P. V. N. Myers

“ The nation was really under martial law. Royalists and active Roman Catholics were treated with the utmost rigor. A censorship of the Press was established. Scotland was overawed by strong garrisons. The Irish Royalists, rising against the "usurper," were crushed with remorseless severity. Thousands were massacred, and thousands more were transported to the West Indies to be sold as slaves.
While the resolute and despotic character of Cromwell's government secured obedience at home, its strength and vigor awakened the fear as well as the admiration of foreign nations. ”

“ The Covenanters.—England was almost ready to rise in open revolt against the unbearable tyranny. Events in Scotland hastened the crisis. The king was attempting to impose the English liturgy (slightly modified) upon the Scotch Presbyterians. At Edinburgh this led to a riot, one of the women worshippers throwing a stool at the bishop who attempted to read the service. The spirit of resistance spread. All classes, nobles and peasants alike, bound themselves by a solemn covenant to resist to the very last every attempt to make innovations in their religion. ”

“ The arbitrary and despotic character which the government had now assumed in both civil and religious matters, and the hopelessness of relief or protection from the courts, caused thousands to seek in the New World that freedom and security which was denied them in their own land. ”

“ A majority in Parliament insisted upon taxing the colonists; the colonists maintained that taxation without representation is tyranny,—that they could be justly taxed only through their own legislative assemblies. ”

“ Since the Revolution of 1688 no one of that faith has worn the English crown.
The other provisions of the bill, following closely the language of the Declaration, forbade the king to levy taxes or keep an army in time of peace without the consent of Parliament; demanded that Parliament should be frequently assembled; reaffirmed, as one of the ancient privileges of both Houses, perfect freedom of debate; and positively denied the dispensing power of the crown, that is, the authority claimed by the Stuarts of exempting certain persons from the penalty of the law by a royal edict. ”

“ The "Popish Plot" (1678) .—A rumor was started that the Catholics had planned for England a St. Bartholomew massacre. The king, the members of Parliament, and all Protestants were to be massacred, the Catholic Church was to be reëstablished, and the king's brother James, the Duke of York, a zealous Catholic, was to be placed on the throne. Each day the reports of the conspiracy grew more exaggerated and wild. Informers sprang up on every hand, each with a more terrifying story than the preceding. ”

“ Russia, France, and Holland, all refused to have any communication with the ambassadors of the Commonwealth. The Scots, who too late repented of having surrendered their native sovereign into the hands of his enemies, now hastened to wipe out the stain of their disloyalty by proclaiming his son their king, with the title of Charles the Second. The impulsive Irish also declared for the Prince; while the Dutch began active preparations to assist him in regaining the throne of his unfortunate father. In England itself the Royalists were active and threatening. ”

“ This they refused; whereupon, taking with him a body of soldiers, Cromwell went to the House, and after listening impatiently for a while to the debate, suddenly sprang to his feet, and, with bitter reproaches, exclaimed: "I will put an end to your prating. Get you gone; give place to better men. You are no Parliament. ”

“ The standing army, which Charles had raised to 10,000 men, he increased to 20,000, and placed Catholics in many of its most important offices. He formed a league against his own subjects with Louis XIV. The High Commission Court of Elizabeth, which had been abolished by Parliament, he practically restored in a new ecclesiastical tribunal presided over by the infamous Jeffries (see note, below) .
The despotic course of the king raised up enemies on all sides. No party or sect, save the most zealous Catholics, stood by him. The Tory gentry were in favor of royalty, indeed, but not of tyranny. ”

“ The Government refusing to acknowledge this principle, the colonists took up arms in defence of those liberties which their fathers had won with so hard a struggle from English kings on English soil. The result of the war was the separation from the mother-land of the thirteen colonies that had grown up along the Atlantic seaboard,—and a Greater England began its independent career in the New World. ”

“ The "Divine Right" of Kings and the "Royal Touch."—With the end of the Tudor line (see p. 561) , James VI. of Scotland, son of Mary Stuart, came to the English throne, as James I. of England. The accession of the House of Stuart brought England and Scotland under the same sovereign, though each country still retained its own Parliament.
The Stuarts were firm believers in the doctrine of the "Divine Right" of kings. They held that hereditary princes are the Lord's anointed, and that their authority can in no way be questioned or limited by people, priest, or Parliament. ”

“ The king resolved to crush the movement by force, but he soon found that war could not be carried on without money, and was constrained to summon Parliament in hopes of obtaining a vote of supplies. But instead of making the king a grant of money, the Commons first gave their attention to the matter of grievances, whereupon Charles dissolved the Parliament. The Scottish forces crossed the border, and the king, helpless, with an empty treasury and a seditious army, was forced again to summon the two Houses. ”

“ The last act of the king before leaving England was to disband the army, and fling the Great Seal into the Thames, in order that no parliament might be legally convened.
The first act of the Prince of Orange was to issue a call for a Convention to provide for the permanent settlement of the crown. This body met January 22, 1689, and after a violent debate declared the throne to be vacant through James's misconduct and flight. They then resolved to confer the royal dignity upon William and his wife Mary as joint sovereigns of the realm. ”

“ We cannot overestimate the importance of this change in the English Constitution. It is this control of the purse of the nation which has made the Commons—for all money bills must originate in the Lower House—the actual seat of government, constituting them the arbiters of peace and war. By simply refusing to vote supplies, they can paralyze instantly the arm of the king. [6]
James attempts to recover the Throne: Battle of the Boyne (1690) .—The first years of William's reign were disturbed by the efforts of James to regain the throne which he had abandoned. ”

“ Ireland had had a Parliament of her own since the time of the conquest of the island by the English, but this Irish Parliament was dependent upon the English Parliament, which claimed the power to bind Ireland by its laws. ”

“ The Five-Mile Act forbade any non-conformist minister who refused to swear that it is unlawful to take arms against the king under any circumstance:, and that he never would attempt to make any change in Church or State government, to approach within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sending members to Parliament. ”

“ The revolt and reaction came, as come they must. Upon the Restoration, society swung to the opposite extreme. In place of the solemn-visaged, psalm-singing Roundhead, we have the gay, roistering Cavalier. Faith gives place to infidelity, sobriety to drunkenness, purity to profligacy, economy to extravagance, Biblestudy, psalm-singing and exhorting to theatre-going, profanity, and carousing.
The literature of the age is a perfect record of this revolt against the " sour severity " of Puritanism, and a faithful reflection of the unblushing immorality of the times. ”

“ This the Irish patriots strenuously denied, and now, under the lead of the eloquent Henry Grattan, drew up a Declaration of Rights, wherein they demanded the legislative independence of Ireland. The principle here involved was the same as that for which the English colonists in America were at this time contending with arms in their hands. Fear of a revolt led England to grant the demands of the Irish, and to acknowledge the independence of the Irish Parliament. ”

“ In the year 1670 he made a secret treaty with the French king, the terms and objects of which were most scandalous. In return for aid which he was to render Louis in an attack upon Holland, he was to receive from him a large sum of money; and in case his proposed declaration in favor of the restoration of the Catholic Church produced any trouble in the island, the aid of French troops. The scheme was never consummated; but these clandestine negotiations, however, becoming an open secret, made the people very uneasy and suspicious. ”

“ James's judges were servile enough to sustain him in this course, some of them going so far as to say that "the sea-ports are the king's gates, which he may open and shut to whom he pleases."
As to the privileges of the Commons, that body insisted, among other things, upon their right to determine all cases of contested election of their members, and to debate freely all questions concerning the common weal, without being liable to prosecution or imprisonment for words spoken in the House. ”

“ Others of the regicides were condemned to imprisonment for life. Death had already removed the great leaders of the rebellion, Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, beyond the reach of Royalist hate; so vengeance was taken upon their bodies. These were dragged from their tombs in Westminster Abbey, hauled to Tyburn in London, and there, on the anniversary of Charles's execution, were hanged, and afterwards beheaded (1661) .
The "New Model" is disbanded.—This same Parliament, mindful of how the army had ruled preceding ones, took care to disband, as soon as possible, the "New Model." " ”

“ The French kings were also supposed to possess the same miraculous power, inherited, as most believed, from Louis the Saint. ↑ Though son of the Catholic Mary Stuart, James had been educated as a Protestant. ↑ The first was a tribunal established by Henry VIII., and was now employed by Wentworth as an instrument for enforcing the king's despotic authority in the turbulent northern counties of England. The Star Chamber was a court of somewhat obscure origin, which at this time dealt chiefly with criminal cases affecting the government, such as riot, libel, and conspiracy. ”

“ The alarm created by the terrible plot led Parliament to enact some very severe laws against all the Roman Catholics of the realm.
Colonies and Trade Settlements.—The reign of James I. is signalized by the commencement of that system of colonization which has resulted in the establishment of the English race in almost every quarter of the globe. ”

“ A large portion of the writings of the era is in the form of political pamphlets, wherein all the resources of wit, satire, and literary skill are exhausted in defending or ridiculing the opposing principles and policies of Whig and Tory. ”

“ His regiment became famous under the name of "Cromwell's Ironsides." It was composed entirely of "men of religion." Swearing, drinking, and the usual vices of the camp were unknown among them. They advanced to the charge singing psalms. During all the war the regiment was never once beaten.
The Self-Denying Ordinance (1646) .—In the course of the war the Puritans, as has been said, became divided into two parties, the Presbyterians and the Independents. The former desired to reestablish a limited monarchy ”