CHAPTER XX THE RESTORATION Popular joy at the Restora tion. CHARLES, exalted from beggary to kingship, left Holland amid demonstrations of joy, and landed at Dover on 25th May 1660. There the jubilant ministers proffered him a clasped Bible; victorious Monck as appropriately offered him his sword. His progress towards and entry into London resembled a Roman triumph. Indeed, Evelyn declared it was like the return of the Jews from Babylon. He entered the Capital on 29th May—his thirtieth birthday. That night, when the jubilation and racket had ceased, and the godly were in prayer bearing up their Covenanted Monarch at the Throne of Grace, he first made an oblation of thanks to God in the presence-chamber before seeking carnal repose within the arms of the beautiful adulteress, Barbara Villiers.1 He thus early inaugurated England's worst era of lust and falsehoods. On realising the Restoration of the King, the people became frantic with joy, and soon their hilarity degenerated into ribaldry amid scenes of drunkenness and immorality. In Edinburgh a day of thanksgiving-19th June-was appointed, and Restoration Day was observed with sermons, noises hallowed and unhallowed, feasting, and strong drink. A farce in fireworks was presented on the Castle Hill, and redoubtable Cromwell was depicted being pursued by the Devil till both were blown up, to the merriment of the crowds.3 Later, on Coronation Day, the otherwise staid magistrates of 1 Kirkton, 61. She bore six children to Charles: Burnet, i. 168 and note (Airy's edit.). paradise, in which Bacchus, Silenus, and other bibulous divinities and wanton goddesses held court and revel, and the magistrates acted like coryphées in this fantastic vineyard. The mad orgy was prolonged until the citizens became 'not only drunk but frantic,' and worse.1 As vultures swoop on a carcase, the needy Scots nobility and hungry unemployed soldiers of fortune made for London to welcome Charles, and to present petitions asking for the removal of the English garrison, the restoration of forfeited estates, the resuscitation of privileges, and patronage in view of other attainders.2 At Crawford's levée Charles gave them a pleasant reception. Fortune now smiled on the Engagers, since the other extreme parties in the State-Montrosians and Argyllians-were defunct. Sharp, too, remained in London negotiating, as he would make his colleagues believe. Burton, I think, rightly interpreted the intentions of the new authorities when he wrote: While all these things were written, Sharp was Archbishop of St. Andrews and virtually Primate of Scotland. It was believed, indeed [he should have added “soon afterwards"], that the bargain was struck at once when he arrived at Breda.' On 2nd June, the Primate-elect wrote to Douglas that in Sharp plays London he found the presbyterian cause wholly given up and lost,' tioners false, while the leaders of that party were willing to accept a modified June 1660. Episcopacy after Ussher's model, with an amended liturgy and curtailed ceremonies. The cassock men swarm here,' he averred. He continued discouraging the sending up of more delegates, Douglas excepted-he had hopes of Douglas apostatising-on the ground that it would 'give suspicion of driving a disobliging design.' He disclaimed any personal manœuvre. Douglas and his friends, instead of falling into the net, became fixed in their resolutions, and ་ Edinburgh's Joy for His Majesties Coronation in England, 1661; Kirkton, 65; Crook shanks, 81. 3 Hist., vii. 134. 2 Kirkton, 66; Laud. Pap., i. 32-3. Hallam, Const. Hist., ii. 319: This consisted, first, in the appointment of a suffragan bishop for each rural deanery, holding a monthly Synod of the presbyters within his district; and, secondly, in an annual diocesan Synod of suffragans and representatives of the presbyters, under the presidency of the bishop, and deciding upon all matters before them by a plurality of suffrages.' VOL. II. I the Resolu more emphatically advised him to oppose the defections, prelacy, and the liturgy. It is not likely that Sharp repeated these instructions. When Douglas was bent on coming south, Sharp as firmly and plausibly discountenanced the proposed advocacy, declaring that the King was against it, since he was pledged to Presbytery already, and their advent would prejudice the cause. By these concoctions he kept them in their fool's paradise. His tactics were clever but dishonourable. In the middle of June he writes: Discerning men see that the gale is like to blow for the prelatic party, and those who are sober will yield to a liturgy and moderate episcopacy which they phrase to be effectual presbytery. This was a specious fly well cast. This equation of 'effectual presbytery' explains the frequent boast of Sharp after he came to be suspected, that he 'had done more for the interest of presbyterian government than any minister who can accuse me.'' The peculiarity of Sharp's letters is that, while prolix, they do not contain, except in his paraphrase, the substantial communications which he must have been receiving from others. On 19th June, when the Scottish deputation was imminent, he wrote that the King was about to grant all their demands-their wildest dream-and with the royal letter he would come home. It was a mean trick to hold back the deputies. While trying to make his brethren discard the chimera of uniformity, be it said to his credit, he declared, 'If we knew how little our interests are regarded by the most part here, we would not much concern ourselves in theirs.' It was probably on this principle that Sharp, while narrating the various moves for the restoration of prelacy and moderate Episcopacy, and even the fact that the Royalists attributed the King's misfortunes to his acquiescence in Presbytery, omitted to mention that the Commissioners from Ireland thought it expedient to drop, in their negotiations, all mention of the Covenant and prelacy.2 Monck, created Duke of Albemarle in July, was no politician, yet he had the shrewdness to advise his Sovereign to select both 1 Sharp to Drummond, 13th December 1660: Laud. Pap., i. 47- |