General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 58

WAR WITH IRELAND.--The Commonwealth, like the ancient republic of Rome, seemed to gather strength and energy from the very mult.i.tude of surrounding dangers. Cromwell was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and sent into that country to crush a rising of the Royalists there. With his Ironsides he made quick and terrible work of the conquest of the island.

Having taken by storm the town of Drogheda (1649), he ma.s.sacred the entire garrison, consisting of three thousand men. About a thousand who had sought asylum in a church were butchered there without mercy. The capture of other towns was accompanied by ma.s.sacres little less terrible. The conqueror's march through the island was the devastating march of an Attila or a Zinghis Khan. The following is his own account of the manner in which he dealt with the captured garrisons: "When they submitted, their officers were knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest s.h.i.+pped for Barbadoes [to be sold into slavery]."

WAR WITH SCOTLAND.--Cromwell was called out of Ireland by the Council to lead an army into Scotland. The terror of his name went before him, and the people fled as he approached. At Dunbar he met the Scotch army. Before the terrible onset of the fanatic Roundheads the Scots were scattered like chaff before the wind (1650).

The following year, on the anniversary of the Battle of Dunbar, Cromwell gained another great victory over the Scottish army at Worcester, and all Scotland was soon after forced to submit to the authority of the Commonwealth. Prince Charles, after many adventurous experiences, escaped across the Channel into Normandy.

CROMWELL EJECTS THE LONG PARLIAMENT (1653).--The war in Scotland was followed by one with the Dutch. While this war was in progress Parliament came to an open quarrel with the army. Cromwell demanded of Parliament their dissolution, and the calling of a new body. 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 Lord has done with you." The soldiers rus.h.i.+ng in at a preconcerted signal, the hall was cleared, and the doors locked (1653).

In such summary manner the Long Parliament, or the "Rump Parliament," as it was called in derision after Pride's Purge, was dissolved, after having sat for twelve years. So completely had the body lost the confidence and respect of all parties, that scarcely a murmur was heard against the illegal and arbitrary mode of its dissolution.

THE LITTLE PARLIAMENT.--Cromwell now called a new Parliament, or more properly a convention, summoning, so far as he might, only religious, G.o.d- fearing men. The "Little Parliament," as generally called, consisted of 156 members, mainly religious persons, who spent much of their time in Scripture exegesis, prayer, and exhortation. Among them was a London leather-merchant, named Praise-G.o.d Barebone, who was especially given to these exercises. The name amused the people, and they nicknamed the Convention the "Praise-G.o.d Barebone Parliament."

The Little Parliament sat only a few months, during which time, however, it really did some excellent work, particularly in the way of suggesting important reforms. It at length resigned all its powers into the hands of Cromwell; and shortly afterwards his council of army officers, fearing the country would fall into anarchy, persuaded him--though manifesting reluctance, he probably was quite willing to be persuaded--to accept the t.i.tle of "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLIVER CROMWELL]

THE PROTECTORATE (1653-1659).--Cromwell's power was now almost unlimited.

He was virtually a dictator. His administration was harsh and despotic. He summoned, prorogued, and dissolved parliaments. The nation was really under martial law. Royalists and active Roman Catholics were treated with the utmost rigor. A censors.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.sacred, 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. He gave England the strongest, and in many respects the best, government she had had since the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.

CROMWELL'S DEATH.--Notwithstanding Cromwell was a man of immovable resolution and iron spirit, he felt sorely the burdens of his government, and was deeply troubled by the perplexities of his position. With his const.i.tution undermined by overwork and anxiety, fever attacked him, and with gloomy apprehensions as to the terrible dangers into which England might drift after his hand had fallen from the helm of affairs, he lay down to die, pa.s.sing away on the day which he had always called his "fortunate day"--the anniversary of his birth, and also the anniversary of his great victories of Dunbar and Worcester (Sept. 3, 1658).

RICHARD CROMWELL (1658-1659).--Cromwell with his dying breath had designated his son Richard as his successor in the office of the Protectorate. Richard was exactly the opposite of his father,--timid, irresolute, and irreligious. The control of affairs that had taxed to the utmost the genius and resources of the father was altogether too great an undertaking for the incapacity and inexperience of the son. No one was quicker to realize this than Richard himself, and after a rule of a few months, yielding to the pressure of the army, whose displeasure he had incurred, he resigned the Protectorate. Had he possessed one-half the energy and practical genius that characterized his father, the crown would probably have become hereditary in the family of the Cromwells, and their house might have been numbered among the royal houses of England.

THE RESTORATION (1660).--For some months after the fall of the Protectorate the country trembled on the verge of anarchy. The gloomy outlook into the future, and the unsatisfactory experiment of the Commonwealth, caused the great ma.s.s of the English people earnestly to desire the restoration of the Monarchy. Prince Charles, towards whom the tide of returning royalty was running, was now in Holland. A race was actually run between Monk, the leader of the army, and Parliament, to see which should first present him with the invitation to return to his people, and take his place upon the throne of his ancestors. Amid the wildest demonstrations of joy, Charles stepped ash.o.r.e on the island from which he had been for nine years an exile. As he observed the preparations made for his reception, and received from all parties the warmest congratulations, he remarked with pleasant satire, "It is my own fault that I did not come back sooner, for I find n.o.body who does not tell me he has always longed for my return."

1. _Puritan Literature_.

IT LIGHTS UP THE RELIGIOUS SIDE OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION.--No epoch in history receives a fresher ill.u.s.tration from the study of its literature than that of the Puritan Commonwealth. To neglect this, and yet hope to gain a true conception of that wonderful episode in the life of the English people by an examination of its outer events and incidents alone, would, as Green declares, be like trying to form an idea of the life and work of ancient Israel from the _Kings_ and the _Chronicles_, without the _Psalms_ and the _Prophets_. The true character of the English Revolution, especially upon its religious side, must be sought in the magnificent Epic of Milton and the unequalled Allegory of Bunyan.

Both of these great works, it is true, were written after the Restoration, but they were both inspired by the same spirit that had struck down Despotism and set up the Commonwealth. The Epic was the work of a lonely, disappointed Republican; the Allegory, of a captive Puritan.

Milton (1608-1674) stands as the grandest representative of Puritanism. He was the greatest statesman of the Revolution, the stoutest champion of English liberties against the tyranny of the House of Stuart. After the beheading of Charles I. he wrote a famous work in Latin, ent.i.tled _The Defence of the English People_, in which he justified the execution of the king.

The Restoration forced Milton into retirement, and the last fourteen years of his life were pa.s.sed apart from the world. It was during these years that, in loneliness and blindness, he composed the immortal poems _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_. The former is the "Epic of Puritanism." All that was truest and grandest in the Puritan character found expression in the moral elevation and religious fervor of this the greatest of Christian poems.

John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a Puritan non-conformist. After the Restoration, he was imprisoned for twelve years in Bedford jail, on account of non-conformity to the established wors.h.i.+p. It was during this dreary confinement that he wrote his _Pilgrim's Progress_, the most admirable allegory in English literature. The habit of the Puritan, from constant study of the Bible, to employ in all forms of discourse its language and imagery, is best ill.u.s.trated in the pages of this remarkable work.

III. THE RESTORED STUARTS.

1. _Reign of Charles the Second_ (1660-1685).

PUNISHMENT OF THE REGICIDES.--The monarchy having been restored in the person of Charles II, Parliament extended a general pardon to all who had taken part in the late rebellion, save most of the judges who had condemned Charles I. to the block. Thirteen of these were executed with the revolting cruelty with which treason was then punished, their hearts and bowels being cut out of their living bodies. 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." "With them," in the words of the historian Green, "Puritanism laid down the sword. It ceased from the long attempt to build up a kingdom of G.o.d by force and violence, and fell back on its truer work of building up a kingdom of righteousness in the hearts and consciences of men."

On the pretext, however, that the disturbed state of the realm demanded special precautions on the part of the government, Charles retained in his service three carefully chosen regiments, to which he gave the name of Guards. These, very soon augmented in number, formed the nucleus of the present standing army of England.

THE CONVENTICLE AND FIVE-MILE ACTS.--Early in the reign the services of the Anglican Church were restored by Parliament, and harsh laws were enacted against all non-conformists. Thus the Conventicle Act made it a crime punishable by imprisonment or transportation for more than five persons besides the household to gather in any house or in any place for wors.h.i.+p, unless the service was conducted according to the forms of the Established Church.

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 circ.u.mstance_, 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. This harsh act forced hundreds to give up their homes in the towns, and, with great inconvenience and loss, to seek new ones in out-of-the-way country places.

PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS.--In Scotland the attempt to suppress conventicles and introduce Episcopacy was stubbornly resisted by the Covenanters, who insisted on their right to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in their own way.

They were therefore subjected to most cruel and unrelenting persecution.

They were hunted by English troopers over their native moors and among the wild recesses of their mountains, whither they secretly retired for prayer and wors.h.i.+p. The tales of the suffering of the Scotch Covenanters at the hands of the English Protestants form a most harrowing chapter of the records of the ages of religious persecution.

THE FIRE, THE PLAGUE, AND THE DUTCH WAR.--The years from 1664 to 1667 were crowded with calamities,--with war, plague, and fire. The poet Dryden not inaptly calls the year 1666, in which the Great Fire at London added its horrors to those of pestilence and war, the _Annus Mirabilis_, or "Year of Wonders."

The war alluded to was a struggle between the English and the Dutch, which grew out of commercial rivalries (1664-1667). Just before the war began, the English treacherously seized the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam in America, and changed its name to New York in honor of the king's brother, the Duke of York.

Early in the summer of 1665 the city of London was swept by a woeful plague, the most terrible visitation the city had known since the Black Death in the Middle Ages (see p. 485). Within six months 100,000 of the population perished.

The plague was followed, the next year, by the great fire, which destroyed 13,000 houses, and a vast number of churches and public buildings. The fire was afterwards acknowledged to be, like the Great Fire at Rome in Nero's reign, a blessing in disguise. The burnt districts were rebuilt in a more substantial way, with broader streets and more airy residences, so that London became a more beautiful and healthful city than would have been possible without the fire.

CHARLES'S INTRIGUES WITH LOUIS XIV.--Charles inclined to the Catholic wors.h.i.+p, and wished to reestablish the Roman Catholic Church, because he thought it more favorable than the Anglican to such a scheme of government as he aimed to set up in England. 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. This state of the public mind led to a serious delusion and panic.

THE "POPISH PLOT" (1678).--A rumor was started that the Catholics had planned for England a St. Bartholomew ma.s.sacre. The king, the members of Parliament, and all Protestants were to be ma.s.sacred, the Catholic Church was to be reestablished, 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. One of these witnesses, t.i.tus Oates by name, a most infamous person, gained an extraordinary notoriety in exposing the imaginary plot. Many Catholics, convicted solely on the testimony of perjured witnesses, became victims of the delusion and fraud.

The excitement produced by the supposed plot led Parliament to pa.s.s what was called the Test Act, which excluded Catholics from the House of Lords.

(They had already been shut out from the House of Commons by the oath of Supremacy, which was required of commoners, though not of peers.) The disability created by this statute was not removed from them until the present century,--in the reign of George the Fourth.

ORIGIN OF THE WHIG AND TORY PARTIES.--Besides shutting Catholic peers out of Parliament, there were many in both houses who were determined to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. Those in favor of the measure of exclusion were called Whigs, those who opposed it Tories. [Footnote: For the meaning of the names Whig and Tory, see _Glossary_.] We cannot, perhaps, form a better general idea of the maxims and principles of these two parties than by calling the Whigs the political descendants of the Roundheads, and the Tories of the Cavaliers. Later, they became known respectively as Liberals and Conservatives.

THE KING'S DEATH.--After a reign of just a quarter of a century, Charles died in 1685, and was followed by his brother James, whose rule was destined to be short and troubled.

2. _Reign of James the Second_ (1685-1688).

JAMES'S DESPOTIC COURSE. [Footnote: James was barely seated upon the throne before the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II., who had been in exile in the Netherlands, a.s.serted his right to the crown, and at the head of a hundred men invaded England. Thousands flocked to his standard, but in the battle of Sedgemoor (1685) he was utterly defeated by the royal troops. Terrible vengeance was wreaked upon all in any way connected with the rebellion. The notorious Chief Justice Jeffries, in what were called the "b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes," condemned to death 320 persons, and sentenced 841 to transportation. Jeffries conducted the so-called trials with incredible brutality.]--James, like all the other Stuarts, held exalted notions of the divine right of kings to rule as they please, and at once set about carrying out these ideas in a most imprudent and reckless manner. Notwithstanding he had given most solemn a.s.surances that he would uphold the Anglican Church, he straightway set about the reestablishment of the Roman Catholic wors.h.i.+p. He arbitrarily prorogued and dissolved 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. Thinking to make friends of the Protestant dissenters, James issued a decree known as the Declaration of Indulgence, whereby he suspended all the laws against non- conformists. This edict all the clergy were ordered to read from their pulpits. Almost to a man they refused to do so. Seven bishops even dared to send the king a pet.i.tion and remonstrance against his unconst.i.tutional proceedings.

The pet.i.tioners were thrust into the Tower, and soon brought to trial on the charge of "seditious libel." The nation was now thoroughly aroused, and the greatest excitement prevailed while the trial was progressing.

Judges and jury were overawed by the popular demonstration, and the bishops were acquitted. The news of the result of the trial was received not only by the people, but by the army as well, with shouts of joy, which did not fail to reach even the dull ears of the king.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.--The crisis which it was easy to see was impending was hastened by the birth of a prince, as this cut off the hope of the nation that the crown upon James's death would descend to his daughter Mary, now wife of the Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland. The prospect of the accession in the near future of a Protestant and freedom loving Prince and Princess had reconciled the people to the misgovernment of their present despotic and Catholic sovereign. The appearance upon the stage of an infant prince gave a wholly different look to affairs, and, as we have said, destroyed all hope of matters being righted by the ordinary course of events.

This led the most active of the king's opponents to resolve to bring about at once what they had been inclined to wait to have accomplished by his death. They sent an invitation to the Prince of Orange to come over with such force as he could muster and take possession of the government, pledging him the united and hearty support of the English nation. William accepted the invitation, and straightway began to gather his fleet and army for the enterprise.

Meanwhile King James, in his blind and obstinate way, was rus.h.i.+ng on headlong upon his own destruction. He seemed absolutely blind to the steady and rapid drift of the nation towards the point of open resistance and revolution. At last, when the sails of the Dutch fleet were spread for a descent upon the English sh.o.r.es, then the infatuated despot suddenly realized that absolute ruin was impending over his throne. He now adopted every expedient to avert the threatened evil. He restored to cities the charters he had wrongfully taken from them, reinstated magistrates in the positions from which they had been unjustly deposed, attempted to make friends with the bishops, and promised to sustain the Anglican Church and rule in accordance with the const.i.tution of the realm.

All concessions and promises, however, were in vain. They came too late.

The king was absolutely deserted; army and people went over in a body to the Prince of Orange, whose fleet had now touched the sh.o.r.es of the island. Flight alone was left him. The queen with her infant child secretly embarked for France, where the king soon after joined her. 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.