Andrew Marvell Part 10

One of the attendants upon the amba.s.sador made a small book out of his travels, which did not get printed till 1669, when it attracted little notice. Mr. Grosart was the first of Marvell's many biographers to discover the existence of this narrative.[106:1] He found it in the first instance, to use his own language, "in one of good trusty John Harris' folios of _Travels and Voyages_" (two vols. folio, 1705); but later on he made the sad discovery that this "good trusty John Harris"

had uplifted what he called his "true and particular account" from the book of 1669 without any acknowledgment. "For ways that are dark" the old compiler of travels was not easily excelled, but why should Mr.

Grosart have gone out of his way to call an eighteenth-century book-maker, about whom he evidently knew nothing, "good and trusty"?

Harris was never either the one or the other, and died a pauper!

A journey to Moscow in 1663-64 was no joke. Lord Carlisle, who was accompanied by his wife and eldest son, although ready to start from Archangel by the end of September, was doomed to spend both the 5th of November and Christmas Day in the gloomy town of Vologda, which they had reached, travelling by water, on the 17th of October. Some of this time was spent in quarrelling as to who was to supply the sledges that were required to convey the amba.s.sador and all his _impedimenta_ along the now ice-bound roads to Moscow. It was one of Marvell's many duties to remonstrate with the authorities for their cruel and disrespectful indifference; he did so with great freedom, but with no effect, and at last the amba.s.sador was obliged to hire two hundred sledges at his own charges. Sixty he sent on ahead, following with one hundred and forty on the 15th of January 1664. It was an intensely cold journey, and the accommodation at night, with one happy exception, proved quite infamous.

On the 3rd of February Lord Carlisle and his _cortege_ found themselves five versts from Moscow. The 5th of February was fixed for their entry into the city in all their finery. They were ready on the morning of that day, awaiting the arrival of the Tsar's escort, but it never came.

Lord Carlisle had sent his cooks on to Moscow to prepare the dinner he expected to eat in his city-quarters. Nightfall approached, and it was not till "half an hour before night" that the belated messengers arrived, full of excuses. The amba.s.sador was hungry, cold, and furious, nor did his anger abate when told he was not to be allowed to enter Moscow that night, as the Tsar and his ladies were very anxious to enjoy the spectacle. The return of the cooks from Moscow and the preparation of dinner, though a mitigation, was no cure for wounded pride, and Lord Carlisle, calling Marvell to his side, and with his a.s.sistance, concocted a letter in Latin to the Tsar, complaining bitterly of their ill-treatment _inter fumosi gurgustii sordes et angustias sine cibo aut potu_, and going so far as to a.s.sert that had anything of the kind happened in England to a foreign amba.s.sador, the King of England would never have rested until the offence had been atoned for with the blood of the criminals. When, some forty years afterwards, Peter the Great asked Queen Anne to chop off the heads of the rude men who had arrested his amba.s.sador for debt, he had, perhaps, Marvell's letter before him.

On the 6th of February Lord Carlisle and his suite made their public entry into Moscow; but so long a time was occupied over the few versts they had to travel, that it was dusk before the Kremlin was reached.

The formal reception of the amba.s.sador was on the 11th of February.

Marvell was in the amba.s.sador's sledge and carried his credentials upon a yard of red damask. The t.i.tles of the Russian Potentate would, if printed here, fill half a page. All the Russias, Great, Little, and White, emperies more than one, dukedoms by the dozen, territories, countries, and dominions--not all easy to identify on the map, and very hard to p.r.o.nounce--were read out in a loud voice by Marvell. At the end of them came the homely t.i.tle of the Earl and his offices, "his Majesty's Lieutenant in the Counties of c.u.mberland and Westmorland."

The letters read and delivered, the Tsar and his Boyars rose in their places simultaneously, and their tissue vests made so strange, loud, and unexpected a noise as to provoke the ever too easily moved risibility of the Englishmen.[109:1] When Marvell and the rest of them had ceased from giggling, the Tsar inquired after the health of the king, but the distance between his Imperial Majesty and Lord Carlisle being too great for the question to carry, it had to be repeated by those who were nearer the amba.s.sador, who gravely replied that when he last saw his master, namely on the 20th of July then last past, he was perfectly well. To the same question as to the health of "the desolate widow of Charles the First," Carlisle returned the same cautious answer. He then read a very long speech in English, which his interpreter turned into Russian. The same oration was rendered into Latin by Marvell, and presented. Over Marvell's Latin trouble arose, for the Russians were bent on taking and giving offence. Marvell had styled the Tsar _Ill.u.s.trissimus_ when he ought, so it was alleged, to have called him _Serenissimus_. Marvell was not a schoolmaster's son, an old scholar of Trinity, and Milton's a.s.sistant as Latin Secretary for nothing. He prepared a reply which, as it does not lack humour, has a distinct literary flavour, and is all that came of the emba.s.sy, may here be given at length:--

"I reply, saith he, that I sent no such paper into the Emba.s.sy-office, but upon the desire of his Tzarskoy Majesty's Councellor Evan Offona.s.sy p.r.o.nchissof, I delivered it to him, not being a paper of State, nor written in the English Language wherein I treat, nor put into the hands of the near Boyars and Councellors of his Tzarskoy majesty, nor subscribed by my self, nor translated into Russe by my Interpreter, but only as a piece of curiosity, which is now restored me, and I am possessed of it; so that herein his Tzarskoy majestie's near Boyars and Councellors are doubtless ill grounded. But again I say concerning the value of the words _Ill.u.s.trissimus_ and _Serenissimus_ compared together, seeing we must here from affaires of State, fall into Grammatical contests concerning the Latin tongue; that the word _Serenus_ signifieth nothing but still and calm; and, therefore, though of late times adopted into the t.i.tles of great Princes by reason of that benigne tranquility which properly dwells in the majestick countenance of great Princes, and that venerable stillness of all the Attendants that surround them, of which I have seen an excellent example when I was in the presence of his Tzarskoy majesty, yet is more properly used concerning the calmness of the weather, or season. So that even the night is elegantly called _Serena_ by the best Authors, Cicero in Arato 12, Lucretius i. l. 29. '_Serena nox_'; and upon perusing again what I have writ in this paper, I finde that I have out of the customariness of that expression my self near the beginning said, And that most serene night, &c. Whereas on the contrary _Ill.u.s.tris_ in its proper derivation and signification expresseth that which is all resplendent, lightsome, and glorious, as well without as within, and that not with a secondary but with a primitive and original light.

For if the Sun be, as he is, the first fountain of light, and Poets in their expressions (as is well known) are higher by much than those that write in Prose, what else is it when Ovid in the 2. of the Metamorphoses saith of Phoebus speaking with Phaethon, _Qui terque quaterque concutiens Ill.u.s.tre caput_, and the Latin Orators, as Pliny, Ep. 139, when they would say the highest thing that can be exprest upon any subject, word it thus, _Nihil Ill.u.s.trius dicere possum_. So that hereby may appear to his Tzarskoy Majestie's near Boyars and Counsellors what diminution there is to his Tzarskoy Majesty (which farr be it from my thoughts) if I appropriate _Serenissimus_ to my Master and _Ill.u.s.trissimus_ to Him than which _nihil dici potest Ill.u.s.trius_. But because this was in the time of the purity of the Latin tongue, when the word _Serenus_ was never used in the t.i.tle of any Prince or Person, I shall go on to deale with the utmost candor, forasmuch as in this Nation the nicety of that most eloquent language is not so perfectly understood, which gives occasion to these mistakes. I confess therefore that indeed in the declination of the Latin tongue, and when there scarce could be found out words enough to supply the modern ambition of t.i.tles, Serenissimus as several other words hath grown in fas.h.i.+on for a compellation of lesser as well as greater Princes, and yet befits both the one and the other. So there is _Serenissima Respublica Veneta_, _Serenitates Electoriae_, _Serenitates Regiae_, even as the word Highness or _Celsitudo_ befits a Duke, a Prince, a King, or an Emperour, adjoyning to it the respective quality, and so the word _Ill.u.s.tris_. But suppose it were by modern use (which I deny) depressed from the undoubted superiority that it had of _Serenus_ in the purest antiquity, yet being added in the transcendent degree to the word Emperour, the highest denomination that a Prince is capable of, it becomes of the same value. So that to interpret _Ill.u.s.trissimus_ unto diminution is to find a positive in a superlative, and in the most orient light to seek for darkness. And I would, seeing the near Boyars and Counsellors of his Tzarskoy Majesty are pleased to mention the t.i.tle given to his Tzarskoy Majesty by his Cesarian Majesty, gladly be satisfied by them, whether ever any Cesarian Majesty writ formerly hither in High-Dutch, and whether then they styled his Tzarskoy Majesty Durchluchtigste which is the same with _Ill.u.s.trissimus_, and which I believe the Caesar hath kept for Himself. But to cut short, his Royal Majesty hath used the word to his Tzarskoy Majesty in his Letter, not out of imitation of others, although even in the Dutch Letter to his Tzarskoy Majesty of 16 June 1663, I finde Durchlauchtigste the same (as I said) with _Ill.u.s.trissimus_, but out of the constant use of his own Court, further joyning before it Most High, Most Potent, and adding after it Great Lord Emperour, which is an higher t.i.tle than any Prince in the World gives his Tzarskoy Majesty, and as high a t.i.tle of honour as can be given to any thing under the Divinity. For the King my Master who possesses as considerable Dominions, and by as high and self-dependent a right as any Prince in the Universe, yet contenting Himself with the easiest t.i.tles, and satisfying Himself in the essence of things, doth most willingly give to other Princes the t.i.tles which are appropriated to them, but to the Tzarskoy Majesties of Russia his Royal Ancestors, and to his present Tzarskoy Majesty his Royal Majesty himself, have usually and do gladly pay t.i.tles even to superfluity out of meer kindness. And upon that reason He added the word most Ill.u.s.trious, and so did I use it in the Latin of my speech. Yet, that You may find I did not out of any criticisme of honor, but for distinction sake use it as I did, You may see in one place of the same speech _Serenitas_, speaking of his Tzarskoy Majesty: and I would have used _Serenissimus_ an hundred times concerning his Tzarskoy Majesty, had I thought it would have pleased Him better. And I dare promise You that his Majesty will upon the first information from me stile him _Serenissimus_, and I (notwithstanding what I have said) shall make little difficulty of altering the word in that speech, and of delivering it so to You, with that protestation that I have not in using that word _Ill.u.s.trissimus_ erred nor used any diminution (which G.o.d forbid) to his Tzarskoy Majesty, but on the contrary after the example of the King my Master intended and shewed him all possible honor. And so G.o.d grant all happiness to His most high, most Potent, most Ill.u.s.trious, and most Serene Tzarskoy Majesty, and that the friends.h.i.+p may daily increase betwixt His said Majesty and his most Serene Majesty my Master."

On the 19th of February the Tsar invited Lord Carlisle and his suite to a dinner, which, beginning at two o'clock, lasted till eleven, when it was prematurely broken up by the Tsar's nose beginning to bleed. Five hundred dishes were served, but there were no napkins, and the table-cloths only just covered the boards. There were Spanish wines, white and red mead, Puaz and strong waters. The English amba.s.sador was not properly placed at table, not being anywhere near the Tsar, and his faithful suite shared his resentment. Time went on, but no diplomatic progress was made. The Tsar would not renew the privileges of the British merchants; Easter was spent in Moscow, May also--and still nothing was done. Carlisle, in a huff, determined to go away, and, somewhat to the distress of his followers, refused to accept the costly sables sent by the Tzar, not only to the amba.s.sador, Lady Carlisle, and Lord Morpeth, but to the secretaries and others. The Tzar thereupon returned the plate which our king had sent him, which plate Lord Carlisle seems to have appropriated, no doubt with diplomatic correctness, as his perquisite in lieu of the sables; but the suite got nothing.

The emba.s.sy left Moscow on the 24th of June for Novgorod and Riga, and after visiting Stockholm and Copenhagen, Lord Carlisle and Marvell reached London on the 30th of January 1665.

During Marvell's absence war had been declared with the Dutch. It was never difficult to go to war with the Dutch. The king was always in want of money, and as no proper check existed over war supplies, he took what he wanted out of them. The merchants on 'Change desired war, saying that the trade of the world was too little for both England and Holland, and that one or the other "must down." The English manufacturers, who felt the sting of their Dutch compet.i.tors, were always in favour of war. Then the growing insolence of the Dutch in the Indies was not to be borne.

Stories were circulated how the Hollanders had proclaimed themselves "Lords of the Southern Seas," and meant to deny English s.h.i.+ps the right of entry in that quarter of the globe. A baronet called on Pepys and pulled out of his pocket letters from the East Indies, full of sad tales of Englishmen having been actually thrashed inside their own factory at Surat by swaggering Dutchmen, who had insulted the flag of St. George, and swore they were going to be the masters "out there." Pepys, who knew a little about the state of the royal navy, listened sorrowfully and was content to hope that the war would not come until "we are more ready for it."

In the House of Commons the prudent men were against the war, and were at once accused of being in the pay of the Dutch. The king's friends were all for the war, and n.o.body doubted that some of the money voted for it would find its way into their pockets, or at all events that pensions would reward their fidelity. A third group who favoured the war were supposed to do so because their disloyalty and fanaticism always disposed them to trouble the waters in which they wished to fish.

The war began in November 1664, and on the 24th of that month the king opened Parliament and demanded money. He got it. Clarendon describes how Sir Robert Paston from Norfolk, a back-bench man, "who was no frequent speaker, but delivered what he had a mind to say very clearly," stood up and proposed a grant of two and a half million pounds, to be spread over three years. So huge a sum took the House by surprise. n.o.body spoke; "they sat in amazement." Somebody at last found his voice and moved a much smaller sum, but no one seconded him. Sir Robert Paston ultimately found supporters, "no man who had any relation to the Court speaking a word." The Speaker put Sir Robert Paston's motion as the question, "and the affirmative made a good sound, and very few gave their negative aloud." But Clarendon adds, "it was notorious very many sat silent."

The war was not in its early stages unpopular, being for the control of the sea, for the right of search, for the fis.h.i.+ng trade, for mastery of the "gorgeous East." The Admiralty had been busy, and a hundred frigates, well gunned, were ready for the blue water by February 1665.

The Duke of York, who took the command, was a keen sailor, though his unhappy notions as to patronage, and its exercise, were fatal to an efficient service. On the 3rd of June the duke had his one victory; it was off the roadstead of Harwich, and the roar of his artillery was heard in Westminster. It was a fierce fight; the king's great friend, Charles Berkeley, just made a peer and about to be made a duke, Lord Muskerry and young Richard Boyle, all on the duke's s.h.i.+p the _Royal Charles_, were killed by one shot, their blood and brains flying in the duke's face. The Earls of Marlborough and Portland were killed. The gallant Lawson, who rose from the ranks in Cromwell's time, an Anabaptist and a Republican, but still in high command, received on board his s.h.i.+p, the _Royal Oak_, a fatal wound. On the other side the Dutch admiral, Opdam, was blown into the air with his s.h.i.+p and crew. The Dutch fleet was scattered, and fled, after a loss estimated at twenty-four s.h.i.+ps and eight thousand men killed and wounded; England lost no s.h.i.+p and but six hundred men.

The victory was not followed up. Some say the duke lost nerve. Tromp was allowed to lead a great part of the fleet away in safety, and when the great De Ruyter was recalled from the West Indies he was soon able to a.s.sume the command of a formidable number of fighting craft.

In less than ten days after this great engagement the plague appeared in London, a terrible and a solemnising affliction, lasting the rest of the year. It was at its worst in September, when in one week more than seven thousand died of it. The total number of its dead is estimated at sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six.

On account of the plague Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford in October 1665.

Marvell must have reached Oxford in good time, for the Admission Book of the Bodleian records his visit to the library on the last day of September. His first letter from Oxford is dated 15th October, and in it he tells the corporation that the House, "upon His Majesty's representation of the necessity of further supplies in reference to the Dutch War and probability of the French embracing their interests, hath voted the King 1,250,000 additional to be levied in two years." The king, who was the frankest of mortals in speech, though false as Belial in action, told the House that he had already spent all the money previously voted and must have more, especially if France was to prefer the friends.h.i.+p of Holland to his. Amidst loud acclamations the money was voted. The French amba.s.sadors, who were in Oxford, saw for themselves the temper of Parliament.

Notwithstanding the terrible plight of the capital, Oxford was gaiety itself. The king was accompanied by his consort, who then was hopeful of an heir, and also by Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart. Lady Castlemaine did not escape the shaft of University wit, for a stinging couplet was set up during the night on her door, for the discovery of the authors.h.i.+p of which a reward of 1000 was offered. It may very well have been Marvell's.[116:1]

The Duke of Monmouth gave a ball to the queen and her ladies, where, after the queen's retirement, "Mrs. Stewart was extraordinary merry,"

and sang "French songs with great skill."[116:2]

Ten Acts of Parliament received the royal a.s.sent at Oxford, of which but one is still remembered in certain quarters--the Five Mile Act, which Marvell briefly describes as an Act "for debarring ejected Nonconformists from living in or near Corporations (where they had formerly pursued their callings), unless taking the new Oath and Declaration." Parliament was prorogued at the end of October.

Another visitation of Providence was soon to befall the capital. On Sunday morning, the 2nd of September, Pepys was aroused by one of his maid-servants at 3 A.M. to look at a fire. He could not make out much about it and went to bed again, but when he rose at seven o'clock it was still burning, so he left his house and made his way to the Tower, from whence he saw London Bridge aflame, and describes how the poor pigeons, loth to leave their homes, fluttered about the balconies, until with singed wings they fell into the flames. After gazing his fill he went to Whitehall and had an interview with the king, who at once ordered his barge and proceeded downstream to his burning City, and to the a.s.sistance of a distracted Lord Mayor.

The fire raged four days, and made an end of old London, a picturesque and even beautiful City. St. Paul's, both the church and the school, the Royal Exchange, Ludgate, Fleet Street as far as the Inner Temple, were by the 7th of the month smoking ruins. Four hundred streets, eighty-nine churches (just a church an hour, so the curious noted), warehouses unnumbered with all their varied contents, whole editions of books, valuable and the reverse of valuable, were wiped out of existence. Rents to an enormous amount ceased to be represented any longer by the houses that paid them. How was the king to get his chimney-money? How were merchants to meet their obligations? The parsons on Sunday, the 9th of September, ought to have had no difficulty in finding texts for their sermons. Pepys went to church twice, but without edification, and certainly Dean Harding, whom he heard complaining in the evening "that the City had been reduced from a folio to a duo decimo," hardly rose to the dignity of the occasion.

Strange to say, not a life was actually lost in the fire,[118:1] though some old Londoners (among them Edmund Calamy's grandfather) died of grief, and others (and among them s.h.i.+rley the dramatist and his wife) from exposure and exhaustion. One hysterical foreigner, who insisted that he lit the flame, was executed, though no sensible man believed what he said. It was long the boast of the merchants of London that no one of their number "broke" in consequence of the great fire.

Unhappily the belief was widespread, as that "tall bully," the monument, long testified, that the fire was the work of the Roman Catholics, and aliens, suspected of belonging to our old religion, found it dangerous to walk the streets whilst the embers still smoked, which they continued to do for six months.

The meeting of Parliament was a little delayed in consequence of this national disaster, and when it did meet at the end of the month, Marvell reports the appointment of two Committees, one "about the Fire of London," and the other "to receive informations of the insolence of the Popish priests and Jesuits, and of the increase of Popery." The latter Committee almost at once reported to the House, to quote from Marvell's letter of the 27th of October, "that his Majesty be desired to issue out his proclamation that all Popish priests and Jesuits, except such as not being natural-born subjects, or belong to the Queen Mother and Queen Consort, be banished in thirty days or else the law be executed upon them, that all Justices of Peace and officers concerned put the laws in execution against Papists and suspected Papists in order to their execution, and that all officers, civil or military, not taking the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance within twenty days be displaced."

In a very real sense the great fire of London continued to smoke for many a weary year, and to fill the air with black suspicions and civil discord.

Parliament had not sat long before it was discovered that a change had taken place in its temper and spirit. The plague and the fire had contributed to this change. The London clergy had not exhibited great devotion during the former affliction. Many of the inc.u.mbents deserted their flocks, and their empty pulpits had been filled by zealots, who preached "Woe unto Jerusalem." The profligacy of the Court, and the general decay of manners, when added to the severity of the legislation against the Nonconformists, gave the ejected clergy opportunities for a renewal of their spiritual ministrations, and as usual their labours, _pro salute animarum_, aroused political dissatisfaction. Some of the more outrageous supporters of the royal prerogative, the renegade May among them, professed to see in the fire a punishment upon the spirit of freedom, for which the City had once been famous, and urged the king not to suffer it to be rebuilt again "to be a bit in his mouth and a bridle upon his neck, but to keep it all open," and that his troops might enter whenever he thought necessary, "there being no other way to govern that rude mult.i.tude but by force."

Rabid nonsense of this kind had no weight with the king, who never showed his native good sense more conspicuously than in the pains he took over the rebuilding of London; but none the less it had its effect in getting rid once and for ever of that spirit of excessive (besotted is Hallam's word) loyalty which had characterised the Restoration.

The king, of course, wanted money, nor was Parliament disposed to refuse it, we being still at war with Holland; but to the horror of that elderly pedant, Lord Clarendon, the Commons pa.s.sed a Bill appointing a commission of members of both Houses "to inspect"--I am now quoting Marvell--"and examine thoroughly the former expense of the 2,800,000, of the 1,250,000 of the Militia money, of the prize goods, etc." In an earlier letter Marvell attributes the new temper of Parliament, "not to any want of ardour to supply the public necessities, but out of our House's sense also of the burden to be laid upon the subject." Clarendon was so alarmed that he advised a dissolution. Charles was alarmed, too, knowing well that both Carteret, the Treasurer of the Navy, and Lord Ashley, the Treasurer of the Prize Money, issued out many sums upon the king's warrant, for which no accounts could be produced, but he was still more frightened of a new Parliament. In the present Parliament he had, so Clarendon admits, "a hundred members of his own menial servants and their near relations." The bishops were also against a dissolution, dreading the return of Presbyterian members, so Clarendon's advice was not followed, and the king very reluctantly consented to the commission, about which Pepys has so much to say. It did not get appointed at once, but when it did Pepys rejoices greatly that its secretary, Mr. Jessopp, was "an old fas.h.i.+oned Cromwell man"; in other words, both honest and efficient.

The shrewd Secretary of the Navy Office here puts his finger on the real plague-spot of the Restoration. Our Puritan historians write rather loosely about "the floodgates of dissipation," etc., having been flung open by that event as if it had wrought a sudden change in human nature.

Mr. Pepys, whose frank Diary begins during the Protectorate, underwent no such change. He was just the same sinner under Cromwell as he was under Charles. Sober, grave divines may be found deploring the growing profligacy of the times long before the 29th of May 1660. An era of extravagance was evidently to be expected. No doubt the king's return a.s.sisted it. No country could be anything but the worse for having Charles the Second as its "most religious King." The Restoration of the Stuarts was the best "excuse for a gla.s.s" ever offered to an Englishman.

He availed himself of it with even more than his accustomed freedom. But it cannot be said that the king's debauchery was ever approved of even in London. Both the mercurial Pepys and the grave Evelyn alike deplore it. The misfortune clearly attributable to the king's return was the subst.i.tution of a corrupt, inefficient, and unpatriotic administration for the old-fas.h.i.+oned servants of the public whom Cromwell had gathered round him.

Parliament was busy with new taxes. In November 1666 Marvell writes:--

"The Committee has prepared these votes. All persons shall pay one s.h.i.+lling per poll, all aliens two, all Nonconformists and papists two, all servants one s.h.i.+lling in the pound of their wages, all personal estates shall pay for so much as is not already taxed by the land-tax, after twenty s.h.i.+llings in the hundred. Cattle, corn, and household furniture shall be excepted, and all such stock-in-trade as is already taxed by the land-tax, but the rest to be liable."

Stringent work! Later on we read:--

"Three s.h.i.+llings in the pound for all offices and public employments, except military; lawyers and physicians proportionate to their practice."

Here is the income-tax long before Mr. Pitt.

The House of Lords, trembling on the verge of a breach of privilege, altered this Poll Bill. Marvell writes in January 1667:--

"We have not advanced much this week; the alterations of the Lords upon the Poll Bill have kept us busy. We have disagreed in most.

Aliens we adhere to pay double. Nonconformists we agree with them _not_ to pay double (126 to 91), to allow no exemptions from patents to free from paying, we adhere; and we also rejected a long clause whereby they as well as the Commoners pretend distinctly to give to the King, and to-day we send up our reasons."

The Lords agreed, and the Bill pa.s.sed.

Ireland supplied a very stormy measure. I am afraid Marvell was on the wrong side, but owing to his reserve I am not sure. An Irish Cattle Bill was a measure very popular in the House of Commons, its object being to prevent Ireland from sending over live beasts to be fattened, killed, and consumed in England. You can read all about it in Clarendon's _Life_ (vol. iii. pp. 704-720, 739), and think you are reading about Canadian cattle to-day. The breeders (in a majority) were on one side, and the owners of pasture-land on the other. The breeders said the Irish cattle were bred in Ireland for nothing and transported for little, that they undersold the English-bred cattle, and consequently "the breed of Cattle in the Kingdom was totally given over," and rents fell. Other members contended in their places "that their countries had no land bad enough to breed, and that their traffic consisted in buying lean cattle and making them fat, and upon this they paid their rent." n.o.body, except the king, gave a thought to Ireland. He, in this not unworthy of his great Tudor predecessor, Henry the Eighth, declared he was King of Ireland no less than of England, and would do nothing to injure one portion of his dominions for the benefit of another. But as usual he gave way, being in great straits for money. The House of Lords was better disposed towards Ireland than the House of Commons, but they too yielded to selfish clamour, and the Bill, which had excited great fury, became law, and proved ineffective, owing (as was alleged) to that corruption which restrictions on trade seem to have the trick of breeding.[123:1]

It is always agreeable to be reminded that however large a part of our history is composed of the record of pa.s.sion, greed, delusion, and stupidity, yet common-sense, the love of order and of justice (in matters of business), have usually been the predominant factors in our national life, despite priest, merchant, and party.

Nowhere is this better ill.u.s.trated than by two measures to which Marvell refers as Bills "for the prevention of lawsuits between landlord and tenant" and for "the Rebuilding of London." Both these Bills became law in February 1668, within five months of the great catastrophe that was their occasion. Two more sensible, well-planned, well-drawn, courageous measures were never piloted through both Houses. King, Lords and Commons, all put their heads together to face a great emergency and to provide an immediate remedy.

The Bill to prevent lawsuits is best appreciated if we read its preamble:--

"Whereas the greatest part of the houses in the City of London having been burnt by the dreadful and dismal fire which happened in September last, many of the Tenants, under-tenants, and late occupiers are liable unto suits and actions to compel them to repair and to rebuild the same, and to pay their rents as if the same had not been burnt, and are not relievable therefor in any ordinary course of law; and great differences are likely to arise concerning the Repairs and rebuilding the said houses, and payment of rents which, if they should not be determined with speed and without charge, would much obstruct the rebuilding of the s^d City. And for that it is just that everyone concerned should bear a proportionate share of this loss according to their several interests wherein in respect of the mult.i.tude of cases, varying in their circ.u.mstances, no certain general rule can be prescribed."

After this recital it was enacted that the judges of the King's Bench and Common Pleas and the Barons of the Exchequer, or any three or more of them, should form a Court of Record to hear and determine every possible dispute or difference arising out of the great fire, whether relating to liability to repair, and rebuild, or to pay rent, or for arrears of rent (other than arrears which had accrued due before the 1st of September) or otherwise howsoever. The proceedings were to be by summary process, _sine forma et figura judicii_ and without court fees.

The judges were to be bound by no rules either of law or equity, and might call for what evidence they chose, including that of the interested parties, and try the case as it best could be tried. Their orders were to be final and not (save in a single excepted case) subject to any appeal. All persons in remainder and reversion were to be bound by these orders, although infants, married women, idiots, beyond seas, or under any other disability. A special power was given to order the surrender of existing leases, and to grant new ones for terms not exceeding forty years. The judges gave their services for nothing, and, for once, released from all their own trammels, set to work to do substantial justice between landlord and tenant, personalty and realty, the life interest and the remainder, covenantor and covenantee, after a fas.h.i.+on which excited the admiration and won the confidence of the whole City. The ordinary suitor, still left exposed to the pitfalls of the special pleader, the risks (owing to the exclusion of evidence) of a non-suit and the costly c.u.mbersomeness of the Court of Chancery, must often have wished that the subject-matter of his litigation had perished in the flames of the great fire.