1625-1649. the two Houses should prescribe, and that during the intervals CHARLES I. of parliament, no vacancy in the council should be supplied without the assent of the major part, subject to the future sanction of the two Houses; that the education and marriages of the king's children should be under parliamentary control; the votes of popish peers to be taken away; the church government and liturgy be reformed as both Houses should advise; the militia and all fortified places put in such hands as parliament should approve; finally, that the king should pass a bill for restraining all peers to be made in future from sitting in parliament, unless they be admitted with the consent of both Houses. The crown bound bills offered by parliament. to assent to all Charles I. In addition to these demands, the commons voted that in a right construction of the old coronation oath, the king was bound to assent to all bills which the two houses of parliament should offer 68. Charles, from having no party in the nation, had, by his con- Popularity of cessions to the parliament, acquired a powerful party; and, notwithstanding the small interval of time which had elapsed from his rash attempt to seize the six members, he was surrounded by the nobility and gentry, who conceived that law, justice, and moderation now belonged to the crown, the commons having perpetrated so many acts of deliberative violence. The friends of the constitution were resolved to adhere to that moderate freedom transmitted them from their ancestors, and now better secured by such important concessions, rather than by engaging in a giddy search after more independence, run a manifest risk either of incurring a cruel subjection, or abandoning all law and order; they were further induced to, this determination by the fact of the city apprentices, porters, &c., having been allowed to influence the decisions of the legislature, and were aware that the moment the licentious appetites of such people ceased to be gratified, physical strength could alone reduce them to proper subjection 7. 68 1 Clarendon, 452. 2 Parl. Hist. 1302. 2 Hallam's Const. Hist. 188. 69 2 Rushworth, 473. Whitlocke, 50. 2 Nalson, 811. Franklyn, 906. 70 Those who have once bowed their knee to force, must expect that force will be for ever their master. In a few weeks after the legislative power and civil government of England had submitted to the army, the commons were insulted by an unruly, tumultuous mob of apprentices, engaged in the presbyterian politics of the city, who compelled them, by actual violence, to rescind several of their late votes. (2 Hallam's Const. Hist. 281.) Motives by which the royalists were actuated. CHARLES I. 1625-1649. A. D. 1642. Declaration of the king to the peers. Non attendance of the members Lords and Commons. The king made a declaration to the peers who attended him, that he expected from them no obedience to any commands which were not warranted by the laws of the land. The peers answered this declaration by a protest, in which they declared their resolution to obey no commands but such as were warranted by their authority". In fact, the rank, intelligence, and property of the country rallied round the crown, and to such an extent, that, according to Clarendon's computation, a single troop of guards possessed estates and revenues equal to those of all the members, who, at the commencement of the war, voted in both Houses". At this period the House of Lords seldom consisted of more of the Houses of than sixteen members, and near the moiety of the commons absented themselves from counsels which they conceived so replete with danger; and the great majority of those who did attend were under the influence of intimidation. A band of rogues and rebels, who had everything to gain and nothing to lose, now influenced the commons, and by audacious falsehoods, persuaded the uncultivated and seditious masses of society, that they were the eternal guardians of law and liberty, and whom no motive, but the necessary defence of the people, could ever engage in an opposition to the crown. The king's adherents were by the commons designated "wicked,” and "malignant." Their adversaries were the "godly," and "well affected 73;" and in the orders which Essex received to advance upon the royalists, he was directed to "present a most humble petition to the king, and to rescue him and the royal family from those desperate malignants who had seized their persons" 75" Character of the House of Commons. In fact, the House of Commons "was a close committee of sordid tyrants, who violated every principle of law and justice, who imprisoned their own constituents for refusing to answer 716 Hume, 491. 72 3 Clarendon, 41. Warwick, 231. 73 Warwick, 318. May, 86. 74 Whitlocke, 59. 3 Clarendon, 27, 28. 75 This mean, false, and hypocritical conduct was pursued during the war in their treatment of the House of Lords, to whom the commons, upon all occasions, gave respectful language, and denounced those who advocated their suppression; and on occasion of some rumours, the House voted they held themselves obliged, by the fundamental laws of the kingdom and their covenant, to preserve the peerage, with the rights and privileges belonging to the House of Peers, equally with their own (3 Parl. Hist. 369); and the council of war more than once, in the year 1647, declared their intention of preserving the rights of the peerage. (Whitlocke, 298. Sir William Waller's Vindication, 192.) 1625-1649. civil liberty, tered by the devoted friends when adminis of the people." criminating interrogatories which no judge in England would CHARLES I. have dared to ask, or have permitted to be put; who, professing hostility to corruption, could deal secretly for the whitewashing of the blasted character, or replenishing the empty purse of an useful associate; who, in a word, with 'patriotism' for ever in their mouths, went to deluge their country with civil blood, and hack and mutilate the constitution which they swore they were defending, till it fell prostrate and lifeless at the feet of a military usurper." But such is "civil liberty," when administered by the "devoted friends of the people," uncontrolled by a king and an hereditary House of Peers. SECTION III. CHARLES II., January 30, A.D. 1649,-February 6, A.D. 1685. 1. The Misfortunes of Anarchy. 3. Grant of Royal Revenues. 4. Disbanding the Army. 5. Titles to Property. 6. The Parliament of 1661. 7. Punishment of the Regicides. 10. Religious Dissensions. 11. Original Jurisdiction in Civil of Lords. 12. Impeachment of Danby. 16. Quo Warranto Informations. 1. The Misfortunes of Anarchy. 1649-1685. Whoever has Whoever has power, abuses it; every page of history proves CHARLES II. the fact; individual, body, the people, it is all the same; power is abused, yet some one, or some body, must have it. The great problem seems to be to vest it in such a manner power, abuses it. that as little mischief can be done as possible. But to effect this, something very different is necessary from merely clipping the wings of power. Injudicious restraint of power leads to as many evil consequences as unlimited power'. The histories of Greece, Rome, and France, justify the observation, that although with the multitude ultra democracy may often originate in the love of true liberty, it has its source, almost always, in those who seek to be leaders of the multitude, merely in an insatiable thirst for power, which is generally followed by the abuse of it when acquired. 1 Lieber's Remin. Niebuhr, 82, 83. Popular leaders actuated by ambition. CHARLES II. 1649-1685. The people are always the suf The events which occurred immediately previous, and subsequent to the execution of Charles I., establish that, practically speaking, "the people are always the sufferers by revolutions ferers by revolu- in government;" because the new settlement, being jealous and insecure, is, ex necessitate, supported by unconstitutional criminal process, and by the most grievous taxation3; in tions in govern ment. 2 The protector, in the capital punishment of Gerard and Vowel, two royalists, who were accused of conspiring against his life, erected a high court of justice for this trial, an infringement of the ancient laws, which at this time was become familiar (7 Hume, 237, 238). Juries were found altogether unmanageable, and if no other method had been devised during this illegal and unpopular government, all its enemies were assured of entire impunity (Ibid.). 3 The country not only complained of the amount of taxation, but of the mode by which it was levied, and its corrupt appropriation. The sum of 300,000l. was openly taken and divided among the members (Clement Walker's Hist. of Independency, iii. 116). Committees, to whom the management of the different branches of revenue was entrusted, never brought in their accounts, and had unlimited power of secreting whatever sums they pleased from the public treasurer (Ibid. 8). These branches were needlessly multiplied, in order to render the revenue more intricate, to share the advantages among greater numbers, and to conceal the frauds of which they were universally suspected (Ibid. 7 Hume, 92. 19 Parl. Hist. 136, 176). The Protector, with his council, imposed a duty upon merchandise (the doing of which had been the principal offence of Charles I.), payment of which was refused by a person of the name of Cony, but, being levied by distress, an action was instituted against the collector. But Cromwell, in order to prevent the question being discussed, sent the plaintiff's three counsel to the Tower, and did not release them until they had abandoned their client. Sir Peter Wentworth having also commenced an action of a similar cause, was summoned before the council, and asked if he would give it up. "If you command me," he replied to Cromwell, "I must submit," which the protector did, and the action was withdrawn (Ludlow, 528). Clarendon relates the same story, with additional circumstances of Cromwell's audacious contempt for the courts of justice, and for the very name of Magna Charta (2 Hallam's Const. Hist. 342). So enormous were the charges of the commonwealth, arising from continual wars 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 (the clear annual income from the fee-farm rents amounted to 77,000. In 1651, 25,3007. of this income had been sold for 225,6501. Com. Journ. Jan. 8) 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 following succeeding years, the harvest had been reaped and gathered. Still some gleanings might remain; and in 1650, an act was passed 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 to forfeit their property, both real and personal, for the 1649-1685. truth, the people were made to exult in that power by which CHARLES II, they were kept in subjection, to regard their own glory as involved in that of their protector, and their own debasement and servitude as compensated by the almost absolute nature of his government. The ravages of the civil war had been such, that all classes had to mourn for the loss of a relative or friend, or, by the illegal sequestration of their estates', had been reduced from affluence to poverty. ciated with un The people discovered that republican liberty was associated Republican with uncompromising tyranny-the selfish rapacity of the liberty assoRump-the hypocritical despotism of the soldiers of a com- compromising monwealth—the rejection of members returned to serve in tyranny parliament-the arbitrary sequestration of committee-men benefit of the commonwealth. The fatal march of Charles to Worcester furnished grounds for a new proscription in 1652. First, nine-and-twenty, then 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. (Com. Journ. July 16, 1651; Aug. 4; Nov. 18, 1652. Scobell, 156, 210. 7 Lingard, 136, 137). If any of the last were papists, and afterwards disposed of their estates which they may have 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.) 4 One of their most iniquitous acts was the sale of the Earl of Craven's estate. He had been out of England during the war, and could not therefore be reckoned a delinquent. But evidence was offered that he had seen the king in Holland; and upon this charge, though he petitioned to be heard, and, as is said, indicted the informer for perjury, whereof he was convicted, they voted by thirty-three to thirty-one that his lands should be sold, Haslerig, the most savage zealot of the whole faction, being a teller for the ayes, Vane for the noes (Com. Journ. March 6, 1651, and June 22. 1652. 5 State Trials, 323). On the 20th July, in the same year, it was referred to a committee to select thirty delinquents, whose estates should be sold for the use of the navy. Thus long after the cessation of hostility, the royalists continued to stand in jeopardy, not only collectively, but personally, from this arbitrary and vindictive faction. Nor were these qualities displayed against the royalists alone; one Josiah Primatt, who seems to have been connected with Lilburne, Wildman, and the levellers, having presented a petition complaining that Sir Arthur Haslerig had violently dispossessed him of some collieries, the House, after voting every part of the petition to be false, adjudged him to pay a fine of 3000%. to the commonwealth, 20007. to Haslerig, and 20007. more to the commissioners for compositions (Com. Journ. Jan. 15, 1651-2. 2 Hallam's Const. Hist, 325). 5 Upon Dec. 6, 1648, the parliament having voted, by a majority of 129 against 83, that the king's concessions should be a foundation for the Houses to proceed upon in the settlement of the kingdom, adjourned to the next day but when the commons were to meet, Colonel Pride, formerly a dray |