CHARLES II.

Character of Charles II.—The King's First Privy Council—The Convention Parliament—Submission of the Presbyterian Leaders—The Plight of those who took Part in the late King's Trial—Complaisance of the Commoners—Charles's Income—The Bill of Sales—The Ministers Bill—Settlement of the Church—Trial of the Regicides—Their Execution—Marriage of the Duke of York—Mutilation of the Remains of Cromwell—The Presbyterians Duped—The Revenue—Fifth-Monarchy Riot—Settlements of Ireland and Scotland—Execution of Argyll—Re-establishment of Episcopacy—The new Parliament violently Royalist—The King's Marriage—His Brutal Behaviour to the Queen—State of the Court—Trial of Vane and Lambert—Execution of Vane—Assassination of Regicides—Sale of Dunkirk—The Uniformity Act—Religious Persecution—Strange Case of the Marquis of Bristol—Repeal of the Triennial Act—The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts—War with Holland—Appearance of the Plague—Gross Licentiousness of the Court—Demoralisation of the Navy—Monk's Fight with the Dutch—The Great Fire.

Charles II. did not want sense. He was naturally clever, witty, and capable of a shrewd insight into the natures and purposes of men. He gave proof of all these qualities in the observation which we have recorded, at the close of the day when he was restored to his paternal mansion, that everybody assured him that they had always ardently desired his return, and that if they were to be believed, there was nobody in fault for his not having come back sooner but himself. Yet, with many qualities, which, if united to a fine moral nature, would have made him a most popular monarch, he was utterly destitute of this fine moral nature. He had had much, long, and varied experience of mankind, and had alternately seen their base adulation of royalty in power, and their baser treatment of princes in misfortune. But Charles had not the nobility to benefit by this knowledge. He had familiarised himself with every species of vice and dissipation. He was become thoroughly heartless and degraded. His highest ambition was to live, not for the good and glory of his kingdom, but for mere sensual indulgence. He was habituated to a life of the lowest debauchery, and surrounded by those who were essentially of the same debased and worthless character. To such a man had the nation—after all its glorious struggles and triumphs for the reduction of the lawless pride of royalty, and after the decent and rigorous administration of the Commonwealth—again surrendered its fate and fortunes, and surrendered them without almost any guarantee. The declaration of Breda was the only security which it had, and that was rendered perfectly nugatory by the reservation of all decisions on those questions to a Parliament which the Court could control and corrupt.

Monk presented to the king a paper containing a list of names of such persons as he professed to consider to be the most eligible for the royal service either in the Council or the Ministry. But Clarendon, who was the king's great adviser, having adhered to him and his interests ever since his escape to the Continent, perused the catalogue with no little surprise. It consisted, he tells us, "of the principal persons of the Presbyterian party, to which Monk was thought to be most inclined, at least to satisfy the foolish and unruly inclinations of his wife. There were likewise the names of some who were most notorious in all the factions; and of some who, in respect of their mean qualities and meaner qualifications, nobody could imagine how they came to be named." They were, in fact, such as had been thrust on Monk by the Parliamentary leaders, who were all striving to secure their own interests; not even the Presbyterians foreseeing how severely they were punishing themselves by the restoration of the monarchy. Monk, on the Chancellor's remonstrance as to many of these names—amongst which only those of the Marquis of Hertford and the Earl of Southampton belonged to men who had at all adhered to the Royal cause—soon let him into the secret, that they were such as had importuned him to do them good offices with the king, and that he never intended to do more than forward the paper, and leave the king to do as he pleased. Clarendon soon, therefore, made out a very different list of names for the Privy Council, though he found it politic to insert almost as many names of Presbyterians as of Royalists, but with the purpose of gradually changing them.

The first Privy Council of Charles, therefore, consisted of the king's brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the Marquis of Ormond, the Earls of Lindsay, Southampton, Manchester, St. Albans, Berkshire, Norwich, Leicester, and Northumberland, the Marquises of Hertford and Dorchester, Lords Saye and Sele, Seymour, Colepepper, Wentworth, Roberts, and Berkeley, Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Sir George Carteret, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Sir Edward Nicholas, General Monk, and Morrice, his creature, who had assisted in the negotiations with the king, Colonel Charles Howard, Arthur Annesley, Denzil Holles, and Montague, general, or rather admiral, for as yet no distinctly naval officer was known—military commanders fought both on sea and land.

Amongst these Clarendon was Lord Chancellor and Prime Minister, the Duke of York was already appointed Lord High Admiral, to which was now added the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports and other offices. Sir Edward Nicholas and Morrice were joint Secretaries of State; the Earl of Southampton was made Lord Treasurer, the Marquis of Ormond Lord Steward, and the Earl of Manchester Lord Chamberlain. Monk was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in the three kingdoms, according to stipulation, and to this office was now added Master of the Horse, and he was created Duke of Albemarle, in addition to several inferior titles. His wife, who was originally a milliner, and after that had been his mistress, now figured boldly and ambitiously amongst the ladies of the Court.

The Parliament, both Lords and Commons, lost no time in seizing all such of the late king's judges as survived or were within the kingdom. The Parliament, which had no proper election—having been summoned by no lawful authority, but at Monk's command, and had obtained the name of Convention Parliament—passed an Act, which Charles authenticated, to legalise themselves, notwithstanding which it was still called by the old name of the Convention. Before the king could arrive, however, they had seized Clement, one of the king's judges, and ordered the seizure of the goods and estates of all the other regicides. On the king's arrival Denzil Holles and the Presbyterians—whose resentment against the Independents, who had so often put them out of Parliament, was blinded by desire of vengeance to the fact that the Royalists would not be long in turning on them who had done their best to dethrone Charles I., though they had not joined in putting him to death—now went in a body to Whitehall, and throwing themselves at Charles's feet, confessed that they were guilty of the horrid crime of rebellion, and implored the king's grace and pardon. Charles affected the most magnanimous clemency, and advised them to pass a Bill of Indemnity, which he had promised from Breda. But this apparent liberality was only the necessary step to the completion of his vengeance, for the declaration left to Parliament such exceptions as it thought proper; and in the present complying mood of Parliament, these exceptions would be just as numerous as the Court required. Monk had, in negotiating with Charles and Clarendon, recommended that only four should be excepted, but Clarendon and the king had long made up their minds that few of the king's judges should escape; and in this they were boldly urged on by the Royalists, who, says Clarendon, could not bear to meet the men on the king's highways, now they were the king's again, who rode on the very horses they had plundered them of, and had their houses and estates in possession.

The Commons were as ready as the Court for vengeance against their late successful rivals and masters; and though Monk again urged that not more than seven should be excepted on a capital charge, they decided that ten should be tried for their lives, namely, Scott, Holland, Lisle, Barkstead, Harrison, Saye, Jones, Coke, the solicitor, Broughton, clerk to the High Court of Justice, and Dendy, who had acted as serjeant-at-arms during the trial. They then requested the king to order by proclamation all those concerned in his late father's trial to surrender themselves within fourteen days. About a score felt it much the safest to escape across the sea, but nineteen surrendered—all, but the ten doomed to death, imagining they should escape with some minor punishment. But the thirst for vengeance became every day more violent. The Commons named twenty more for exception, whose lives were to be spared, but who were to suffer forfeiture of estate and perpetual imprisonment. These were Vane, St. John, Haselrig, Ireton, brother of the deceased major-general, Desborough, Lambert, Fleetwood, Axtel, Sydenham, Lenthall, Burton, Keeble, Pack, Blackwell, Pyne, Deane, Creed, Nye, Goodwin, and Cobbett. Moreover, all such as had not surrendered to the late proclamation were excluded from the benefit of the Bill of Indemnity.

This sanguinary list, however, did not satisfy the Lords when the Bill was sent up to them. They had suffered such indignities from the Independent leaders, that they could not bring themselves to forgive, and they altered the Bill, voting that every man who had sat on the king's trial, or signed the death-warrant, should be tried as a traitor for his life. They went even further, and excepted six others, who had neither sat nor voted—namely, Vane, Hacker, Lambert, Haselrig, Axtel, and Peters; and, as if luxuriating in revenge, they allowed the relatives of several of their own body who had been put to death under the Commonwealth, amongst whom were the Earl of Derby and the Duke of Hamilton, to sit as judges. The Commons accepted the Bill as thus altered, and would have made it still more atrocious, but Charles, who was extremely pressed for money, sent desiring them to come to an end with this Bill, and hasten the money Bill.

The Commons voted the king seventy thousand pounds a month for present necessities, and then proceeded to pass not only the Indemnity Bill, but to vote the king a liberal permanent revenue. In striking contrast to the early Parliaments of his father, they at once gave him the tonnage and poundage for life. Although this was one of the chief causes of the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliament, and one of the main causes of the war and of his decapitation, this Parliament yielded the point at once. They, moreover, ordered that the army, of which Charles was afraid, should be disbanded, and that the 29th of May should be kept as a day of perpetual thanks giving to Providence, for having restored his majesty to the nation. All these favours to Charles they offered with the humility of men who were seeking favours for themselves, and being urged by Charles to settle the amount of his revenue altogether, they appointed a committee of inquiry on the subject, which decided that, as the income of his father had been about one million one hundred thousand pounds, his income should, considering the different value of money, be fixed at the unexampled sum of one million two hundred thousand pounds per annum. This income was to be settled by a Bill in the next session.

The question of religion, and the question of forfeited property, whether belonging to the Crown, the Church, or individuals, was next brought on, and led to most stormy discussions. The result was that two Bills were passed, called the Bill of Sales and the Ministers Bill. By the Bill of Sales all the Crown lands were ordered to be restored forthwith; but the Church lands were left in abeyance for the present; the lands of individuals were also deferred to a future session. The Ministers Bill was intended to expel from the pulpits of the Church all such ministers as had been installed there since the Parliament came into power. It did not, however, give satisfaction to the Church, for it admitted all such as entered on livings legally vacant at the time to retain them. A considerable number of Presbyterian clergymen thus remained in possession, but the Independents were thoroughly excited by a clause which provided that all ministers who had not been ordained by an ecclesiastic, who had interfered in the matter of infant baptism, or had been concerned in the trial of the king, or in its justification from press or pulpit, should be excluded. Thus the Royalists were incensed at the Bill of Sales, which they called an indemnity Bill for the king's enemies, and of oblivion for his friends, and the clergy of the Church were equally enraged to see a great number of livings still left to the Presbyterians.

On the 13th of September Charles prorogued the Parliament till the 6th of November, and promised during the recess to have what was called the "healing question of religion," that is, the settlement of the Church, discussed by competent parties, and to publish a declaration on the subject. Accordingly the Presbyterians were very soon promised a meeting with some of the Episcopalian clergy, and they were quite willing, seeing that they could no longer have matters their own way in the Church, to accept a platform of compromise laid down by Archbishop Ussher before his death, in which scheme the Church was to be governed by a union of suffragan bishops and synods or presbyteries, so as to unite the two great sects. But the foremost prelates and clergy of the Episcopalian Church, who were resolved to have the whole State Church to themselves, would listen to nothing so liberal or unorthodox. They refused to meet the Presbyterian clergy, and therefore Charles summoned the leaders of this sect to meet some of his chief privy councillors and ministers, as well as various bishops, at Whitehall, where Baxter and Calamy again proposed Ussher's scheme, which was as zealously rejected by the Episcopalians. The Presbyterians quoted the Eikon Basilike, to show that Charles I. was favourable to Ussher's plan, but Charles, who knew very well that the book was Dr. Gauden's, and not his father's, drily remarked that all in that work was not gospel. But what proved a complete damper to all parties, was a proposal read by Clarendon as having the king's approbation, namely, that others, besides the two parties in question, should have full liberty for religious worship, and should not be disturbed by magistrate or peace officer, provided they themselves did not disturb the peace. This was at once felt to mean toleration to the Catholics as well as the Nonconformists, and was received with silent repugnance.

On the 25th of October was issued the promised declaration for healing the strife. It went to unite the Presbyterian form of government with the Episcopal. There were to be presbyteries and synods, and no bishop was to ordain ministers or exercise the censures of the Church without the advice and assistance of the presbyteries. Presbyters were to be elected deans and canons; a number of divines of each sect were to be chosen by the king to revise the Liturgy, and all points of difference should be left unsettled till this revision was made; and no person should be molested on account of taking the Sacrament standing or kneeling, for making or not making the sign of the cross in baptism, for bowing or not bowing at the name of Jesus, for wearing or not wearing the surplice. The Presbyterians were delighted at the prospect thus afforded of free admission to good livings and dignities; but the Episcopalians intended nothing less than that any such thing should ever come to pass.

With more earnest intention the Government proceeded to judge the Regicides, and soon stepped up to the knees in blood. On the 9th of October the trials commenced at the Old Bailey, before thirty-four Commissioners appointed for the purpose. True bills were found against twenty-nine of the prisoners—namely, Sir Hardress Waller, Harrison, Carew, Cook, Hugh Peters, Scott, Clement, Scrope, Jones, Hacker, Axtel, Heveningham, Marten, Millington, Tichbourne, Row, Kilburn, Harvey, Pennington, Smith, Downes, Potter, Garland, Fleetwood, Meyn, J. Temple, P. Temple, Hewlet, and Waite.

The first man tried was Waller, who pleaded guilty, and had his life spared; the second was Harrison, the late Major-General. Harrison was a sincere and honest Fifth-Monarchy man. He said, "I humbly conceive that what was done, was done in the name of the Parliament of England; that what was done, was done by their power and authority; and I do humbly conceive it is my duty to offer unto you in the beginning, that this court, or any court below the High Court of Parliament, hath no jurisdiction of their actions." But all argument was useless addressed to such ears. Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who had the management of the trials, told the grand jury in his charge that no authority whatever, either of a single person or of Parliament, had any coercive power over the king. This man had received very different treatment under the Protectorate. He had submitted to Cromwell, who had not only accepted his submission, but had allowed him privately to practise the law, and in this capacity he had acted as spy and agent for Cromwell. He continually interrupted Scott, Carew, and others, when they justified their conduct on the same ground of Parliamentary sanction. The people, notwithstanding their late acclamations, could not help raising loud murmurs at these arbitrary interruptions. The prisoners defended themselves with calm intrepidity, and when Bridgeman retorted on Carew that the Parliament that he talked of was the Commons alone, a thing without precedent, Carew replied, "there never was such a war, or such a precedent;" and he boldly upbraided Bridgeman with giving evidence as a witness whilst sitting as a judge. All these were condemned to death. The clever and facetious Harry Marten made a most ingenious and persevering defence, and extremely puzzled the Commissioners. He took exception to the indictment, declaring that he was not even mentioned in it. When he was shown the name Henry Marten, he objected that that was not his name, which was Harry Marten. This was overruled, but he went on to plead that the statute of Henry VIII. exempted from high treason any one acting under a king de facto, though he should not be king de jure; that the Parliament at that time was the supreme power, including the functions of both king and Parliament; that it was, in fact, the only authority there was in the country; and that it had from age to age been contended and admitted that God indicated the rightful power by giving it victory. Such was the authority that God at the time had set over them, and under that they had acted. His arguments were thrown away, and it was on this occasion that the absurd story—a typical example of many other silly stories that continued to be circulated for generations—was first given in evidence by a soldier, of him and Cromwell, on the signing of the death-warrant of the king, wiping their pens on each other's faces.

After a trial in which every ingenious and valid plea was advanced by the prisoners to deaf ears, all were condemned to death, but ten only were at present executed—Harrison, Scott, Carew, Jones, Clement, Scrope, Coke, Axtel, Hacker, and Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain. Peters, by his enthusiasm and wild eloquence, had undoubtedly roused the spirit of the Parliamentarians, and especially of the army, but he had had no particular concern in the king's death, and had often exerted himself to obtain mercy and kind treatment not only for the king, but for suffering Royalists. He declared on the trial that he had never been influenced by interest or malice in all that he had done; that he never received a farthing from Cromwell for his services; and that he had no hand in exciting the war, for he was abroad fourteen years, and found the war in full action on his return. Peters, whose character has been greatly maligned by the Cavaliers and their historians, appears really to have been a sincere and upright patriot; but his pleas were as useless as those of all the others.

Harrison was drawn first to Charing Cross on a hurdle. His conduct was cheerful and even animated, as with triumph he declared that many a time he had begged the Lord, if He had any hard, any reproachful, or contemptible service to be done by His people, that he might be employed in it; and that now his prayers were answered. Several times he cried out as he was drawn along, that he suffered in the most glorious cause in the world; and when a low wretch asked him, "Where's your good old cause now?" he replied, "Here it is!" clapping his hand on his heart, "and I am going to seal it with my blood." He was put to death with all the horrors of the most barbarous times, cut down alive, his bowels torn out whilst he was alive, and then his quivering heart held up to the people. Charles witnessed this revolting scene at a little distance, and yet that heartless man let the whole of the condemned suffer the same bloody barbarities. They all went to their hideous death with the same heroic spirit, and in order to daunt the old preacher, Hugh Peters, he was taken to see the hanging, drawing, and quartering of Coke, but it only seemed to animate him the more. The effect of this and of the addresses of the undaunted Regicides from the scaffold was such, that the people began to show evident disgust of these cruelties; and when Scott's turn came, the executioners endeavoured to drown his words, so that he said it must be a very bad cause that could not hear the words of a dying man. But the words and noble courage of these dying men, Bishop Burnet observes, "their show of piety, their justifying all they had done, not without a seeming joy for their suffering on that account, caused the king to be advised not to proceed further, or at least not to have the scene so near the Court as Charing Cross."

About a month before Harrison's execution, the Duke of Gloucester died of small-pox; and scarcely were the royal shambles closed for awhile when the Princess of Orange, who had come over to congratulate her brother, the king, died of small-pox, too. "At Court," says Pepys, "things are in very ill condition, there being so much emulation, poverty, and the vices of drinking, swearing, and loose amours, that I know not what will be the end of it but confusion; and the clergy are so high that all people that I meet with do protest against their practice." Sober people must have looked back with a strange feeling to the earnest and manly times of the Protectorate. But death and marriage merriments were oddly mingled in this bacchanalian Court. The daughter of old Clarendon, Ann Hyde, was married to the Duke of York, and was delivered of a son just six weeks afterwards. The queen-mother (Henrietta Maria), the Princess of Orange, and the Princess Henrietta, were violently opposed to so unroyal a marriage, but the old Chancellor had the influence with Charles to carry it through, and, instead of a disgrace, to convert it into a triumph. The wily politician pretended himself to have been not only grossly deceived in the matter, but to be intensely angry, and told Charles, according to his own account in his autobiography, on hearing the news, that if the marriage had really taken place, he would advise that "the king should immediately cause the woman to be sent to the Tower, and to be cast into a dungeon, under so strict a guard, that no living person should be permitted to come to her; and then that an Act of Parliament should be immediately passed for cutting off her head, to which he would not only give his consent, but would very willingly be the first to propose it." This picture of the heroism of a savage, however, ill agrees with the accounts of the Chancellor's real concern in the matter. Evelyn, in his diary, says, "The queen would fain have undone it, but it seems that matters were reconciled on great offers of the Chancellor's to befriend her, who was so much in debt, and was now to have the settlement of her affairs go through his hands." Accordingly, about six weeks after the arrival of Henrietta Maria at Whitehall the marriage was publicly acknowledged.

Amid all these disgraceful transactions Parliament met on the 6th of November, 1660. They proceeded to pass into a Bill the king's "healing declaration" regarding religion. The Presbyterians were in high spirits, but they were soon made to feel their folly in bringing back the Episcopalian Church with its Episcopalian head. The clergy were not so high for nothing. They knew very well what the king would do when the matter was pressed to an issue, and accordingly the expectant Presbyterians found the Court party not only voting, but openly speaking against the Bill. Morrice, the creature of Monk, and now Secretary of State, and Heneage Finch, the Solicitor-General, strenuously opposed it, Finch not scrupling to avow that "it was not the king's desire that the Bill should proceed." It was thrown out, and the duped Presbyterians, instead of being persecutors, found persecution let loose upon them. The Convention Parliament, having satisfied the Court in this measure, on the 8th of December voted the attainder of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, and, having got this sanction, on the 30th of January, 1661, the Court, under cover of the clergy's pious zeal, sent a rabble of constables to tear open the graves of these great Regicides, to drag their decaying corpses to Tyburn on hurdles, to hang them, to cut them down and behead them, and then, throwing their putrid bodies into a hole under the gallows, to stick their heads on poles on the top of Westminster Hall. They proceeded to perpetrate the same revolting atrocities on the bodies of innocent and virtuous women, and on some of the most illustrious men of our annals. The remains of the brave old mother of Cromwell; of his amiable daughter, Lady Claypole; of Dorislaus, the envoy of the Parliament who had been murdered by the retainers of this Charles II. at the Hague; of May, the historian of the Parliament, and the excellent translator of Lucan's "Pharsalia;" of Pym, the great and incorruptible champion of English liberty; and of Blake, the most famous admiral that the country had yet produced, whose name alone gave it a world-wide renown, were dragged forth out of their resting-places. These, and every other body which had been buried in the Abbey whilst the Commonwealth lasted, were flung into a pit in St. Margaret's churchyard.

The settlement of the revenue by the Convention Parliament was more successful than the legislation with regard to the Church. It was determined at all events to get rid of the vexatious duties of feudal tenure; for, though they had long ceased to have any real meaning, fines were still executed on alienation of property, and reliefs exacted on the accession to his property of each new Crown tenant. Minors were still wards of the Crown, and were still liable to the odious necessity of marrying at the will of their guardian. All these claims of the Crown were now abolished. Their place was supplied, not as might naturally be supposed by a land-tax, but by an excise upon beer and other liquors, the landed interests thus finding means to shift the burden upon the shoulders of the whole nation. The sum at which the revenue was fixed was one million two hundred thousand pounds a year.

This great bargain having been completed at the close of the year, the Convention Parliament was dissolved. The year 1661 opened with a Fifth-Monarchy riot. Though Harrison and some others of that faith were put to death, and others, as Overton, Desborough, Day, and Courtenay, were in the Tower, there were secret conventicles of these fanatics in the City, and one of these in Coleman Street was headed by a wine-cooper of the name of Venner, who, as we have already seen, gave Cromwell trouble in his time. On the night of the 6th of January, Venner, with fifty or sixty other enthusiasts, rushed from their conventicle, where he had been counselling his followers not to preach, but to act. They marched through the City towards St. Paul's, calling on the people to come forth and declare themselves for King Jesus. They drove some of the train-bands before them, broke the heads of opposing watchmen, but were at length dispersed by the Lord Mayor, supported by the citizens, and fled to Caen Wood, between Highgate and Hampstead. On the 9th, however, they returned again, confident that no weapons or bullets could harm them, and once more they put the train-bands and the king's life-guards to the rout. At length, however, they were surrounded, overpowered, and, after a considerable number were killed, sixteen were taken prisoners, including Venner himself. He and eleven others were hanged, the rest being acquitted for want of evidence. Pepys says there were five hundred of the insurgents, and their cry was, "The King Jesus, and their heads upon the gates!" that is, the heads of their leaders who had been executed and stuck there.

Charles at the time was at Portsmouth with his mother, and Clarendon made the most of the riot, representing it as an attempt to liberate the Regicides in the Tower, and restore the Commonwealth. Fresh troops were raised and officered with staunch Royalists, and a large standing army of that stamp would soon have been formed, had not strong remonstrances been made by the Earl of Southampton and others, and equally strong obstacles being existent in the want of money. The House of Commons, moreover, spoke out plainly before its dissolution, as to the raising of a new army, saying, they were grown too wise to be fooled into another army, for they had discovered that the man who had the command of it could make a king of himself, though he was none before. The known intention to put the Duke of York at the head of it was another strong objection. So the design for the present was abandoned.

In England, Scotland, and Ireland the king was, of course, beset by the claims of those who had stood by his father, or could set up any plea of service. There were claims for restoration of estates, and claims for rewards. Charles was not the man to trouble himself much about such matters, except to get rid of them. In Ireland the Catholics and Protestants equally advanced their claims. The Protestants declared that they had been the first in Ireland to invite him back, and the Catholics that they had been strongly on the late king's side, had fought for him both in Scotland and England, and had suffered severely from the late usurpers. The Protestants, however, were in possession of the forfeited estates, and Charles dared not rouse a Protestant opposition by doing justice to the Catholics, who, though the more numerous, were far the weaker party. Besides, the different interests of the claiming parties were so conflicting, that to satisfy all sides was impossible. Some of the Protestants were Episcopalians, some Presbyterians. The latter had been vehement for the Commonwealth, but to ward off the royal vengeance they had, on the fall of Richard Cromwell, been the first to tender their allegiance to Charles, and propitiate him by an offer of a considerable sum of money. Then there were Protestant loyalists, whose property under the Commonwealth had been confiscated, and there were the Catholics, who had suffered from both parties, even when ready to serve the king. There were officers who had served in the Royal army before 1649, and had never received the arrears of their pay; there were also the widows and orphans of such. To decide these incompatible demands Charles appointed a Commission. But little good could possibly accrue from this, for though there were lands sufficient to have pacified all who had just claims, these had been lavishly bestowed on Monk, the Duke of York, Ormond, Kingston, and others. Every attempt to take back lands, however unjustly held by Protestants, threatened to excite a Protestant cry of a dangerous favouring of Catholics, and of a design to reinstate the Papists, who, they averred, had massacred a hundred thousand Protestants during the rebellion. Charles satisfied himself with restoring the bishops and the property of the Episcopalian Church, and left the Commission to settle the matter. But appeals from this impassive tribunal were made to himself, and he at length published his celebrated declaration for the settlement of Ireland, by which the adventurers and soldiers who had been planted on the estates of the Irish by the Commonwealth were to retain them, except they were the estates of persons who had remained entirely neutral, in which case adventurers and soldiers were to have an equivalent from the fund for reprisals. But this settled nothing, for so many charges were advanced against those who pleaded they were innocent, that few were allowed to be so. The matter was next brought before the Irish Parliament, and there again was division. The Commons, who had been appointed through the influence of the soldiers and adventurers, voted that the king's declaration should pass into law. The Lords, on the contrary, protested that it would ruin all the old families, both Catholic and Protestant. The contending parties once more appealed to the king, who, wearied with the interminable strife, seized the opportunity of the discovery of a paper formerly signed by Sir Nicholas Plunket, one of the agents of the appellants, offering Ireland to the Pope or any Catholic power who would defend them against the Parliament, to dismiss their appeal, and the Bill, based on the Royal declaration, was passed. It was soon found, however, that it was not easy to carry this law into execution.

Scotland was restored to its condition of an independent kingdom. The survivors of the Committee of Estates, which had been left in management on Charles's disastrous march into England, previous to the battle of Worcester, were ordered to resume their functions. Middleton was appointed Lord Commissioner; Glencairn Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Lauderdale Secretary of State; Rothes President of the Council; and Crawford Lord Treasurer. A Parliament was summoned to meet in Edinburgh in January, 1661, and its first measure was to restore the Episcopal hierarchy. To completely destroy every civil right of the Presbyterian Kirk, Middleton procured the passing of an Act to annul all the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament since the commencement of the contest with the late king. Even the Lord Treasurer Crawford opposed this measure, declaring that as the late king had been present at one of these Parliaments, and the present one at another, therefore to repeal the Acts of these Parliaments would be to rescind the Act of Indemnity and the approval of the Engagement. Middleton carried his point, and levelled every political right of the Kirk at a blow. The ministers of the Kirk in astonishment met to consult and to protest; they sent a deputation to the king with a remonstrance; but they arrived at a time likely to inspire them with awe, and did not escape without a painful evidence that they were no longer in the proud position of their fathers. Charles had shed the blood of vengeance plentifully in England, and there were those in Scotland whom he looked on with a menacing eye. The chief of these was the Marquis of Argyll. Argyll had been the head and leader of the Covenanters. He had counselled with and encouraged the General Assembly in its resistance to the late king's measures. He had been his most persevering enemy, and, finally, he had encouraged the invasion of England by the Scots, and had been the first to support Cromwell, even sitting in the Parliament of his son Richard. Argyll was well aware that he was an object of resentment, and kept himself secure in the Highlands. But his son, Lord Lorne, had been a steady and zealous opponent of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, and he was one of the first to congratulate Charles on his restoration. To lay hold on Argyll in his mountains was no easy matter, but if he could be beguiled from his fastnesses to Court, he might be at once punished. No symptoms of the remembrance of the past, therefore, escaped the king or his ministers, and Argyll deceived by this, and by the friendly reception of his son, wrote proposing to pay his respects to his sovereign in the capital. Charles returned him a friendly answer, and the unwary victim was not long in making his appearance in London. But he was not admitted to an audience at Whitehall, but instantly arrested and committed to the Tower. He was then sent down to Scotland to be tried by the king's ministers there, some of them, as Lauderdale and Middleton, hideous to their own age and to posterity for their sanguinary cruelty. Besides, they were eager to possess themselves of Argyll's splendid patrimony, and they pursued his impeachment with an unshrinking and unblushing ferocity which astonished even the king.

Argyll pleaded that he had only acted as the whole nation had done, and with the sanction of Parliament; that the late king had passed an Act of Oblivion for all transactions prior to 1641, and the present king had given an Act of Indemnity up to 1651; that, up to that period, he could not, therefore, be called in question; that he had been out of the country during the time that most of the barbarities alleged had been committed; and that as to the Marquis of Montrose, he had been the first to commence a system of burning and extermination, and that they were compelled to treat him in the same manner. And finally, his compliance with Cromwell was not a thing peculiar to himself. They had all been coerced by that successful man; so much so, that his Majesty's Lord Advocate, then his persecutor, had taken the Engagement to him. This latter plea was the most unfortunate one that he could have used, for nothing but augmented malice could be the result of it, and there was enough of that already in the minds of his judges. Fletcher, the Lord Advocate, was thrown into a fury by the remark, called the marquis an impudent villain, and added an additional article to the charges against him—that of having conspired the late king's death.

Lord Lorne procured a letter from Charles, ordering the Lord Advocate to introduce no charge prior to 1651, and directing that on the conclusion of the trial, the proceedings should be submitted to the king before judgment was given. This would have defeated Argyll's foes had the king been honest in the matter; but Middleton represented to Charles that to stay judgment till the proceedings had been inspected by the king would look like distrust of the Parliament, and might much discourage that loyal body. Charles allowed matters, therefore, to take their course; but Middleton was again disappointed by Gilmore, the President of the Court of Sessions, declaring that all charges against the marquis since 1651 were less valid for the purposes of an attainder than those which had excited so much controversy in the cause of the Earl of Strafford, and he carried the Parliament with him. Argyll and his friends now calculated on his escape, but this was not intended. A number of letters were hunted out, said to have been written to Monk and other Commonwealth men whilst they were in power, expressing his attachment to their cause, and his decided disapprobation of the king's proceedings. These were decisive. Though the time was passed when fresh evidence could legally be introduced, these letters were read in Parliament, and the effect was that of a thunderbolt falling in the midst of Argyll's friends. They at once disappeared, overwhelmed with confusion, and sentence of death was passed on the marquis. That no time might be allowed for an appeal to the king, who wished to be excused refusing the favour of his life to his son, Argyll's execution was ordered in two days. In vain the unfortunate nobleman pleaded for ten days, in order that the king's pleasure might be ascertained; it was denied him, and understanding from that the determination of the king, he remarked, "I set the crown on his head at Scone, and this is my reward." He employed the short space left him in earnest prayer, and in the midst of his devotions, believing that he heard a voice saying, "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee!" he was wonderfully consoled and strengthened, and ascended the scaffold with a calm intrepidity which astonished and disappointed his enemies. Before laying his head on the block, he declared his ardent attachment to the Covenanters in words which flew to every quarter of Scotland, and raised him to the rank of a martyr in the estimation of the people. His head was stuck on the same spike that had received that of Montrose.

Next to Argyll, the malice of the king and Cavaliers was fiercest against Johnston of Warriston, and Swinton. Warriston was the uncle of Bishop Burnet, a most eloquent and energetic man, who had certainly done his utmost for the maintenance of the Covenant, and against the tyranny of Charles I. He was now an old man, but he fled to France, where, however, he was not long safe, for the French Government gave him up, and he was sent back and hanged. Swinton, who had turned Quaker, escaped, perhaps through Middleton's jealousy of Lauderdale, who had obtained the gift of Swinton's estate, but more probably by a substantial benefit from the estate to the Court.

The wrath of Charles next fell on the deputation of twelve eminent ministers, who had dared to present a remonstrance against the suppression of the privileges of the Kirk. They were thrown into prison, but were ultimately dismissed except Guthrie, one of the most daring and unbendable of them. He had formerly excommunicated Middleton, and had been one of the authors of the tract, "The Causes of God's Wrath." Since the Restoration he had called a public meeting to remind the king of having taken the Covenant, and to warn him against employing Malignants. Guthrie was hanged, and along with him a Captain Govan, who had, whilst the king was in Scotland, deserted to Cromwell; but why he was selected from among a host of such offenders no one could tell. This closed the catalogue of Scottish political executions for the present.

But in another form Charles and his brutal ministers were preparing deluges of fresh blood in another direction. Middleton assured Charles that the restoration of prelacy was now the earnest desire of the nation, and a proclamation was issued announcing the king's intention. Only one of the bishops of Laud's making was now alive, Sydserfe, a man of no estimation, who was sent to the distant see of Orkney, though he aspired to the archiepiscopal one of St. Andrews. That dignity was reserved for a very different man, Sharp, a pretended zealot for the Kirk, who, at the same time that he urged Middleton to restore episcopacy, persuaded his clerical brethren to send him up to London to defend the independence of the Kirk. He went, and to the astonishment and indignation of the ministers and people, returned Archbishop of St. Andrews. He endeavoured, in a letter to Middleton of May 28th, to prove that he had served the Kirk faithfully till he saw that it was of no avail, and that he took the post to keep out violent and dangerous men. This, after such a change, could be only regarded as the poor excuse of an unprincipled man. His incensed and abandoned friends heaped on him execrations, and accused him of incontinency, infanticide, and other heinous crimes. By this measure, and the co-operation of Middleton and Lauderdale, all the old bitterness was revived, and the horrors of a persecution which has scarcely an example in history, were witnessed. By Sharp's advice three other bishops were appointed, Fairfowl to the see of Glasgow, Hamilton to Galloway, and Dr. Robert Leighton to Dunblane. Leighton was the son of that Dr. Leighton whom Laud had so unmercifully treated and mutilated for his tract against prelacy. And now his son embraced prelacy, but was a very different man to Sharp—pious, liberal, learned, and a real ornament to the Church, though entering it by such a change. The four bishops went up to London to receive ordination, which was administered to them by Sheldon, Bishop of London, at Westminster, with a splendour which greatly offended the Puritan simplicity of Leighton. They were invited to take their seats in the House of Parliament, where Leighton had very soon an opportunity of opposing the introduction of the oath of Allegiance and Supremacy, which, however, all men were required to take. Sharp drove on this and other irritating measures; all meetings of presbyteries and synods were prohibited under penalty of treason, and Sharp soon recommended the enforcement of an oath abjuring the Solemn League and Covenant; and with these terrible weapons in their hands, Middleton, Sharp, and Lauderdale drove the Presbyterians from all offices in the Church, State, or magistracy, and many were compelled to flee from the country. The most astonishing thing was, that the spirit of the people had been so subdued by the arms and supremacy of Cromwell, that, instead of rising as their fathers did, they submitted in passive surprise. It required fresh indignities and atrocities to raise them again to the fighting pitch, and they came. In a short time the number of prelates was augmented to fourteen, and the Kirk appeared to be extinguished in Scotland.

Whilst these things were taking place in Ireland and Scotland, in England the king and his Cavalier courtiers were running a high career, and the new Parliament proved violently Royalist. The old great families, the old gentry, the Cavaliers, and the clergy, were all united to strain every old corrupt practice to pack a Parliament of their own fashion. Royalists, Cavaliers, and the sons of Cavaliers predominated in the new Parliament, which met on the 8th of May, 1661. Not more than fifty or sixty of the Presbyterian party were elected, for the Cavaliers everywhere proclaimed them the enemies of the monarchy, and they were scared into silence. This Parliament acquired the name of the Pension Parliament, and, to the disgrace of the country, continued to sit much longer than the so-called Long Parliament, of which the constitution was so altered as occasion demanded that it could not be properly regarded as one Parliament from 1640 to 1660—it continued eighteen years. The Parliament and the Church far outran the Court in zeal for the destruction of liberty and the restoration of a perfect despotism. The Commons commenced their proceedings by requiring every member, on pain of expulsion, to take the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. They ordered, in conjunction with the Lords, the Solemn League and Covenant to be burnt by the common hangman; they proposed to annul all the statutes of the Long Parliament, and restore the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission, but in this they failed. They passed a Bill declaring that neither House, nor both Houses together, had any legislative power without the king; that in him resided the sole command of the militia, and all other forces of land and sea; and that an oath should be taken, by all members of corporations, magistrates, and other persons bearing office, to this effect:—"I do declare and believe that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take arms against the king, and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those commissioned by him." This was called the Corporation Oath. They restored the bishops to their seats in the House of Peers; they made Episcopalian ordination indispensable to Church preferment; they revived the old Liturgy without any concession to the prejudices of the Presbyterians, and thus drove two thousand ministers from the Church in one day; they reminded the sufferers that the Long Parliament had done the same, but they did not imitate that Parliament in allowing the ejected ministers an annuity to prevent them from starving; they declared it a high misdemeanour to call the king a Papist, that is, to speak the truth, for he was notoriously one; increased the rigour of the law of treason, and knocked on the head the last chance of popular liberty by abolishing the right of sending petitions to Parliament with more than twenty names attached, except by permission of three justices of the peace, or the majority of the grand jury. When this Parliament had done these notable feats, and passed a Bill of Supply, Charles prorogued it till the 28th of November.

On assembling at this date Parliament was alarmed by Clarendon with rumours of fresh conspiracies in the country. The object was to obtain the death of more of the Regicides. The Commons fell readily into the snare. To make a spectacle of disaffected men, they ordered three eminent Commonwealth men—Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay, and Sir Robert Wallop, to be drawn with ropes round their necks from the Tower to Tyburn and back again, to remain perpetual prisoners. But this did not satisfy them; they must have more blood, and though Charles had promised their lives to Sir Harry Vane and General Lambert, they demanded their trial and execution; and Charles, who had no more regard for his word than his father, complied. They were to be tried the next session. Parliament then proceeded to draw up a more stringent Conformity Bill, which passed both Houses. This Bill enacted that every clergyman should publicly, before his congregation, declare his assent to everything contained in the Common Prayer Book, and that every preacher who had not received Episcopal ordination must do so before the next feast of St. Bartholomew. They added some new collects, in one of which they styled the lecherous monarch "our most religious king." They made the 30th of January a holiday for ever, in memory of "King Charles the martyr;" and voted the king a subsidy of one million two hundred thousand pounds, and a hearth tax for ever. The king then prorogued them on the 19th of May, 1662, with many professions of economy and reformation of manners, one of which he observed as much as the other.

Of the improvement of his morals he soon gave a striking example. The Duke of York, as has been stated, had married Anne Hyde, though she had been his mistress and was on the point of being delivered of an illegitimate child, which Charles Berkeley publicly claimed as his own, and brought forward the Earls of Arran, Talbot, Jermyn, and others to testify to her loose conduct. Berkeley was afterwards brought to contradict his own statement; but these circumstances, and James's gloomy and bigoted temper, rendered it desirable that Charles should marry. Heirs and heiresses he had in abundance, had they been legitimate. Besides Lucy Walters or Barlow, by whom he had the Duke of Monmouth, though the paternity of the child was generally awarded to the brother of Algernon Sidney—for Mrs. Walters or Barlow was very liberal of her favours—Charles had, on arriving in London, established a connection with the wife of a Mr. Palmer, whose maiden name was Barbara Villiers. The husband's connivance was purchased with the title of Earl of Castlemaine, and the countess was afterwards advanced to the rank of the Duchess of Cleveland.

As it was requisite for Charles, however, to marry, his ministers looked about for a suitable wife. Nothing could reconcile him to the idea of a German bride, and the Catholic princesses of the south were regarded by the nation with suspicion, both from the memory of the last queen, and the suspected tendency of Charles himself to Popery. Whilst Charles was in France, in 1659, he made an offer to the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, which that shrewd politician—who showed himself, however, a bad prophet—politely declined, for Charles was then a mere fugitive, and the cardinal did not foresee so sudden a change.

On the recall of Charles to the throne, both Mazarin and his master, Louis XIV., saw their mistake, for they had not only treated Charles with as much indifference as if it were a moral certainty that he could never again reach the throne of England, but had even sent him out of the country at the demand of Cromwell. Mazarin now offered his niece, but the scene was changed, and Charles no longer stooped to the niece of a cardinal. Louis, who had no suitable princess of France to offer him, and who wanted to prevent Portugal from falling into the power of Spain, recommended to him Donna Catarina of Braganza, the Portuguese monarch's sister. Could he accomplish this match, Louis, who was bound by treaty with Spain to offer no aid to Portugal, might be able to do it under cover of the King of England. The king's ministers, after some apprehension on the score of the lady's religion, were of opinion that the match was desirable, if it were only for the great dowry offered—five hundred thousand pounds, the Settlements of Tangier in Africa, and Bombay in the East Indies, besides a free trade to all the Portuguese colonies. De Mello, the Portuguese ambassador in London, was informed that the proposal met the approbation of the king. To link the interests of France and England closer, the Princess Henrietta, Charles's youngest sister, was married to the Duke of Orleans, the only brother of the French king.

SHILLING OF CHARLES II.