A.D. 1659.] THE "LONG PARLIAMENT" RESTORED. 603 the old Speaker, was still sound and talkative, and the reanimated Rump again took its seat, and called itself the Parliament of England. § 3. The first thing they did was to astonish the head of the government with a resolution that they required no head of a government whatever, whether called king or protector. They would also have nothing to do with a House of Lords, but would secure the wealth and happiness of all classes of the people by their own infallible wisdom and immaculate virtue. Charles, over at Breda, must have thought the Rump the truest friends of monarchy who had yet appeared. His adherents became so numerous that they scarcely concealed their hopes. Men who remembered the struggles of old, the orations of Pym and Hampden, the sacrifice of Eliot, so heroically made, and even the oracular sentences, half smoke, half fire, of Oliver himself, in the debates on the Grand Remonstrance, were ashamed of the pitiful race which had succeeded. Richard himself, who might have submitted to be schooled by the assailants of Laud and Strafford, could not condescend to take lessons from Lambert and Harrison. Moreover, he was of a gentle nature which hated blood; he was of a domestic nature which made him long for the charities of home; and he retired, after an angry discussion at Whitehall, to the quietude of Hampton Court; there he drew up and signed a resignation of his office, left the regal apartments and the guarded coach; and all that we hear of him is, that when a great debate, fifty years after this, was taking place in the reign of Queen Anne, an old gentleman was present, and deeply interested in the scene. "Were you ever here before," he was asked by one of the audience. "Ay," he said; "when last I was here I sat in that chair," and pointed to the throne. It was Richard Cromwell, who was content to descend to posterity as a weak and contemptible character, because he preferred tranquil happiness to uneasy power. He died in 1712. § 4. Some slight appearance of government was still kept up by the Rump; but the country had become distrustful of its designs, and alarmed at the appearance of the army. Sects were howling in all the villages against each other; property had so increased, that the number of persons interested in the maintenance of order was everywhere enlarged; fanaticism had had its day, and was found only to make earth less enjoyable without making heaven more sure. Old men recalled the peaceful days of quiet submission to authority, before ship-money or remonstrances were heard of; middle-aged men remembered their merry meetings on the village green, and junketings at the feasts of the church. There had been no Whitsun-ale for a long time, the Puritans were so very virtuous; and all the young people were greedily drinking in rumours of the gay doings at the court of the young king, the hero of all the Cavalier tales and ballads: how he had hidden in the royal oak after Worcester, and been entertained by Royalist ladies, and smuggled out of the country, like a paladin in the books of chivalry delivered by a sage enchantress, and the land was ripe for a return to the old order in Church and State. The changes in the form of Government were still further to be increased by the ignominious expulsion even of the Rump. While there remained a Speaker and a mace, with a ministerial majority and a party in opposition, people might have been lulled into the belief that they were ruled by a constitutional Parliament; but Lambert, the most ambitious of the military adventurers produced by the revolution, was alarmed lest the apparent freedom of discussion within the Chamber might lead to dangerous consequences on the public mind. He marched a few regiments to Westminster, and dismissed the miserable relics of the greatest of English Parliaments amid the derision and contempt of the nation, and established a Committee of Safety. This most revolutionary form of government was a symptom of what was A.D. 1659-1660.] GENERAL MONK AND HIS ARMY. 605 designed. Safety, it was evident, could only be found, in Major-General Lambert's opinion, under the protection of the sword, and in a very short time a Provisional Government was announced, from which all the civil elements of authority were rigorously excluded. A board of officers sat at Whitehall under the presidency of Fleetwood; and Royalists and Presbyterians perceived, when too late, that their divisions had exposed the country to the horrors of a military despotism. § 5. Desborough, Lambert, Fleetwood, and the rest of the military prefects under the Protector, had no reliance but on the army. But the only unspoiled portion of the troops were eight thousand well-disciplined, firmly-commanded old Parliamentarians, under the command of Monk, in Scotland. As to the preaching, bible-quoting, text-disputing brawlers in the different districts of England, the original spirit had died out, and left only the dregs. They discussed the prophecies and neglected drill. So king, and parliament, and people, and even the enthusiasts of the fifth monarchy, felt that the decision lay with the Ironsides of the north. Parliament would have made Monk their commander-in-chief; the people would have made him Protector; the fifth monarchy-men would have made him prime minister under the new dispensation; but Monk kept his own counsel, and listened to the more reasonable offers of the king. There was nothing Charles would not have offered for a prize of half the value. He sent over his agents, rising in his promises and increasing in his prayers for restoration. Monk marched on, crossed the Border, and learned the state of opinion as he came through England. There were no huzzaings, except among the Cavaliers, who had strangely divined the secret, and claimed him as one of themselves. But the navy also divined the secret, and uttered warnings. against him. Still the imperturbable gravity of the man carried him through, and a new aid came to the king's cause from the difficulty of discovering the general's real design. If there was to be a traitor, which of the parties was to win the prize of betrayal? The Presbyterians would have received the king on conditions securing the ascendancy of their church, and their right to persecute all others; others would have made more valuable agreements, and have limited the royal power within legal bounds; but events marched too fast. A new parliament was called in April, and Monk and Charles had finally come to terms. The terms were very easy. Monk was to restore the king, and the king was to enrich and ennoble Monk. The nation was to do the best it could. The high contracting parties left it out of consideration altogether. § 6. When the Parliament met, the House of Lords was as fully recognised as the Lower House. Letters were presented to both the assemblies from his Majesty King Charles. In these he promised a general pardon and full liberty of conscience. The fever of loyalty was so strong, he need not have promised anything. Lords and Commons accepted the Declaration of Breda as a new edition of Magna Charta, and sent over fifty thousand pounds to the penniless king; and on the 2nd of May a formal speech was made by the Speaker, which ended, amid the cheers of the whole body, with the words, "Long live King Charles the Second!" FRANCE.-Louis XIV. SPAIN.-Philip IV.; Charles II. EMPEROR OF GERMANY.-Leopold I. POPES.-Alexander VII.; Clement IX.; Clement X.; Inno- § 1. Restoration of Charles II. Great national rejoicings. Special acts of indemnity.-§ 2. Trial and execution of several of the regicides. -§ 3. Sanguinary prosecutions in Scotland. General Monk made Duke of Albemarle.- 4. Contentions among the ministers of different sects. § 5. Profligacy of Charles and his court. James, Duke of York, married to the daughter of Lord Clarendon.-§ 6. The king married to Catherine, daughter of the King of Portugal.-§ 7. Charles sells Dunkirk to the King of France.§ 8. Act of Uniformity passed. Religious intolerance.-§ 9. War with the Dutch. Capture of New York. Naval victory over the Dutch.-§ 10. Great efforts made by the Dutch, who are joined by Louis XIV. The Dutch squadron sails up the Medway, destroys the dockyard of Chatham, and burns several ships of war.-§ 11. Political degradation of England. Charles becomes a pensioner to Louis XIV. Plague of London, the great fire, and universal misrule. The Cabal ministry. - 12. Stringency of the measures of Parliament to resist the domination of Popery on the one hand and Puritanism on the other. The Five-mile Act.-§ 13. Charles's secret alliance with France against the Dutch for the destruction of Protestantism. He seizes the bankers' funds in the Exchequer. - § 14. The French and English forces overrun Holland. Prince William of Orange.§ 15. Efforts of Charles and his brother in favour of popery. Passing of the Test and Corporation Act.-§ 16. Charles's treacherous con |