VIII. WEALTH, sternly repressed by frequent executions and swarms CHAPTER of soldiery? The misconduct of the prelates had taught the common people the desperate lesson of COMMONan exoteric and an esoteric faith, a professional A.D.1649 religion and a personal one, and that there was no necessary connection between the two. In Romish countries the populace, having once explored this mystery, sink into licentiousness. In England they fell away into puritanism. And now the political leaders of the puritans were repeating the very same dishonesty. Sharp-sighted men perceived that they had one standard for themselves and another for their subjects. They had set up their golden image, and its shrine was to be adorned with costly offerings. Their visionary commonwealth must be upheld, if oaths were broken and innocent men oppressed. And for all this they had no other excuse to offer than the hackneyed apology of present necessity, and the possibility of some future good. At first this insincerity affected the rulers only, but it soon descended to the common people. The engagement, the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth, was vigorously enforced; but those who took it must have felt that it was inconsistent with the covenant, to which they had already sworn. There was prevarication, if not perjury. By the covenant they were bound "to defend the king's person and authority;" by the engagement they were sworn to be obedient to "a government without a king and without a house of lords." It may be said that the power which imposed the covenant had the authority to withdraw it and to annul its obligations. It may be said that Charles being VIII. COMMON WEALTH, CHAPTER dead, the covenant was no longer binding. These were indeed the defences which the government set up, and which they urged with all the weapons at A.D.1650. their command-force and argument and pulpit declamation. The majority of the clergy, including all the presbyterians, of course, opposed these measures; and their pulpits were not silent. It was, in consequence, ordered by the house of commons on the 28th of March, 1649, "that no ministers shall teach in their pulpits anything relating to state affairs, but only to preach Christ in sincerity, and that an act be brought in for penalties for those who should do otherwise." But there is an end of public virtue when a nation trifles with the obligations of an oath. Thousands of sincerely loyal subjects had embraced the covenant; for though it remodelled the constitution, it involved no transfer of allegiance. If the nation was presbyterian, Charles was not less a king. They were now to swear allegiance to his murderers. Honest minds revolted. The impression grew deep that the nation was betrayed and that the puritan leaders were false; and the impression was deepest in the lower classes, for they saw all the inconsistency, while they comprehended none of the difficulties, of their political leaders. Events soon followed which completed the alienation of pious men, and converted their admiration of the puritan chieftains into suspicion and disgust. The Scotch, faithful to the covenant and to Charles II., proclaimed him king, and reassembled their army to support his throne. Various attempts were made in England to revive the royal cause. At Durham a manifesto was issued on his behalf. In the VIII. WEALTH, north the presbyterians, "pretending conscience," CHAPTER refused the engagement. From York a minister wrote to inform the parliament of a secret plot for COMMON a massacre of the well-affected in the nation. At A.D. 1650. Shrewsbury the cavaliers openly wore ribbons with the motto "God prosper," and the clergy preached against the government. At Newcastle, one Henderson took upon himself to proclaim king Charles II. at the market-cross. In the west many presbyterians from their pulpits prayed very zealously for the restoration of the king. At Chester the clergy bitterly exclaimed against the engagement, "condemning all that took it to the pit of hell." At Exeter it was scorned; and a fast-day being appointed by the parliament, the clergy left the town. and locked up the churches. In London the government, though dreaded, was insulted with impunity. A private soldier, detected in a treasonable conspiracy, was shot by a court martial. His funeral afforded the opportunity for a political demonstration. The dead body was carried through the city with ostentatious pomp; the mourners, amounting to several thousands, carried in their hands bunches of rosemary steeped in blood, emblems of their undying sorrow or revenge. The procession passed by the doors of parliament, but the government had not the courage to interfere.* Their situation was already critical, if not dangerous. They had gained no hold upon the nation at large: their tenure of power was precarious, and they heard on all sides of risings projected or actually taking place. These rumours were not altogether unacceptable to * Whitelocke, pp. 429, 439. CHAPTER the parliament. They swelled the cry of danger, and VIII. gave a colour to the meditated attack on Scotland. COMMON- Fairfax still continued to hold the chief command; A.D. 1650. but he was weary of his post, and Cromwell was WEALTH, anxious to supplant him. Lady Fairfax was a presbyterian, and the general himself was now attached to that party. He declared to his colleagues that he could not march against their own brethren in the cause, the presbyterians of Scotland. If the Scotch invaded England, he was ready to draw his sword and shed his last drop of blood in defence of the commonwealth; but to invade Scotland, and inflict the calamities of war upon a people whose crime was that they reverenced an oath, was that which his conscience would not consent to. Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, St. John, and Whitelocke were sent by the council of state to confer with him. "I think it doubtful," said the lord-general, "whether we have a just cause to make an invasion upon Scotland, with whom we are joined in the national league and covenant; and now for us, contrary thereunto, and without sufficient cause given us by them, to enter into their country with an army, and to make war upon them, is that which I cannot see the justice of; nor how we shall be able to justify the lawfulness of it before God and man." Cromwell answered that the Scotch, by invading England under the duke of Hamilton, in 1648, had broken the covenant, and it was only just to requite their hostility first begun upon us. Whitelocke argued, quite in consistence with his character, that it would be a prudent measure to prevent their coming into England by first attacking VIII. COMMON them in their own country. Harrison urged the pro- CHAPTER bability of an invasion upon their part; and St. John repeated the argument of Cromwell, that the cove- WEALTH, nant was first broken by themselves, and so dissolved A.D. 1650. as to us. "I suppose," said Cromwell in conclusion, "your excellency will be convinced of this clear truth, that we are no more obliged by the league and covenant, which themselves did first break." The force of this argument was lost on Fairfax. The covenant was not a compact with the Scotch, but a national vow and promise recorded in the sight of God in St. Margaret's church at Westminster, as well as in the presbyterian churches of the north. Its agreements were not conditional; no breach of faith on the part of others could release the English covenanters; and with regard to the duke of Hamilton's invasion in 1648, it was undertaken not, as Cromwell and Harrison maintained, to subvert the covenant, but to carry out its literal meaning, and to establish the house of Stuart upon a presbyterian throne. To the argument arising from the probability of another invasion Fairfax replied, that human probabilities were not a sufficient ground for making war upon a neighbour, especially, said he, upon our brethren in Scotland, to whom we are engaged in a solemn league and covenant. What," he exclaimed, "would you have me to do? My conscience is not satisfied: under the same circumstances none of you would engage in the service : that is my condition, and I must desire to be excused."* The conference was conducted with prayer, which Cromwell opened; most of the deputation *Whitelocke, p. 445. 66 |