CHAPTER III.

INDEPENDENCY AND THE RESTORATION; OR, DURING THE REIGNS OF CHARLES THE SECOND AND JAMES THE SECOND. 1660-1688.

THE old civil polity was now restored. It became what it had been when Charles the First fled from London, in 1642. To all appearance the intervening years had been spent in vain by a whole nation. The protracted struggle, in which so much blood had been shed, and so many heroic deeds had been performed in the name of liberty, seemed to be without issue. If any change was observable in the condition of the people generally, it was apparently for the worse. The very nation which had put itself into a posture of resolute antagonism to Charles the First, welcomed with open arms, and without any guarantee of liberty, his treacherous and dissolute son.

season.

Great deeds, however, are not always to be judged of by their immediate results. The commonwealth period sowed the seeds which were to spring up in due The conflicts of that remarkable age were not absolutely fruitless. It might take more than one reign of effeminacy and of vice to commend to an entire people the noble principles and lofty aims, brought into public view, for the first time, in the days of Oliver Cromwell; but a Charles and a James the Second prepared for that revolution, under Wil

liam the Third, from which the advancement of British liberties under a constitutional monarchy begins.

The change which passed over the nation at this period, completely reversed the position of the Independents. Together with the presbyterians, they had occupied the highest offices of the state. While catholics and episcopalians had been held in subordination, they were to be seen in the "high places of the earth." At Hampton Court, Windsor, Whitehall; in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin; in parliament, in the courts of law, in the public institutions throughout the kingdom; in the city, and all inferior corporations, and in cathedral and parish churches; presbyterians and Independents had held the first places and were the men of chief note. Now, all was changed. With Charles the Second's accession, parties resumed their old relative positions. The presbyterians, for a short time, fawned and tried to curry favour; but in vain. Charles's promises at Breda were a mere pretence, which he never thought of fulfilling so soon as his ends were gained. Some of the parties who had been the most zealous in seeking his restoration, were the first to experience his vindictiveness; and, together with the Independents, were doomed to pass through many years of privation and suffering.

The promise respecting liberty of conscience, contained in the declaration of Breda, was to the following effect: "And because the passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions in religion, by which men are engaged in parties and animosities against each other, which, when they shall hereafter unite in a freedom of conversation, will be composed or better understood, we do declare a liberty

to tender consciences; and that no man shall be disquieted, or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom; and that we shall be ready to consent to such an act of parliament, as, upon mature deliberation, shall be offered unto us, for the full granting that indulgence." At this very time, however, and from the commencement of his reign, a persecution was going on against both baptists and quakers. In August, 1660, the churches in North Wales, where Vavasor Powell had laboured with so much success, were ordered to be broken up. In September, the House of Lords gave instructions for the suppression of their meetings in Northamptonshire. The same conduct was pursued in Kent, more especially at Chatham, Dover, and Canterbury, where many were imprisoned. The Lincolnshire baptists petitioned his Majesty in July, to interfere on their behalf, and complained bitterly of the treatment they had received. "We have been much abused," they said, "as we pass in the streets, and as we sit in our houses; being threatened to be hanged, if but heard praying to the Lord in our families, and disturbed in our so waiting upon God, by uncivil beating at our doors, and sounding of horns; yea, we have been stoned when going to our meetings, the windows of the place where we have been met, struck down with stones; yea, taken as evildoers, and imprisoned, when peaceably met together to worship the Most High.'

Such was the condition of affairs, before the ecclesiastical position of the country was publicly settled ; and although in October, the king put forth a further declaration, promising relief to tender consciences, and * Crosby, 11, 19-32.; Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. 292.

a cessation of persecution, the baptists and others still suffered. In the following November, the famous John Bunyan was apprehended while preaching, and imprisoned in Bedford jail, where he found two other ministers, and more than sixty dissenting brethren. It was during this period of illegal persecution, that the baptists published several of their pleas in behalf of toleration.*

Charles had also promised in The Declaration of Breda, "a free and general pardon to all our subjects, of what degree or quality soever, who, within forty days after the publishing hereof, shall lay hold upon this our grace and favour;" and that " no crime whatsoever committed against us, or our royal family, before the publication of this, shall ever rise in judgment, or be brought in question, against any of them." On the strength of this promise, the parliament and people of England welcomed a tyrant to the British throne. He soon found means to break his word. The declaration had a clause which " ехсерted" such persons as should be determined upon by parliament; and such was the delirium of both Lords and Commons, that when Charles was actually restored, they hastened to please him by shedding innocent blood. Twenty-nine persons were tried for having been implicated in the late king's death, ten of whom suffered the extremest penalty. These were Harrison, Carew, Scroope, Jones, Clement, Scot, Hugh Peters, Cooke, Axtel, and Hacker. This cold-blooded and wholesale murder, for which there was no justifying plea whatever, was attended by the most shocking

* An humble Petition and Representation, by the Anabaptists. 1660. A Plea for Toleration, 1661. Sion's Groans for her Distressed; or sober Endeavours to prevent innocent Blood, &c. 1661.

VOL. IV.

barbarity; thus affording an early proof of the real character of that change through which the treachery of Monk had conducted the nation.*

* An interesting account of the execution of Harrison, Carew, &c., is furnished in an original letter, found amongst the papers of Mr. James, of Bristol, and deposited in the library of the Baptist Academy in that city.

"London, that dismal, bloody, and never-to-be-forgotten 13th of the 8th month, 1660.

"This sad day have the enemy prevailed to shed the blood of the innocent, according to the cursed sentence of this cursed generation; for dear Harrison was, about eight this morning, brought out of Newgate, drawn on a sledge to Charing Cross, where, by ten, they had hanged and quartered him.

"He went with as cheerful a countenance as ever I saw him, and held out so to the end. His speech was very short, but very heavenly; encouraging still to own the cause of Christ, which he would revive. Said they did not know what they did; that he was fully assured of the love of the Lord; that the Lord would in due time own and justify him, in that for which he was condemned.

"Carew is very cheerful, not daunted nor terrified with his enemies. This day five are condemned."

Pepys, in his diary of October 13, 1660, records Harrison's execution. "I went out," he writes, "to Charing Cross, to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition."

Chief Baron Bridgeman pronounced the sentence of the court, the terms of which were, "that his entrails should be taken out of his body while living, and burnt before his eyes."

Mr. Justice Cooke wrote in a manful strain from the Tower, vindicating the parliament and the army, "that they sought the public good, and would have enfranchised the people, if the nation had not more delighted in servitude than freedom."

Drs. Barwick and Dolben were appointed to visit these condemned regicides, for the purpose of bringing them to "repentance before God, of that horrid crime." A particular account is given, in the life of Barwick, by his brother, of the success of these royal and episcopal messengers of mercy. It is worthy of note, that