ter, were men whose sufferings on the score of religion made them his enemies, and who never supported their assertions with any satisfactory proof; nor is it unde serving of remark, that, at the very same time the royalists suspected him of a secret connexion with the republicans, because he received their informations with an air of coldness, and with expressions of disbelief*. These reports and proceedings had, however, a considerable influence on the temper of the two houses, and turned their attention to the fate of the surviving regicides, who were still detained in prison. Of those who had been excepted from the penalty of death, all enjoying titles of honour were degraded; and three, the lord Monson, sir Henry Mildmay, and Robert Wallop, on the 30th of January, were pinioned upon hurdles, and drawn through the streets with halters round their necks to the gallows at Tyburn, and back again to prison. Of those who had surrendered in consequence of the proclamation, the punishment had been respited till 1662. further order of parliament. A bill for their immediate Jan. execution was now introduced, passed by the lower 27. 66 I am house, and sent to the lords; who read it once, examined except There still remained Vane and Lambert, who, though not actually guilty of the death of Charles I., were considered as fit objects of punishment. Lambert had been the last to draw the sword against the royal cause, and was still looked up to by the republicans as their nominal head. Vane, if he had incurred ridicule by his See Monkton's account. Lansdowne MSS. 988, f. 346. +C. Journ. 1661, July 1: 1662, Jan. 27; Feb. 1. 3. L. Journ. xi. 375. 380. Pepys, i. 243. See Clarendon's notes in Clar. Pap. iii. App. xlvi. CHAP IV.] TRIALS OF LAMBERT AND VANE. 223 5. extravagance as a religionist, was highly distinguished by his abilities as a statesman. In the first capacity, he had published books replete with pious fanaticism and unintelligible theology; in the latter he stood without a rival as to matters of finance and civil policy. To his counsels and foresight the cavaliers chiefly attributed the almost uniform success of their adversaries; but his great and unredeeming offence was one which, though never mentioned, could never be forgotten. He had been, at the beginning of the troubles, the cause of the death of Strafford, by communicating to Pym the document which he had purloined from his father's desk. There was, however, this peculiarity in the case both of Vane and Lambert, that, though the convention parliament had refused to except them from the penalty of 1660. death, yet, on account of the declaration from Breda, it Sept. had recommended them to mercy in the event of a conviction, and the recommendation had been favourably received and answered on this account by the king*. 1661. July Charles, was disposed to leave them in prison without fur- 1. ther molestation; but the house of commons ordered the attorney-general to bring them to trial, and by three suc- 1662. cessive addresses extorted the royal consent +. Their con- Feb. duct at the bar presented a singular contrast. Lambert, 19. who had so often faced his enemies in the field, trembled at the sight of a court of justice; Vane, who had never drawn the sword, braved with intrepidity the frowns and partiality of his judges. The first behaved with caution and modesty he palliated his opposition to Booth and Monk, by pretending that he was ignorant of their attachment to the house of Stuart; and appealed to the royal mercy, to which he thought himself entitled by the king's proclamation and answer to the address of the convention parliament. He received judgment of death; but was sent to the island of Guernsey, where he beguiled the hours of banishment by the cultivation C. Journ. Ang. 28, 1660; Sept. 5. L. Journ. xi. 156. +C. Journ. July 1; Nov. 22, 1661; Jan. 10; Feb. 19 1662. 66 of two arts in which he delighted, those of the florist June and the painter *. Vane, on the contrary, boldly main6. tained the principles which he had formerly advocated. He was, he said, no traitor. By the act which rendered the long parliament indissoluble without its own consent, the two houses were raised to a power equal and co-ordinate with that of the king, and possessed a right to restrain oppression and tyranny: by the war which followed between these equal authorities, the people were placed in a new and unprecedented situation, to which the former laws of treason could not apply: after the decision by the sword, a decision given by that God "who, being Judge of the whole world, does right, and cannot do otherwise," the parliament became de facto in possession of the sovereign authority, and whatever he had done in obedience to that authority was justifiable by the principles of civil government, and the statute of the 11th of Henry VII. He spoke with a force of reasoning and display of eloquence which surprised the audience and perplexed the court; and the judges were reduced to lay down this extraordinary doctrine, that Charles, in virtue of the succession, had been king de facto, and therefore in possession of the royal power from the moment of his father's death. Hitherto by a king in possession had been understood a king in the actual exercise of his authority, which Charles most certainly was not; but the judges supported their decision on the ground that he was the only person then claiming the royal power; a miserable sophism, since the authority, the exercise of which constitutes a king de facto, was actually possessed by the parliament which had abolished the very name and office of king †. To Charles his conduct on this occasion was repre Six years afterwards he was brought to the island of St. Nicholas, Plymouth, where he remained a prisoner till his death, about the end of March, 1684. + State Trials, vi. 119-186. But Vane did not merely obey the authority in actual exercise of the supreme power; he formed a part of that authority, keeping the king de jure out of possession. A.D. 1662.] TRANSACTIONS IN SCOTLAND. 225 sented as an additional offence, a studied vindication of rebellion, a public assertion that the houses of parliament were the only supreme power in the nation. He began to think Vane "too dangerous a man to let live, "if he could be honestly put out of the way:" and that scruple was removed by the sophistry of those who maintained that the king was no longer bound by the royal word; for even God himself refused forgiveness to the unrepenting sinner. Charles commuted the punishment of hanging for decapitation; and Vane submitted with cheerfulness to his fate. On the scaffold he displayed the same intrepid bearing which he had manifested at his trial, and was about to renew the advocacy of his principles to the spectators, when the trumpets were sounded in his face, and his notes were demanded and taken from him by the sheriff. He suffered on June Tower-hill. It was the spot where the blood of his vic- 14. tim, Strafford, had been shed; and there he also fell, an expiatory sacrifice to the manes of that nobleman. The one began, the other, after an interval of one-and-twenty years, closed, the list of proscription furnished by this period of civil discord *. From the restoration of the royal authority in England, we may turn to its re-establishment in Scotland and Ireland; which countries, as they had not been mentioned in the declaration from Breda, depended for their subsequent fate on the good pleasure of the sovereign. I. With respect to Scotland, the first question submitted to the royal consideration was, whether it should remain in its present state of an incorporated province, or be restored to its ancient dignity of an independent kingdom. By his English advisers Charles was reminded that the Scots were the original authors of the calamities which had befallen his family: they were now, indeed, a conquered and prostrate people; but let him beware Pepys, i. 275. See the letter of Charles to Clarendon, in Harris, v. 32. State Trials, vi. 187–198. Ludlow, iii. 89. VOL. XI. how he replaced them in a situation to display their accustomed obstinacy, and to renew their disloyal engagements. But the king cherished more kindly feelings towards the land of his fathers, and willingly acquiesced in the prayer of the Scottish lords, whom loyalty or interest had drawn to his court. The survivors of the committee of estates, whom he had named previously to his disastrous expedition into England in 1651, received orders to resume the government of Scotland; and the earl of Middleton was appointed lord commissioner, the earl of Glencairn lord chancellor, the earl of Lauderdale secretary of state, the earl of Rothes president of the council, and the earl of Crawford lord treasurer. The two first had repeatedly proved their loyalty in the field; the other three had suffered a long imprisonment for their services under the duke of Hamilton of the five, Middleton chiefly possessed the confidence of the English cabinet, though Lauderdale, from the pliancy of his temper, and his constant attendance on Charles, had won the personal affection of the monarch. In a short time a parliament was summoned to meet at Edinburgh*. The terrors of punishment for past delinquency had been held out as a warning to the prudence of the members; and the house was found to be composed of cavaliers by principle, or of proselytes eager to prove the sincerity of their new political professions. 1661. To obtain from such men a recognition of the legitimate Jan. rights of the sovereign was an easy task; but the commissioner had in view an object of more difficult attainment. In his opinion, the royal authority could never be secure till the church, by the restoration of the hierarchy, should be rendered dependent on the crown, and, for this purpose, he undertook to exalt the prerogative, to demolish the covenant and the pretensions which had 1. The proceedings of this parliament were afterwards called in question because the members neglected to sign the covenant, a condition required by a law theu in force, and declaring the constitution of parliament with out it null and void. Kirkton, 88. From the habitual intoxication of Middleton and his friends, it was called the drunken parliament. Id. |