Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 42

[300] Rushworth's Collections, i. 514.

[301] I deliver this fact as I find it in a private letter; but it is noticed in the Journals of the House of Commons, 23 Junii, 4.

Caroli Regis. "Sir Edward c.o.ke reporteth that they find that, enclosed in the letter, to be unfit for any subject's ear to hear.

Read but one line and a half of it, and could not endure to read more of it. It was ordered to be sealed and delivered into the king's hands by eight members, and to acquaint his majesty with the place and time of finding it; particularly that upon the reading of one line and a half at most, they would read no more, but sealed it up, and brought it to the House."

[302] I have since discovered, by a ma.n.u.script letter, that this _Dr. Turner_ was held in contempt by the king; that he was ridiculed at court, which he haunted, for his want of veracity; in a word, that he was a disappointed courtier!

[303] This circ.u.mstance is mentioned in a ma.n.u.script letter; what Cooke declared to the House is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 525.

[304] I refer the critical student of our history to the duke's speech at the council-table as it appears in Rushworth, i. 525: but what I add respecting his personal sacrifices is from ma.n.u.script letters. Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 490, &c.

[305] On this subject, see note to the brief article on Buckingham in vol. i.

[306] Curiosities of Literature, First Series, vol. iii. p. 438, ed.

1817; vol. v. p. 277, ed. 1823; vol. iii. p. 429, ed. 1824; vol. iv.

p. 148 ed. 1834; p. 301, ed. 1840, or vol. ii. p. 357, of this edition.

[307] I find this speech, and an account of its reception, in ma.n.u.script letters; the fragment in Rushworth contains no part of it. I. 526. Sloane MSS. 4177. Letter 490, &c.

[308] Modern history would afford more instances than perhaps some of us suspect. I cannot pa.s.s over an ill.u.s.tration of my principle, which I shall take from two very notorious politicians--Wat Tyler and Sir William Walworth!

Wat, when in servitude, had been beaten by his master, Richard Lyons, a great merchant of wines, and a sheriff of London. This chastis.e.m.e.nt, working on an evil disposition, appears never to have been forgiven; and when this Radical a.s.sumed his short-lived dominion, he had his old master beheaded, and his head carried before him on the point of a spear! So Grafton tells us, to the eternal obloquy of this arch-jacobin, who "was a crafty fellow, and of an excellent wit, but wanting grace." I would not sully the patriotic blow which ended the rebellion with the rebel; yet there are secrets in history! Sir William Walworth, "the ever famous mayor of London," as Stowe designates him, has left the immortality of his name to one of our suburbs; but having discovered in Stowe's "Survey," that Walworth was the landlord of the stews on the Bank-side, which he farmed out to the Dutch _vrows_, and which Wat had pulled down, I am inclined to suspect that private feeling first knocked down the saucy ribald, and then thrust him through and through with his dagger; and that there was as much of personal vengeance as patriotism, which crushed the demolisher of so much valuable property!

[309] I have formed my idea of Sir Francis Nethersole from some strange incidents in his _political_ conduct, which I have read in some contemporary letters. He was, however, a man of some eminence, had been Orator for the University of Cambridge, agent for James I.

with the Princes of the Union in Germany, and also Secretary to the Queen of Bohemia. He founded and endowed a free-school at Polesworth in Warwicks.h.i.+re.

[310] Ma.n.u.script letter.

[311] These speeches are entirely drawn from those ma.n.u.script letters to which I have frequently referred. c.o.ke's may be substantially found in Rushworth, but without a single expression as here given.

[312] The popular opinion is well expressed in the following lines preserved in Sloane MS. 826:--

When only one doth rule and guide the s.h.i.+p, Who neither card nor compa.s.s knew before, The master pilot and the rest asleep, The stately s.h.i.+p is split upon the sh.o.r.e; But they awaking start up, stare, and cry, "Who did this fault?"--"Not I,"--"Nor I,"--"Nor I."

So fares it with a great and wealthy state Not govern'd by the master, but his mate.

[313] This last letter is printed in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 609.

[314] The king's answer is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 613.

[315] This eloquent state paper is in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 619.

[316] This interview is taken from ma.n.u.script letters.

[317] Ma.n.u.script Letters: Lord Dorset to the Earl of Carlisle.--Sloane MSS. 4178. Letter 519.

[318] Ma.n.u.script Letter.

[319] I have given (vol. ii. p. 336) the "Secret History of Charles the First and his Queen," where I have traced the firmness and independence of his character. In another article will be found as much of the "Secret History of the Duke of Buckingham" as I have been enabled to acquire.

[320] "To conclude," said the king; "let us not be jealous one of the other's actions."

[321] Monday, 2nd of March, 1629.

[322] It was imagined out of doors that swords had been drawn; for a Welsh page running in great haste, when he heard the noise, to the door, cried out, "I pray you let hur in! let hur in! to give hur master his sword!"--_Ma.n.u.script Letter._

[323] At the time many undoubtedly considered that it was a mere faction in the house. Sir Symonds D'Ewes was certainly no politician--but, unquestionably, his ideas were not peculiar to himself. Of the last third parliament he delivers this opinion in his Diary: "I cannot deem but the greater part of the house were morally honest men; but these were the least guilty of the fatal breach, being only misled by _some other Machiavelian politics, who seemed zealous for the liberty of the commonwealth_, and by that means, _in the moving of their outward freedom_, drew the votes of those good men to their side."

[324] Since the publication of the present article, I have composed my "Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First," in five volumes.

482 THE RUMP.

Text and commentary! The French Revolution abounds with wonderful "explanatory notes" on the English. It has cleared up many obscure pa.s.sages--and in the political history of Man, both pages must be read together.

The opprobrious and ludicrous nickname of "the Rump," stigmatised a faction which played the same part in the English Revolution as the "Montagne" of the Jacobins did in the French. It has been imagined that our English Jacobins were impelled by a principle different from that of their modern rivals; but the madness of avowed atheism, and the frenzy of hypocritical sanct.i.ty, in the circle of crimes meet at the same point. Their history forms one of those useful parallels where, with truth as unerring as mathematical demonstration, we discover the ident.i.ty of human nature. Similarity of situation, and certain principles, producing similar personages and similar events, finally settle in the same results. The Rump, as long as human nature exists, can be nothing but the Rump, however it may be thrown uppermost.

The origin of this political by-name has often been inquired into; and it is somewhat curious, that, though all parties consent to reprobate it, each a.s.signs for it a different allusion. In the history of political factions there is always a mixture of the ludicrous with the tragic; but, except their modern brothers, no faction like the present ever excited such a combination of extreme contempt and extreme horror.

Among the rival parties in 1659, the loyalists and the presbyterians acted as we may suppose the Tories and the Whigs would in the same predicament; a secret reconciliation had taken place, to bury in oblivion their former jealousies, that they might unite to rid themselves from that tyranny of tyrannies, a hydra-headed government; or, as Hume observes, that "all efforts should be used for the overthrow of the Rump; so they called the parliament, in allusion to that part of the animal body." The sarcasm of the allusion seemed obvious to our polished historian; yet, looking more narrowly for its origin, we shall find how indistinct were the notions of this nickname among those who lived nearer to the times. Evelyn says that "the Rump parliament was so called as containing some few rotten members of the other." Roger c.o.ke describes it thus: "You must now be content with a piece of the Commons called 'the Rump.'" And Carte calls the Rump, "the carca.s.s of a house,"

and seems not precisely aware of the contemptuous allusion. But how do "rotten members" and "a carca.s.s" agree with the notion of "a Rump?"

Recently the editor of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson has conveyed a novel origin. "The number of the members of the Long Parliament having been by seclusion, death, &c., very much reduced,"--a remarkable &c.

this! by which our editor seems adroitly to throw a veil over the forcible transportation by the Rumpers of two hundred members at one swoop,--"the remainder was compared to the _rump of a fowl which was left_, all the rest being eaten." Our editor even considers this to be "a coa.r.s.e emblem;" yet "the rump of a fowl" could hardly offend even a lady's delicacy! Our editor, probably, was somewhat anxious not to degrade _too lowly_ the anti-monarchical party, designated by this opprobrious term. Perhaps it is pardonable in Mrs. Macaulay, an historical lady, and a "Rumper," for she calls the "Levellers" a "brave and virtuous party," to have pa.s.sed over in _her_ history any mention of the offensive term at all, as well as the ridiculous catastrophe which they underwent in the political revolution, which, however, we must beg leave not to pa.s.s by.

This party-coinage has been ascribed to Clement Walker, their bitter antagonist; who, having sacrificed no inconsiderable fortune to the cause of what he considered const.i.tutional liberty, was one of the violent ejected members of the Long Parliament, and perished in prison, a victim to honest, unbending principles. His "History of Independency"

is a rich legacy bequeathed to posterity, of all their great misdoings, and their petty villanies, and, above all, of their secret history. One likes to know of what blocks the idols of the people are sometimes carved out.

Clement Walker notices "the votes and acts of this _f.a.g end_; this RUMP of a parliament, with corrupt maggots in it."[325] This hideous, but descriptive image of "The Rump" had, however, got forward before, for the collector of "the Rump Songs"[326] tells us, "If you ask who named it _Rump_, know 'twas so styled in an honest sheet of prayer, called 'The b.l.o.o.d.y Rump,' written _before the trial_ of our late sovereign; but the word obtained not _universal notice_, till it flew from the mouth of Major-General Brown, at a public a.s.sembly in the days of Richard Cromwell." Thus it happens that a stinging nickname has been frequently applied to render a faction eternally odious; and the chance expression of a wit, when adopted on some public occasion, circulates among a whole people. The present nickname originated in derision on the expulsion of the majority of the Long Parliament by the usurping minority. It probably slept; for who would have stirred it through the Protectorate?

and finally awakened at Richard's restored, but fleeting "Rump," to witness its own ridiculous extinction.

Our Rump pa.s.sed through three stages in its political progress.

Preparatory to the trial of the sovereign, the anti-monarchical party const.i.tuted the minority in "the _Long_ Parliament:" the very name by which this parliament is recognised seemed a grievance to an impatient people, vacillating with chimerical projects of government, and now accustomed, from a wild indefinite notion of political equality, to pull down all existing inst.i.tutions. Such was the temper of the times, that an act of the most violent injustice, openly performed, served only as the jest of the day, a jest which has pa.s.sed into history. The forcible expulsion of two hundred of their brother members, by those who afterwards were saluted as "The Rump," was called "Pride's Purge," from the activity of a colonel of that name, a military adventurer, who was only the blind and brutal instrument of his party; for when he stood at the door of the Commons, holding a paper with the names of the members, he did not personally know one! And his "Purge" might have operated a quite opposite effect, administered by his own unskilful hand, had not Lord Grey of Groby, and the door-keeper,--worthy dispersers of the British senate!--pointed out the obnoxious members, on whom our colonel laid his hand, and sent off by his men to be detained, if a bold member, or to be deterred from sitting in the house, if a frightened one. This colonel had been a drayman; and the contemptible knot of the Commons, reduced to fifty or sixty confederates, which a.s.sembled after his "Purge," were called "Colonel Pride's Dray-Horses."

It was this Rump which voted the death of the sovereign, and abolished the regal office, and the House of Peers--as "unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous!" Every office in parliament seemed "dangerous," but that of the "Custodes libertatis Angliae," the keepers of the liberties of England! or rather "the gaolers!" "The legislative half-quarter of the House of Commons!" indignantly exclaims Clement Walker--the "Montagne"

of the French revolutionists!

The "Red-coats" as the military were nicknamed, soon taught their masters, "the Rumpers," silence and obedience: the latter having raised one colossal man for their own purpose, were annihilated by him at a single blow. Cromwell, five years after, turned them out of their house, and put the keys into his pocket. Their last public appearance was in the fleeting days of Richard Cromwell, when the comi-tragedy of "the Rump" concluded by a catastrophe as ludicrous as that of Tom Thumb's tragedy!

How such a faction used their instruments to gather in the common spoil, and how their instruments at length converted the hands which held them into instruments themselves, appears in their history. When "the Long Parliament" opposed the designs of Cromwell and Ireton, these chiefs cried up "the liberty of the people," and denied "the authority of parliament:" but when they had effectuated their famous "purge," and formed a House of Commons of themselves, they abolished the House of Lords, crying up the supreme authority of the House of Commons, and crying down the liberty of the people. Such is the history of political factions, as well as of statesmen! Charles the Fifth alternately made use of the Pope's authority to subdue the rising spirit of the Protestants of Germany, or raised an army of Protestants to imprison the Pope! who branded his German allies by the novel and odious name of Lutherans. A chain of similar facts may be framed out of modern history.

The "Rump," as they were called by every one but their own party, became a whetstone for the wits to sharpen themselves on; and we have two large collections of "Rump Songs," curious chronicles of popular feeling![327]

Without this evidence we should not have been so well informed respecting the phases of this portentous phenomenon. "The Rump" was celebrated in verse, till at length it became "the Rump of a Rump of a Rump!" as Foulis traces them to their dwindled and grotesque appearance. It is pourtrayed by a wit of the times--

The Rump's an old story, if well understood, 'Tis a thing dress'd up in a parliament's hood, And like it--but the tail stands where the head shou'd!

'Twould make a man scratch where it does not itch!

They say 'tis good luck when a body rises With the rump upwards; but he that advises To live in that posture, is none of the wisest.