thority; and these are, their juftice in the adminiftration of affairs at home, and their zeal for the honour of their country abroad. As to the first, “ King Charles, according to his advocate lord Cla rendon, was so great a lover of justice, that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongful action, ex.

cept

the articles against bishop Williams, that he had said, " He did not allow the priests to jeer, nor to make invectives against the people.” It was another article against him, “ that he had wickedly jested on St. Martin's hood.” And it was another article against him," that he had said, that the people are God's and the king's, and not the priest's people ;" though for this he quoted a national council. Poor Gillebrand, an almanack-maker, was prosecuted by the archbishop in the high-conmission court, for leaving the names of the old popish saints out of his calendar, and inserting in their room the names of the protestant martyrs. Bishop Cofins of Durham caufed three hundred wax-candles to be lighted up in the church on Candlemas day, in honour of our lady. He forbad any psalms to be sung before or after the sermon, but, initead of psalms, an anthem in praise of the three kings of Colen. He declared in the pulpit, that when our reformers abolished the mass, they took away all good order.

He said that the king had no more power over the church, than the boy that rubbed his horses heels. For the clergy had then assum. ed to themselves the real supremacy ; and as the crown had taken it from the popė, who had usurped it, they had usurped it now from the crown, to the disgrace of the king, the subversion of the conftitu. tion, and to their own shame, and even perjury." Vide examination of the facts and reasonings in the bishop of Chichester's sermon before the house of lords, Jan. 30, 1731. What must the king be, who could bear all this, and even suffer himself in defence of those usurpations ? See note at the end of $. 2. of this chapter.

cept it was so disguised to him, that he believed it to be just.” Upon which Rapin has the following remark. “ This, says he, may be true, if applied to particular persons : but besides the justice which a king ought to administer impartially to private persons, there is another fort of justice due from him to all his people in general. With respect to this latter, it may juftly be doubted, that lord Clarendon's en comium is inconsistent with the project of altering the constitution, and affuming a power which was certainly illegal."

But more than this, methinks we may even question the whole of lord Clarendon's assertion. Could he be so great a lover of justice, who suffered it to be daily perverted, in the most notorious manner, by. the star-chamber and high commission courts ? Were levies upon the people without consent of parliament, and arbitrary imprisonments and fines for non-payment; were those, instances of a tender regard for private property, and the liberty of the subject ? But. perhaps these were the actions that came disguised to him, so as to appear just. If that was the case, he must either have been more ignorant, or more indolent, than became a king. But the imputation of ignorance he removed himlelf, when he declared, that " he knew the law as well as any private gentleman in England." What then, did he entirely neglect the examination of affairs ? did he leave all to his mi. nisters, the Villiers, the Lauds, and the Straffords? will not even this be allowed ? Then let those, who can, acquit him of the many illegal acts of sovereignty, that blacken his reign.

I need not take much pains to prove that Cromwell was herein unlike king Charles ; since the worlt of his enemies call him a lover of justice, without any such saving clause about the disguising of a wrongfuil action. Cromwell faw and judged for himself; if an action was disguised, he knew how to unmask it, which he certainly did. Whatever arbitrary proceedings he has been charged with, were only in inftances,

where

L. 5

1

where his authority was controverted ; which, as things chen were, it was necessary to have' established, not for his particular security alone, but in order that the law, in other cases, might have due course.

And if he claims this preeminence in the administration at home, what shall we fay of the other point, his maintaining the honour of the English nation in foreign parts ? By this, it has been well observed, he gratified the temper which is fo very natural to Englishmen. He would often fay, “ that the dignity of the crown was upon the account of the nation, of which the king was only the representative head ; and cherefore the nation being still the fame, he would have the fame respect paid to his ministers as if he had been a king.” Was it not an instance without example, that in four or five years he should revenge all the insults committed on his country during a civil war, retrieve the credit that had been gradually fink. ing through two long reigns of near fifty years, extend his dominions in remote parts, acquire the real mastery of the British channel, and in fine, render himself the arbiter of Europe * ? Not a single Briton,

in

England, says M. de Voltaire, (speaking of the state of Europe at the beginning of Lewis XIV's reign) which was much more powerfull [than Holland) claimed the sovereignty of the feas, and pretended to ballance the several states of Europe. But Charles I. who ascended the throne in 1625, so far from being able to hold the weight of this ballance, found the scepter dropping from his hand. His de fign was to raise his power to such a height in England, as to make it independent on the laws; and to change the religion e{tablished in Scotland. Too obfinate to defift from his views, and too weak to put them in extcution, this kind husband and tender "father, this good man and ill advised monarch, engaged in a civil war, which at last brought him to a scaf. fold, where, with his crown, he lost his life.

in his time, but could demand reparation, or at least revenge, for injuries sustained, whether from the corfairs of Barbary, France, or Spain * Not an oppressed foreigner claimed his protection, but it was immediately and effectually granted. What shall we compare to this in the reign of king Charles or his father? Was the honour of the flag then asserted ? Were we not duped, despised, and insulted ? How was the elector Palatine protected, though the son-inlaw of king James? How was the duke of Rohen affisted, in the protestant war at Rochelle, notwithftanding the folemn engagement of king Charles, under his own hand ? But I have done with comparing of persons between whom there is so little shadow of resemblance ; and shall content myself with throwing: together a few more such particulars with regard to each of them, as I find to be the sentiments of those who have written of these times.

$. 7. To begin with the king. And here I shall have recourse to the words of a modern author to

who

This civil war, begun in the minority of Lewis. XIV. prevented England for some time from concerning itself with the interests of its neighbourrs, whereby that country lost its esteem and felicity, Its trade was interrupted; so that all other nation's imagined England was buried under its own ruins, when on a sudden, it emerged and grew more formidable than ever under the government of Oliver. This man poffeffed himself of the supreme power, by carrying the gospel in one hand, a fword in the other, and by wearing the vizor of religion ; and, during his administration, he veiled the crimes of an usurper with the qualities of a great king." Essay on the age of Lewis XIV. p. 26. in English,

* Vide the story of the quaker in the preceding chapter.

† Examination of the facts and reasonings in the bishop of Chichester's sermon, Jan. 30. 1732

who has drawn his character I am afraid but too justly, though perhaps with a little nyore warmth and freedom of expreífion than were absolutely necessary. “ The violation, says he, the repeated and continual violation of his coronation oath ; his passing the bill of rights, and owning all these rights to be legal and juft, and thence confefling that he had broken them all; nay, his violating that very bill in all its parts, almost as soon as he had passed it, were but ill marks of a heart very upright and fincere. Of all these ex. cesses he was guilty, at a time when his parliament were well disposed for the honourable support of his government, and free from any design to distress it, much less to alter it; nay, were ready to grant him very noble supplies, if he would but have suffered ju. ftice to be done upon public traitors, the infamous instruments of illegal power, and of mutual distrust between him and his people.

He actually committed, or attempted to commit, all the enormities, all the acts of usurpation, committed by the late king James ; levied money against law; levied forces, and obliged his subjects to maintain them, againit law; raised a body of foreign forces to destroy the law, and enslave his people at once ; dispensed with all the laws ; filled the prisons with illustrious patriots, who defended the law, and themselves by the law ; encouraged and rewarded hireling doctors to maintain that his will was above law, nay itself the highest law, and binding upon the consciences of his subjects, on pain of eternal damnation ; and that such as resisted his royal will, refifted God, and were guilty of impiety and rebellion. He robbed cities of their charters, the publick of its money and liberty, and treated his free-born subjects as llaves born only to obey him,

It is said, that he was not a papist : perhaps he was not ; that is, not a subject to the pope of Rome: but he was bent upon setting up an hierarchy in England, resembling that of Rome in all its power and terrors. Nor does it avail, if men are to be perse