. Scobell, 156,
210. If any of the last were papists, and afterwards disposed of their
estates thus redeemed, they were ordered to banish themselves from their
native country, under the penalty of having the laws against popery
executed against them with the utmost severity.--Addit. Act of Nov. 18,
1652.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. August 4.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. Nov. 18.]
that men were free to serve God according to the dictates of conscience.
Yet their notions of toleration were very confined: they refused to extend
it either to prelacy or popery, to the service of the church of England, or
of the church of Rome. The ejected clergymen were still excluded from the
pulpit, and the Catholics were still the victims of persecuting statutes.
In 1650, an act was passed[a] offering to the discoverers of priests and
Jesuits, or of their receivers and abettors, the same reward as had been
granted to the apprehenders of highwaymen. Immediately officers and
informers were employed in every direction; the houses of Catholics were
broken open and searched at all hours of the day and night; many clergymen
were apprehended, and several were tried, and received[b] judgment of
death. Of these only one, Peter Wright, chaplain to the marquess of
Winchester, suffered. The leaders shrank from the odium of such sanguinary
exhibitions, and transported the rest of the prisoners to the continent.[1]
But if the zeal of the Independents was more sparing of blood than that of
the Presbyterians, it was not inferior in point of rapacity. The
ordinances for sequestration and forfeiture were executed with unrelenting
severity.[2] It is difficult to say which suffered from them most
cruelly--families with small fortunes who were thus reduced to a state of
penury; or husbandmen, servants, and mechanics, who, on their refusal to
take the oath of abjuration, were deprived
[Footnote 1: Challoner, ii 346. MS. papers in my possession. See note. (G).]
[Footnote 2: In 1650 the annual rents of Catholics in possession of the
sequestrators were retained at sixty-two thousand and forty-eight pounds
seventeen shillings and threepence three farthings. It should, however, be
observed that thirteen counties were not included.--Journ. Dee. 17.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Feb. 26.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. May. 19.]
of two-thirds of their scanty earnings, even of their household goods and
wearing apparel.[1] The sufferers ventured to solicit[a] from parliament
such indulgence as might be thought "consistent with the public peace and
their comfortable subsistence in their native country." The petition was
read: Sir Henry Vane spoke in its favour; but the house was deaf to the
voice of reason and humanity, and the prayer for relief was indignantly
rejected.[2]
[Footnote 1: In proof I may be allowed to mention one instance of a
Catholic servant maid, an orphan, who, during a servitude of seventeen
years, at seven nobles a year, had saved twenty pounds. The sequestrators,
having discovered with whom she had deposited her money, took two-thirds,
thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence, for the use of the
commonwealth, and left her the remainder, six pounds thirteen and
fourpence. In March, 1652, she appealed to the commissioners at
Haberdashers' Hall, who replied that they could afford her no relief,
unless she took the oath of abjuration. See this and many other cases in
the "Christian Moderator, or Persecution for Religion,
condemned by the Light of Nature, the Law of God, and Evidence of our own
Principles," p. 77-84. London, 1652.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1652, June 30. The petition is in the Christian
Moderator, p. 59.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. Jun. 30.]
Belloc-Lingard - The History of England - CHAPTER IV. : THE COMMONWEALTH.