Anonymous

“ The Lord Mayor and Council plighted their troth with him and the officers, he was invited to dine at the Guildhall, and all the bells in the City were set ringing in exultation. The Corporation attended the general to his lodgings amid the acclamations and the bonfires of the people, at which they roasted rumps in ridicule of the Parliament, and heaped on it every infamy which wit and ribaldry could devise. This coup d'état awoke the Parliament to their blunder; they had made an enemy of the very man and army into whose hands they had put a power which could instantly crush them. ”

“ We are everywhere met by admirable writing, and a finely-sustained tone, but we travel on without encountering those original characters that can never again be forgotten, and become a part of our world, or those exquisite gushes of poetry and poetic scenery which, like the music of Ariel, ring in the memory long afterwards. At the same time we are continually offended by extreme grossness and jarred by slovenliness and incongruity. They are of the class of great and able playwrights who command the popularity of their age, but whom future ages praise and neglect ”

“ Everywhere men magnified his valour, genius, and patriotism. Everywhere it was remembered how, when he ruled, all foreign powers had trembled at the name of England; how the States-General, now so haughty, had crouched at his feet, and how, when it was known that he was no more, Amsterdam was lighted up for a great deliverance, [225] and children ran along the canals, shouting for joy that the 'Devil' was dead. Even Royalists exclaimed that the State could be saved only by calling the old soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. Soon the capital began to feel the miseries of a blockade. ”

“ A little more time must have placed him at the head of the army, and, with such a right-hand man as Cromwell, must have soon terminated the campaign. His death seemed like a general defeat, and struck the deepest and most lasting sorrow into the public mind. Time has only increased the veneration for the name of John Hampden, which has become the watchword of liberty, and the object of popular appeal in every great crisis of his country's history. ”

“ Nothing could be more brave and determined than Monmouth and his peasant soldiers. But day was now breaking, the cavalry of Feversham, and the infantry of Churchill, were bearing down on their flanks from different quarters, and Monmouth, then seeing that his defeat was inevitable, forgot the hero and rode off to save his life, leaving his brave, misguided followers to their fate. If anything could have added to the base ignominy of Monmouth's desertion of his adherents, it was the undaunted courage which they showed even when abandoned. ”

“ The Commons hated him because he had uniformly endeavoured to repress their authority. He never could be brought to see the enlarged influence which the progress of wealth and intelligence had given to the Commons; nor had all that had passed under his eyes of their extraordinary power under Charles I., awakened him to the knowledge of their real position in the State. In vain did more clear-sighted men point out to him the concessions which were necessary to enable the Parliament and the Government to move on harmoniously together. ”

“ In the Grand Committee there was a general silence for a good space of time, one looking on the other, to see who would venture to propose the only real remedy for getting rid of the Essexes and Manchesters out of the army, when Cromwell arose and proposed the celebrated Self-denying Ordinance. It is now time to speak, he said, or for ever hold the tongue. They must save the dying nation by casting off all lingering proceedings, like those of the soldiers of fortune beyond the sea, who so pursued war because it was their trade. ”

“ But the soldiers and the lower officers, with John Lilburne at their head, claimed a Republic in its more popular sense. They read in the Bible, and preached from it in the field, that God was no respecter of persons; that human rights were as universal as the human race. They saw that Cromwell, Ireton, Harrison, and a few others were the men who ruled in the Parliament, the Council, and the Army; and they conceived that they were no longer seeking the common rights of the community, but the aggrandisement of themselves. ”

“ As we have seen the great example to the nations of the responsibility of kings, we have now to see an equally significant one of the impossibility of maintaining long any form of government that is not based on the mature opinion and attachment of the people. Republicanism was not the faith of England in the seventeenth century, and therefore neither the despotism of Charles could create a republic with any permanence in it, nor the strenuous grasp of Cromwell maintain it beyond the term of his own existence. ”

“ As to the dismissal of the Long Parliament, he had been forced to that by its endeavouring to perpetuate itself, and by its tyranny and corruption. He said "that poor men, under its arbitrary power, were driven like flocks of sheep, by forty on a morning, to the confiscation of goods and estates, without any man being able to give a reason why two of them had deserved to forfeit a shilling." ”

“ It was in vain that both James and Charles issued repeated proclamations to prohibit fresh building of houses, and to order the nobility and gentry to live more on their estates in the country, and not in London, in habits of such extravagance, and drawing together so much loose company after them. From the union of the crowns of Scotland and England, this rapid increase of the metropolis, so alarming to those kings, was more than ever visible. ”

“ Van Tromp and De Ruyter sailed to and fro at the mouth of the river, and along the coast from the North Foreland to the Isle of Wight, in triumph, and then convoyed home the Dutch and French fleets. There was huge rejoicing in Holland over the great English admiral, which, considering the immense inequality of the fleets, was really an honour to Blake, for it showed how they esteemed his genius and courage. The whole of Holland was full of bravado at blocking up the Thames, and forcing the English to an ignominious peace. ”

“ We have seen with what a desolating sweep the bloody conflicts of the Parliament against the encroachments of kingship prostrated the pursuits of literature and art. We might have expected that the return to established tranquillity under restored monarchy would have caused a new spring of genius. But in no reign in England, and in no country except France, have debauchery and the most hideous grossness so defiled the productions of poetry and the drama. ”

“ James on the throne of England would be a very different person to James on the throne of Ireland only. In the one case, if he succeeded, he might ere long become independent of Louis; if he failed, the English Protestant king would soon subdue Ireland to his sway. But if James continued only monarch of Ireland, he must continue wholly dependent on Louis. He could only maintain himself there by his aid in men and money, and then Ireland would become gradually a French colony—a dependence most flattering to the pride and power of France—a perpetual thorn in the side of England. ”

“ Perhaps the whole history of the world does not furnish a more infamous bargain, not even the partition of Poland in later days. Here was a King of England selling himself to the French monarch for money, to enable him to put down Protestantism and Parliament in Britain, to do all and more than his father lost his head for attempting—for Charles I. never plotted against the Protestant religion. This was bad enough, but the bargain went to enable France to put its foot on the neck of England, and to employ its forces to destroy Protestantism abroad—Protestantism and liberty ”

“ On the 26th he landed at Dover, where, amid the thunder of cannon, he was received by Monk at the head of a splendid assemblage of the nobility and gentry. From Dover to Canterbury, and thence to London, the journey was one triumphant procession. The crowds of gentry and of shouting people presented only the aspect of a most loyal nation, amongst whom it was hard to imagine that such a thing as a Commonwealth had ever existed. On Blackheath Charles was received by the army with acclamations. ”

“ A fresh stimulus was given to the malice of that clique; every means was used to excite hatred of the Government of William, and to increase the partisans of James. With such a termagant spirit as Lady Marlborough, and such a plotting spirit as that of her husband, a strong feeling was excited against the queen, who was represented as totally without heart, as having usurped the throne of her father, and sought to strip her sister of her most valued friendships. Amidst such an atmosphere of malice and detraction William was compelled to leave the queen. ”

“ The whole country was a scene of violence, confusion, and distress. Such was the state of Ireland and of James's Court when, as we have seen, Schomberg landed with his army at Carrickfergus on the 23rd of August, and roused James, his Court, and the whole country to a sense of their danger, and of the necessity for one great and universal effort. A spirit of new life seemed to animate them, and James, receiving fresh hope from the sight, marched from Dublin at the head of his troops to encounter Schomberg. ”

“ The same breath which gave a decree of religious liberty, annihilated every other liberty, and made the whole nation dependent on the will of one man. But whilst thus sweeping away all the labours of all past Parliaments at his pleasure, he with an inconsistency which betrayed a secret feeling that the power of Parliament was not so easily set aside, even then contemplated calling Parliament together if he could have but a prospect that it would confirm what he had done in Scotland, and proposed immediately to do in England. ”

“ In the reign of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, we had such women as the daughters of Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, Catherine Parr, and others, who cultivated literature and philosophy, the Queens Mary and Elizabeth themselves setting the example in reading and translating the most illustrious classical authors. But after James came in, notwithstanding all his learned pedantry, you hear nothing more of such tastes amongst the Court ladies, and it is very singular that amid that blaze of genius which distinguished the time under review, we find no traces of feminine genius there. ”

“ Such was the enthusiasm of the inhabitants that Peterborough proposed to make a forced march right for Madrid at once, and set Charles on the throne without further delay, declaring that he was confident of taking the capital by a coup de main; and there is little doubt but he would have succeeded had he had the sole command. But such daring projects, the flashes of genius, only confound matter-of-fact men; the plan was looked on as little short of madness, the adventure was overruled, the fleet sailed, and on the 22nd arrived in the bay of Barcelona. ”

“ And truly the wholesale corruption of his Parliament and ministers served to give some force to their anticipations. Hardly ever was there a time when dishonesty and peculation, hideous as they have been in some periods of our Government were more gross, general, and unblushing than amongst the boasted Whigs who had brought about the Revolution. From the highest to the lowest they were insatiably greedy, unprincipled, and unpatriotic—if want of patriotism is evidenced by abusing the institutions and betraying the honour of the nation. ”

“ The spirit of the House was high against a standing army. All the old arguments were produced—that a standing army was totally inconsistent with the liberties of the people; that the moment you put the sword into the hands of mercenaries, the king became the master of the rights of the nation, and a despot. They asked, "If a standing army were to be maintained, what should they have gained by the revolution?" The Tories, who were anxious to damage the Whigs, and the Jacobites, who were anxious to damage William's government altogether, were particularly eloquent on these topics. ”

“ Charles had now complied with the demands of the Scottish Parliament, agreeing to take the Covenant, never to tolerate the Catholic religion in any part of his dominions, not even in Ireland, where the Catholics were a majority; to govern entirely by the authority of Parliament, and in religious matters by that of the Kirk. Thus did this man, for the sake of regaining the throne of one of his kingdoms, bind himself to destroy the religion of which he was at heart a believer, and to maintain a creed that he abhorred and despised. ”

“ From his lucrative station as keeper of Anne's purse, person, and conscience, through his clever and unprincipled wife, Marlborough watched intently the temper of the nation. He saw that there was an intense jealousy of the Dutch, not only amongst the people on account of trade and national rivalry, but in the Parliament and aristocracy, on account of William's preference for his Dutch friends. Bentinck, Ginkell, Overkirk, and Zulestein were the only men in whom he reposed entire confidence. ”

“ The most populous and lately busy streets were grass-grown; the people who walked through them kept along the middle, except they were meeting others, and then they got as far from each other as possible. Amid all this horror, the sight of ghastly death, and the ravings of delirium, whilst some brave souls devoted themselves to the assistance of the suffering and dying, crowds of others rushed to taverns, theatres, and places of debauch, and a strange maniacal mirth startled the silence of the night, and added horror to the work of death. ”

“ Ludlow, Whitelock, Hutchinson, and others, felt that such was the spirit growing in him; and many of those who had most admired his genius fell away from him, and openly denounced his ambitious intentions as they became more obvious. The excellent Colonel Hutchinson and Sir Henry Vane charged him with the ruin of the Commonwealth. But Cromwell must have long felt that nothing but a military power could maintain the ascendency of those principles which he and his fellow Independents entertained and held sacred. The world was not prepared for them. ”

“ They cared little for the fate of Ireland, their views and wishes were fixed on England. In the north, as soon as Londonderry was put down, it was easy for James to go across to Scotland, there to commence the campaign for the recovery of the English crown. But this was the very thing which his Irish partisans dreaded. They felt certain that if James recovered the English throne, they should be left to contend with the colonists of Ulster themselves; and the victorious ascendency of that small but sturdy body of people was too vividly burnt into their minds by ages of their domination. ”

“ But it was when he was old, and poor, and blind, and living among the hatred and the ribald obscenity of the Restoration, that he had scaled those sublime altitudes of genius, and seemed to walk on the celestial hills amid their pure and glorious inhabitants, rather than on earth surrounded by rankest impurities and basest natures. ”

“ Thirty thousand lives sacrificed in one battle! Neither Blenheim nor Ramillies could compare with Malplaquet in monstrosity of carnage. Nor was the impression produced equal to the destruction. The French, under the able command of Villars, notwithstanding their defeat, felt rather reassured than depressed. They had inflicted far more damage than they had received; and Villars declared that, had he not been so severely wounded, he would not have left the field without the victory. ”

“ Athol had not only been a violent partisan of James, but had fawned on William immediately on his arrival, and, being coldly received, had wheeled round again. Hamilton was chosen president; and the moment this was discovered twenty of the Jacobites instantly went over to the stronger side. It was a striking fact that in Scotland, while the great body of the people had stood to the death for their principles, the nobility had become so corrupt through compliance with the corrupt Court, and in eagerness for office, that public principle was at the lowest ebb amongst them. ”

“ John was no sooner despatched by Parliament to the Hague as ambassador, than, perceiving the immense advantage which Holland obtained from being the great carriers of Europe, he drew and got passed the celebrated Navigation Act, which—providing that no produce of Africa, Asia, or America, nor of any English colony should be imported into England except in English ships, and that the manufactures or merchandise of no country in Europe should be imported except in English ships, or the ships of the nation where they were produced—at once transferred an enormous maritime business to England. ”

“ If James persisted in his right to the throne, in what capacity was William to be received? Could any safe measures be arranged with a man like James? Was he to be deposed, and his son-in-law and daughter forcibly placed on his throne? The dilemma was equally embarrassing to the lords and prelates, and to the prince himself. When the messenger was introduced, and delivered a letter from James, but without any address, Halifax moved that they should instantly adjourn, and thus leave the letter unnoticed. ”