CHAPTER XVIII.

Meeting of Parliament-Discontents-Public Accounts-Insurrection of Covenanters in Scotland -State of the Navy-Dutch Fleet at the Nore-Ships burnt in the Medway-Blockade of London-Peace with the Dutch-Clarendon deprived of Office-He is impeached-He leaves England-The Cabal Ministry-Treaty of Triple Alliance-Secret Negotiations of the king with Louis the Fourteenth.

in

THE flames of London were still smouldering when the Parliament met at Westminster on the 21st of September. The king said, "Little time hath passed, since we were almost in despair of having this place left us to meet ; you see the dismal ruins the fire hath made." There had been a prorogation for ten months. But money was wanting. "I desire," said Charles, "to put you to as little trouble as I can; and I can tell you truly, I desire to put you to as little cost as is possible. I wish with all my heart that I could have the whole charge of this war myself, and that my subjects should reap the benefit of it to themselves." No doubt it was very disagreeable that the king's subjects, being to be called upon to pay largely, should by any possibility take the liberty of asking what they were to pay for. Clarendon tells us of the somewhat dangerous temper which was spreading after the experience of six years and a half of the happy Restoration. "Though

292

PARLIAMENT PUBLIC ACCOUNTS.

[1666. they made the same professions of affection and duty to the king they had ever done, they did not conceal the very ill opinion they had of the Court and the continual riotings there."* They were tending to the accomplishment of Harrington's prophecy: "Well! The king will come in. Let him come in, and call a Parliament of the greatest Cavaliers in England, so they be men of estates, and let them sit but for seven years, and they will all turn Commonwealth's men." A bill was brought in for the appointment of Commissioners "to examine all accounts of those who had received or issued out any moneys for this war; and where they found any persons faulty, and who had broken their trust, they should be liable to such punishment as the Parliament should think fit." Sir George Carteret, and lord Ashley, who were chiefly aimed at, "both applied themselves to the king for his protection in this point. His majesty was no less troubled, knowing that both had issued out many sums upon his warrant, which he would not suffer to be produced." To such a bill the king was resolved never to give the royal assent. This is Clarendon's relation of the matter; and yet he is not ashamed to say that he urged the king "to prevent the excesses in Parliament, and not to suffer them to extend their jurisdiction to cases they have nothing to do with." Mr. Hallam says, "Such a slave was Clarendon to his narrow prepossessions, that he would rather see the dissolute excesses which he abhorred suck nourishment from that revenue which had been allotted to maintain the national honour and interests, and which, by its deficiencies thus aggravated, had caused even in this very year the navy to be laid up, and the coasts to be left defenceless, than suffer them to be restrained by the only power to which thoughtless luxury would submit." Every effort was made to oppose the bill; § and the Parliament was prorogued in 1667 without its being passed. Next year, 1668, the Parliament carried its salutary measure of control. A supply of £1,800,000 was granted; and at the prorogation the king said, "I assure you the money shall be laid out for the ends it is given."

The calamities which London had endured of Pestilence and Conflagration were not wholly unacceptable to the corrupt court. Clarendon informs us that there were those about the king, who assured him that the Fire "was the greatest blessing that God had ever conferred on him, his restoration only excepted; for the walls and gates being now burned and thrown down of that rebellious city, which was always an enemy to the Crown, his majesty would never suffer them to repair and build them up again, to be a bit in his mouth, and a bridle upon his neck; but would keep all open, that his troops might enter upon them whenever he thought it necessary for his service, there being no other way to govern that rude multitude but by force." Charles was not pleased with these suggestions, adds Clarendon. Desirable as it might be to have the Londoners under his feet at this time of their desolation, there was still the old spirit abroad in England. "Mr. Williamson stood, in a little place, to have come into the House of Commons, and they would not choose him; they said 'No courtier.' And, which is worse, Bab May went down in great state to Winchelsea with

* "Life."

+ "Constitutional History," c. 12.

Aubrey's "Lives," vol. ii. p. 373.
§ Ante, p. 244.

1666.]

TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE.

293

the duke of York's letters, not doubting to be chosen; and there the people chose a private gentleman in spite of him, and cried out they would have no court pimp to be their burgess; which are things that bode very ill."* The indiscretion of the king, to apply the least offensive term to his conduct, was sufficient to alienate the affection which had been so lavishly bestowed upon him, even if the people, with their bitter experience, stopped short of rebellion. There were large numbers of the humbler retainers of the royal household who, when Lady Castlemaine ordered of her tradesmen every jewel and service of plate that she fancied, and told her servant to send a note of their cost to the Privy Purse, were themselves absolutely starving. It sounds very like exaggeration when we read that one of the king's musicians, "Evans, the famous man upon the harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried by the alms of the parish." But this is not idle gossip of Mr. Pepys. There is an account in existence of "The state of the Treasurer of the Chamber, his office, at Midsummer, 1665," which shows the yearly payments due to officers of the king's household, and of the sums "behind unpaid." There were forty-two musicians, to whom their salaries had been due for three years and one quarter. High and low, the Bishop Almoner and the rat-killer, the Justice in Oyer beyond Trent and the bird-keeper, footmen, falconers, huntsmen, bear-warders, wardrobe officers, watermen, messengers, yeomen of the guard, and many others, useful or useless, had been "behind unpaid," some for five years, some for four years, some for three or two years, very few only for one year. To three apothecaries, more than 5000l. was due. That these persons, frequenting the coffee-houses or alehouses of London, did not spread abroad their griefs, cannot reasonably be imagined. A sullen discontent, a silent indignation, settled deep into the hearts of the whole community. If a sword had been drawn against the English people, there would have been another Civil War, with one certain result. Men were satisfied for twenty years longer to endure and murmur. "It is strange how everybody do now-a-days reflect upon Oliver, and commend him, what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him; while here a prince, come in with all the love and prayers and good-liking of his people, who have given greater signs of loyalty and willingness to serve him with their estates than ever was done by any people, hath lost all so soon, that it is a miracle what way a man could devise to lose so much in so little time." Not at all strange, Mr. Pepys, that the people looked back upon Oliver, and what brave things he did. But the vicissitudes of nearly twenty years-the dread of property becoming insecure the religious divisions-the respect for the monarchical principle, however degraded in the immediate wearer of the Crown-the love for the ancient Church, amidst all its pride and intolerance-these considerations kept Englishmen quiet. The government, moreover, was corrupt, but in England it was not cruel, beyond the cruelty of preventing men's religious opinions by statute. On this side the Tweed the government provoked little more than the contempt of those whom it fined and imprisoned for non-conformity. In Scotland, it drove them to desperation; and when they rebelled

Pepys, "Diary," October 21, 1666.

+ Preface to "Secret Services of Charles II. and James II." Camden Society.

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INSURRECTION OF COVENANTERS IN SCOTLAND.

[1666.

the thumbikin and the boot were ready to be administered to the victims, under the forms of justice by the apostate Lauderdale, or they were shot down and hanged by the brute Dalziel. The archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow hounded on the persecutors.

The restoration of the monarchy was, to Scotland the establishment of a policy of unmitigated despotism. The orders of the king and council in matters ecclesiastical were to have the force of laws. A large army was raised to hold the people in subjection, whilst episcopacy, which they abominated, was established, without any modification by general assemblies. The churches were deserted; and the non-conforming preachers had immense congregations in barns and fields; on wild heaths, and in the gorges of the mountains. The assemblies were dispersed by the soldiers; but no violence could put them down. Those who were most zealous had soldiers quartered in their houses, to grind out of them the fines which they were unwilling or unable to pay. In the West of Scotland, where the Non-conformists were most numerous and most determined, sir James Turner, a fitting instrument of tyranny, was sent to enforce obedience by mulcts and severer penalties, levied at his bidding by his rapacious dragoons. To a resolute and hardy population, maddened by injuries, and defiant of danger, resistance in arms seemed not only a worldly policy but a sacred duty. A body of Covenanters of the West marched to Dumfries, and seized sir James Turner. They were for the most part peasants, with a few Presbyterian ministers amongst them. But they were not ignorant of military discipline, and soon became alarming in their numbers and their subordination. About three thousand set off to march from Lanark to Edinburgh, but these bands gradually dwindled to eight or nine hundred. When they had reached within four miles of the city, they learnt that it was fortified, and its gates shut against them. They retreated to the Pentland Hills. On the evening of the 28th of November, Dalziel came upon them with a body of horse. Twice the insurgents drove back the cavalry; but their ranks were at last broken, and they were utterly dispersed. The slaughter was inconsiderable; but many were executed, and some tortured. "One Maccail, that was only a probationer preacher, and who had been chaplain in sir James Steward's house, had gone from Edinburgh to them; it was believed he was sent by the party in town, and that he knew their correspondents; so he was put to the torture, which in Scotland they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between these and the leg. The common torture was only to drive these in the calf of the leg; but I have been told they were sometimes driven upon the shin-bone. He bore the torture with great constancy; and either he could say nothing, or he had the firmness not to discover those who trusted him. Every man of them could have saved his own life, if he would accuse any other; but they were all true to their friends. Maccail, for all the pains of the torture, died in a rapture of joy: his last words were, farewell sun, moon, and stars-farewell kindred and friends-farewell world and timefarewell weak and frail body-welcome eternity-welcome angels and saints -welcome Saviour of the world, and welcome God the judge of all; which he spoke with a voice and manner that struck all that heard it." *

* Burnet's "History of his own Time."

1667.]

On the 31st of December, 1666, the official person who had the most intimate knowledge of the affairs of the navy thus writes in his Diary: "Thus ends this year of public wonder and mischief to this nation. Public matters in a most sad condition; seamen discouraged for want of pay, and are become not to be governed: nor, as matters are now, can any fleet go out next year. A sad, vicious, negligent court, and all sober men there fearful of the ruin of the whole kingdom this next year; from which, good God deliver us." * Such ships as were in commission were commanded by haughty young nobles, wholly ignorant of naval affairs. One of these fairweather captains, a son of lord Bristol, was heard to say that he hoped not to see "a tarpawlin "in command of a ship for a twelvemonth. The honest tarpawlins confessed that "the true English valour we talk of is almost spent and worn out."+ Direful calamities at the hands of the All-seeing had not broken the national spirit; but the infamous corruption of the higher classes was eating into the foundation of England's greatness. Her people were losing that masculine simplicity, that healthy devotion to public and private duties, that religious earnestness-intolerant, no doubt, but rarely simulated by the followers of Calvin or the followers of Arminius in the greatest heat of their conflicts-the English were losing that nationality, whose excess may be ludicrous, but whose utter want is despicable. Their high intellect was being emasculated by a corrupt literature. Science was groping in the dark under the auspices of the Royal Society; and Divinity was holding forth from orthodox pulpits on the excesses of the early Reformers, and the duty of non-resistance to kings deriving their power direct from Heaven. These follies probably did little harm; and men gradually shook off their delusions, and went forward to seek for experimental Science that had useful ends, and for practical Theology that would make them wiser and happier. But the corruptions of the Court soon worked upon the principles of the people,

tnrough a debasing popular Literature. The Drama had come back after an exile of twenty years. When the Drama was banished, Tragedy was still a queen wearing her purple and her pall; and the "wood-notes wild" of