Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 21

[482] This curious fact appears for the first time, I believe, in the _Clarendon State Papers_, unless it is anywhere intimated in Carte's collection of the Ormond letters. In the former collection we find several allusions to it; the first is in a letter from Rumbold, a royalist emissary, to Hyde, dated Dec. 2, 1658, p. 421; from which I collect Lord Fauconberg's share in this intrigue; which is also confirmed by a letter of Mordaunt to the king, in p. 423. "The Lord Falconbridge protests that Cromwell is so remiss a person that he cannot play his own game, much less another man's, and is thereby discouraged from acting in business, having also many enemies who oppose his gaining either power or interest in the army or civil government, because they conceive his principles contrary to theirs.

He says, Thurloe governs Cromwell, and St. John and Pierrepont govern Thurloe; and therefore is not likely he will think himself in danger till these tell him so, nor seek a diversion of it but by their councils." Feb. 10, 1659. These ill-grounded hopes of Richard's accession to their cause appear in several other letters, and even Hyde seems to have given in to them. 434, 454, etc. Broderick, another active emissary of the royalists, fancied that the three above-mentioned would restore the king if they dared (477); but this is quite unlikely.

[483] P. 469. This was carried on through Colonel Henry Cromwell, his cousin. It is said that Richard had not courage to sign the letters to Monk and his other friends, which he afterwards repented. 491. The intrigues still went on with him for a little longer. This was in May 1659.

[484] _Clarendon State Papers_, 434, 500 _et post_; Thurloe, vi. 686.

See also an enigmatical letter to Henry Cromwell, 629, which certainly hints at his union with the king; and Carte's _Letters_, ii. 293.

[485] _Clarendon State Papers_, 552, 556, etc.

[486] Clarendon confesses (_Life_, p. 20) that the cavaliers disliked this whole intrigue with the presbyterians, which was planned by Mordaunt, the most active and intelligent agent that the king possessed in England. The former, doubtless, perceived that by extending the basis of the coalition, they should lose all chance of indemnity for their own sufferings: besides which, their timidity and irresolution are manifest in all the Clarendon correspondence at this period. See particularly 491, 520.

[487] Willis had done all in his power to obstruct the rising.

Clarendon was very slow in believing this treachery, of which he had at length conclusive proofs. 552, 562.

[488] _Id._ 514, 530, 536, 543.

[489] _Clarendon Papers_, 425, 427, 458, 462, 475, 526, 579. It is evident that the catholics had greater hopes from the duke than from the king, and considered the former as already their own. A remarkable letter of Morley to Hyde, April 24, 1659, p. 458, shows the suspicions already entertained of him by the writer in point of religion; and Hyde is plainly not free from apprehension that he might favour the scheme of supplanting his brother. The intrigue might have gone a great way, though we may now think it probable that their alarm magnified the danger. "Let me tell you," says Sir Antony Ashley Cooper in a letter to Hyde, "that Wildman is as much an enemy now to the king as he was before a seeming friend; yet not upon the account of a commonwealth, for his ambition meets with every day repulses and affronts from that party; but upon a finer spun design of setting up the interest of the Duke of York against the king; in which design I fear you will find confederated the Duke of Bucks, who perhaps may draw away with him Lord Fairfax, the presbyterians, levellers, and many catholics. I am apt to think these things are not transacted without the privity of the queen; and I pray G.o.d that they have not an ill influence upon your affairs in France."--475. Buckingham was surmised to have been formally reconciled to the church of Rome. 427.

Some supposed that he, with his friend Wildman, were for a republic.

But such men are for nothing but the intrigue of the moment. These projects of Buckingham to set up the Duke of York are hinted at in a pamphlet by Shaftesbury or one of his party, written about 1680.

_Somers Tracts_, viii. 342.

[490] Hyde writes to the Duke of Ormond: "I pray inform the king that Fleetwood makes great professions of being converted, and of a resolution to serve the king upon the first opportunity." Oct. 11, 1659. Carte's _Letters_, ii. 231. See _Clarendon State Papers_, 551 (Sept. 2) and 577. But it is said afterwards, that he had "not courage enough to follow the honest thoughts which some time possess him"

(592, Oct. 31), and that Manchester, Popham, and others, tried what they could do with Fleetwood; but "though they left him with good resolutions, they were so weak as not to continue longer than the next temptation."--635 (Dec. 27).

[491] _Id._ 588; Carte's _Letters_, ii. 225.

[492] Lord Hatton, an old royalist, suggested this humiliating proposition in terms scarcely less so to the heir of Cerdic and Fergus. "The race is a _very good gentleman's family_, and kings have condescended to marry subjects. The lady is pretty, of an extraordinary sweetness of disposition, and very virtuously and ingenuously disposed; the father is a person, set aside of his unhappy engagement, of very great parts and n.o.ble inclinations."--_Clarendon State Papers_, 592. Yet, after all, Miss Lambert was hardly more a mis-alliance than Hortense Mancini, whom Charles had asked for in vain.

[493] _Biogr. Brit._ art. Monk. The royalists continued to entertain hopes of him, especially after Oliver's death. _Clarendon Papers_, iii. 393, 395, 396. In a sensible letter of Colepepper to Hyde, Sept.

20, 1658, he points out Monk as able alone to restore the king, and not absolutely averse to it, either in his principles or affections; kept hitherto by the vanity of adhering to his professions, and by his affection to Cromwell, the latter whereof is dissolved both by the jealousies he entertained of him, and by his death, etc. _Id._ 412.

[494] Thurloe, vii. 387. Monk wrote about the same time against the Earl of Argyle, as not a friend to the government. 584. Two years afterwards he took away his life as being too much so.

[495] If the account of his chaplain, Dr. Price, republished in Maseres' _Tracts_, vol. ii., be worthy of trust, Monk gave so much encouragement to his brother, a clergyman, secretly despatched to Scotland by Sir John Grenvil, his relation, in June 1659, as to have approved Sir George Booth's insurrection, and to have been on the point of publis.h.i.+ng a declaration in favour of it. P. 718. But this is flatly in contradiction of what Clarendon a.s.serts, that the general not only sent away his brother with no hopes, but threatened to hang him if he came again on such an errand. And, in fact, if anything so favourable as what Price tells us had occurred, the king could not fail to have known it. See _Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 543. This throws some suspicion on Price's subsequent narrative (so far as it professes to relate the general's intentions); so that I rely far less on it than on Monk's own behaviour, which seems irreconcilable with his professions of republican principles. It is, however, an obscure point of history, which will easily admit of different opinions.

The story told by Locke, on Lord Shaftesbury's authority, that Monk had agreed with the French amba.s.sador to take on himself the government, wherein he was to have the support of Mazarin, and that his wife, having overheard what was going forward, sent notice to Shaftesbury, who was thus enabled to frustrate the intrigue (Locke's Works, iii. 456), seems to have been confirmed lately by Mr.

D'Israeli, in an extract from the ma.n.u.script memoirs of Sir Thomas Browne (_Curiosities of Literature_, N. S. vol. ii.), but in terms so nearly resembling those of Locke, that it seems to be an echo. It is certain, as we find by Phillips's continuation of Baker's _Chronicle_ (said to be a.s.sisted, in this part, by Sir Thomas Clarges, Monk's brother-in-law), that Bourdeaux, the French amba.s.sador, did make such overtures to the general, who absolutely refused to enter upon them; but, as the writer admits, received a visit from the amba.s.sador on condition that he should propose nothing in relation to public matters. I quote from Kennet's _Register_, 85. But, according to my present impression, this is more likely to have been the foundation of Shaftesbury's story, who might have heard from Mrs. Monk the circ.u.mstance of the visit, and conceived suspicions upon it, which he afterwards turned into proofs. It was evidently not in Monk's power to have usurped the government, after he had let the royalist inclinations of the people show themselves; and he was by no means of a rash character. He must have taken his resolution when the secluded members were restored to the house (Feb. 21); and this alleged intrigue with Mazarin could hardly have been so early.

It may be added that in one of the pamphlets about the time of the exclusion bill, written by Shaftesbury himself or one of his party (_Somers Tracts_, viii. 338), he is hinted to have princ.i.p.ally brought about the restoration; "without whose courage and dexterity some men, the most highly rewarded, had done otherwise than they did." But this still depends on his veracity.

[496] Whitelock, 690.

[497] The engagement was repeated March 13. This was of itself tantamount to a declaration in favour of the king; though perhaps the previous order of March 5, that the solemn league and covenant should be read in churches, was still more so. Prynne was the first who had the boldness to speak for the king, declaring his opinion that the parliament was dissolved by the death of Charles the First; he was supported by one or two more. _Clar. Papers_, 696; Thurloe, vii. 854; Carte's _Letters_, ii. 312. Prynne wrote a pamphlet advising the peers to meet and issue writs for a new parliament, according to the provisions of the triennial act; which in fact was no bad expedient.

_Somers Tracts_, vi. 534.

A speech of Sir Harbottle Grimston before the close of the parliament, March 1660, is more explicit for the king's restoration than anything which I have seen elsewhere; and as I do not know that it has been printed, I will give an extract from the Harleian MS. 1576.

He urges it as necessary to be done by them, and not left for the next parliament, who all men believed would restore him. "This is so true and so well understood, that we all believe that whatsoever our thoughts are, this will be the opinion of the succeeding parliament, whose concerns as well as affections will make them active for his introduction. And I appeal then to your own judgments whether it is likely that those persons, as to their particular interest more unconcerned, and probably less knowing in the affairs of the nation, can or would obtain for any those terms or articles as we are yet in a capacity to procure both for them and us. I must confess sincerely that it would be as strange to me as a miracle, did I not know that G.o.d infatuates whom he designs to destroy, that we can see the king's return so unavoidable, and yet be no more studious of serving him, or at least ourselves, in the managing of his recall.

"The general, that n.o.ble personage to whom under G.o.d we do and must owe all the advantages of our past and future changes, will be as far from opposing us in the design, as the design is removed from the disadvantage of the nation. He himself is, I am confident, of the same opinion; and if he has not yet given notice of it to the house, it is not that he does not look upon it as the best expedient; but he only forbears to oppose it, that he might not seem to necessitate us, and by an over early discovery of his own judgment be thought to take from us the freedom of ours."

In another place he says, "That the recalling of our king is this only way (for composure of affairs), is already grown almost as visible as true; and, were it but confessed of all of whom it is believed, I should quickly hear from the greatest part of this house what now it hears alone from me. Had we as little reason to fear as we have too much, that, if we bring not in the king, he either already is, or shortly may be, in a capacity of coming in unsent for; methinks the very knowledge of this right were enough to keep just persons, such as we would be conceived to be, from being accessary to his longer absence. We are already, and but justly, reported to have been the occasion of our prince's banishment; we may then, with reason and equal truth, for ought I know, be thought to have been the contrivers of it; unless we endeavour the contrary, by not suffering the mischief to continue longer which is in our power to remove."

Such pa.s.sages as these, and the general tenor of public speeches, sermons, and pamphlets in the spring of 1660, show how little Monk can be justly said to have restored Charles II.; except so far that he did not persist in preventing it so long as he might have done.

[498] _Clarendon State Papers_, 711.

[499] _Id._ 696.

[500] _Id._ 678 _et post_. He wrote a letter (Jan. 21) to the gentry of Devon, who had pet.i.tioned the speaker for the re-admission of the secluded members, objecting to that measure as likely to bring in monarchy, very judicious, and with an air of sincerity that might deceive any one; and after the restoration of these secluded members, he made a speech to them (Feb. 21), strongly against monarchy; and that so ingenuously, upon such good reasons, so much without invective or fanaticism, that the professional hypocrites, who were used to their own tone of imposture, were deceived by his. Cromwell was a mere bungler to him. See these in Harris's _Charles II._ 296, or _Somers Tracts_, vi. 551. It cannot be wondered at that the royalists were exasperated at Monk's behaviour. They published abusive pamphlets against him in February, from which Kennet, in his _Register_, p. 53, gives quotations. "Whereas he was the common hopes of all men, he is now the common hatred of all men, as a traitor more detestable than Oliver himself, who, though he manacled the citizens' hands, yet never took away the doors of the city," and so forth. It appears by the letters of Mordaunt and Broderick to Hyde, and by those of Hyde himself in the _Clarendon Papers_, that they had no sort of confidence in Monk till near the end of March; though Barwick, another of his correspondents, seems to have had more insight into the general's designs (Thurloe, 852, 860, 870), who had expressed himself to a friend of the writer, probably Clobery, fully in favour of the king, before March 19.

[501] Clar. 699, 705; Thurloe, vii. 860, 870.

[502] A correspondent of Ormond writes, March 16: "This night the fatal long parliament hath dissolved itself. All this appears well; but I believe we shall not be settled upon our ancient foundations without a war, for which all prepare vigorously and openly."--Carte's _Letters_, ii. 513. It appears also from a letter of Ma.s.sey to Hyde, that a rising in different counties was intended. Thurloe, 854.

[503] After giving the substance of Monk's speech to the house, recommending a new parliament, but insisting on commonwealth principles, Clarendon goes on; "There was no dissimulation in this, in order to cover and conceal his good intentions to the king; for without doubt he had not to this hour entertained any purpose or thought to serve him, but was really of the opinion he expressed in his paper, that it was a work impossible; and desired nothing but that he might see a commonwealth established on such a model as Holland was, where he had been bred, and that himself might enjoy the authority and place which the Prince of Orange possessed in that government."

[504] The _Clarendon_ and _Thurloe Papers_ are full of more proofs of this than can be quoted, and are very amusing to read, as a perpetually s.h.i.+fting picture of hopes and fears, and conjectures right or wrong. Pepys's _Diary_ also, in these two months, strikingly shows the prevailing uncertainty as to Monk's intentions, as well as the general desire of having the king brought in. It seems plain that, if he had delayed a very little longer, he would have lost the whole credit of the restoration. All parties began to crowd in with addresses to the king in the first part of April, before Monk was known to have declared himself. Thurloe, among others, was full of his offers, though evidently anxious to find out whether the king had an interest with Monk. P. 898. The royalists had long entertained hopes, from time to time, of this deep politician; but it is certain he never wished well to their cause, and with St. John and Pierrepont, had been most zealous, to the last moment that it seemed practicable, against the restoration. There had been, so late as February 1660, or even afterwards, a strange plan of setting up again Richard Cromwell, wherein not only these three, but Montagu, Jones, and others were thought to be concerned, erroneously no doubt as to Montagu.

_Clarendon State Papers_, 693; Carte's _Letters_, ii. 310, 330. "One of the greatest reasons they alledged was, that the king's party, consisting altogether of indigent men, will become powerful by little and little to force the king, whatever be his own disposition, to break any engagement he can now make; and, since the nation is bent on a single person, none will combine all interests so well as Richard."

This made Monk, it is said, jealous of St. John, and he was chosen at Cambridge to exclude him. In a letter of Thurloe to Downing at the Hague, April 6, he says, "that many of the presbyterians are alarmed at the prospect, and thinking how to keep the king out without joining the sectaries."--vii. 887. This could hardly be achieved but by setting up Richard. Yet that, as is truly said in one of the letters quoted, was ridiculous. None were so conspicuous and intrepid on the king's side as the presbyterian ministers. Reynolds preached before the lord mayor, Feb. 28, with manifest allusion to the restoration; Gauden (who may be reckoned on that side, as conforming to it), on the same day much more explicitly. Kennet's _Register_, 69. Sharp says, in a letter to a correspondent in Scotland, that he, Ash, and Calamy had a long conversation with Monk, March 11, "and convinced him a commonwealth was impracticable, and to our sense sent him off that sense he hath hitherto maintained, and came from him as being satisfied of the necessity of dissolving this house, and calling a new parliament."--_Id._ p. 81. Baxter thinks the presbyterian ministers, together with Clarges and Morrice, turned Monk's resolution, and induced him to declare for the king. _Life_, p. 2. This is a very plausible conjecture, though I incline to think Monk more disposed that way by his own judgment or his wife's. But she was influenced by the presbyterian clergy. They evidently deserved of Charles what they did not meet with.

[505] The royalists began too soon with threatening speeches, which well nigh frustrated their object. _Id._ 721, 722, 727; Carte's _Letters_, 318; Thurloe, 887. One Dr. Griffith published a little book vindicating the late king in his war against the parliament, for which the ruling party were by no means ripe; and, having justified it before the council, was committed to the Gate-house early in April.

_Id. ibid._ These imprudences occasioned the king's declaration from Breda. _Somers Tracts_, vi. 562. Another also was published, April 25, 1660, signed by several peers, knights, divines, etc., of the royalist party, disclaiming all private pa.s.sions and resentments. Kennet's _Register_, 120; Clar. vii. 471. But these public professions were weak disguises, when belied by their current language. See Baxter, 217. Marchmont Needham, in a tract ent.i.tled, "Interest will not lye"

(written in answer to an artful pamphlet ascribed to Fell, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, and reprinted in Maseres's _Tracts_, "The Interest of England stated"), endeavoured to alarm all other parties, especially the presbyterians, with representations of the violence they had to expect from that of the king. See Harris's _Charles II._ 268.

[506] Proofs of the disposition among this party to revive the treaty of the Isle of Wight occur perpetually in the Thurloe and Clarendon Papers, and in those published by Carte. The king's agents in England evidently expected nothing better; and were, generally speaking, much for his accepting the propositions. "The presbyterian lords," says Sir Allen Broderic to Hyde, "with many of whom I have spoken, pretend that, should the king come in upon any such insurrection, abetted by those of his own party, he would be more absolute than his father was in the height of his prerogative. Stay therefore, say they, till we are ready; our numbers so added will abundantly recompense the delay, rendering what is now extremely doubtful morally certain, and establis.h.i.+ng his throne upon the true basis, liberty and property."

July 16, 1659. _Clar. State Papers_, 527.

[507] Clarendon, _Hist. of Rebellion_, vii. 440; _State Papers_, 705, 729. "There is so insolent a spirit among some of the n.o.bility," says Clarendon, about the middle of February, "that I really fear it will turn to an aristocracy; Monk inclining that way too. My opinion is clear, that the king ought not to part with the church, crown, or friends' lands, lest he make my lord of Northumberland his equal, nay, perhaps his superior."--P. 680.

[508] Downing, the minister at the Hague, was one of these. His overtures to the king were as early as Monk's, at the beginning of April; he declared his wish to see his majesty restored on good terms, though many were desirous to make him a doge of Venice. Carte's _Letters_, ii. 320. See also a remarkable letter of the king to Monk (dated May 21; but I suspect he used the new style, therefore read May 11), intimating what a service it would be to prevent the imposition of any terms. Clar. 745. And another from him to Morrice of the same tenor, May 20 (N. S.), 1660, and hinting that his majesty's friends in the house had complied with the general in all things, according to the king's directions, departing from their own sense, and restraining themselves from pursuing what they thought most for his service.

Thurloe, vii. 912. This perhaps referred to the indemnity and other provisions then pending in the Commons, or rather to the delay of a few days before the delivery of Sir John Grenvil's message.

[509] "Monk came this day (about the first week of April) to the council, and a.s.sured them that, notwithstanding all the appearance of a general desire of kingly government, yet it was in nowise his sense, and that he would spend the last drop of his blood to maintain the contrary."--Extract of a letter from Thurloe to Downing. Carte's _Letters_, ii. 322. "The council of state are utterly ignorant of Monk's treating with the king; and surely, as the present temper of the council of state is now, and may possibly be also of the parliament, by reason of the presbyterian influence upon both, I should think the first chapman will not be the worst, who perhaps will not offer so good a rate in conjunction with the company, as may give to engross the commodity." Clar. 722, April 6. This sentence is a clue to all the intrigue. It is said soon afterwards (p. 726, April 11) that the presbyterians were much troubled at the course of the elections, which made some of the council of state again address themselves to Monk for his consent to propositions they would send to the king; but he absolutely refused, and said he would leave all to a free parliament, as he had promised the nation. Yet, though the elections went as well as the royalists could reasonably expect, Hyde was dissatisfied that the king was not restored without the intervention of the new parliament; and this may have been one reason of his spleen against Monk. Pp. 726, 731.

[510] A proposed resolution, that those who had been on the king's side, _or their sons_, should be disabled from voting at elections, was lost by 93 to 56, the last effort of the expiring Rump. Journals, 13 March. The electors did not think themselves bound by this arbitrary exclusion of the cavaliers from parliament; several of whom (though not perhaps a great number within the terms of the resolution) were returned. Ma.s.sey, however, having gone down to stand for Glocester, was put under arrest by order of the council of state.

Thurloe, 887. Clarendon, who was himself not insensible to that kind of superst.i.tion, had fancied that anything done at Glocester by Ma.s.sey for the king's service would make a powerful impression on the people.

[511] It is a curious proof of the state of public sentiment that, though Monk himself wrote a letter to the electors of Bridgenorth, recommending Thurloe, the cavalier party was so powerful, that his friends did not even produce the letter, lest it should be treated with neglect. Thurloe, vii. 895.

[512] "To the king's coming in without conditions may be well imputed all the errors of his reign." Thus says Burnet. The great political error, if so it should be termed, of his reign, was a conspiracy with the king of France, and some wicked advisers at home, to subvert the religion and liberty of his subjects; and it is difficult to perceive by what conditions this secret intrigue could have been prevented.

[513] _Clarendon Papers_, p. 729. They resolved to send the articles of that treaty to the king, leaving out the preface. This was about the middle of April.

[514] _Life of Clarendon_, p. 10.

[515] "This," says Burnet somewhat invidiously, "was the great service that Monk did; for as to the restoration itself, the tide ran so strong, that he only went into it dexterously enough to get much praise and great rewards."--P. 123.