Source.—Clarendon, History of Rebellion. Book I., § 159.

Now, I must be so just as to say, that, during the whole time that these pressures were exercised, and these new and extraordinary ways were run, that is from the dissolution of the Parliament in the fourth year (1629) to the beginning of this Parliament which was above 12 years, this kingdom and all his majesty's dominions (of the interruption in Scotland somewhat shall be said in its due time and place), enjoyed the greatest calm, and the fullest measure of felicity, that any people in any age, for so long time together, have been blessed with; to the wonder and envy of all the parts of Christendom.

And in this comparison I am neither unmindful of, nor ungrateful for the happy times of Queen Elisabeth, nor for those more happy under King James. But for the former, the doubts, hazards, and perplexities, upon a total change and alteration of religion, and some confident attempts upon a further alteration by those who thought not the reformation enough; the charge, trouble, and anxiety of a long continued war (how prosperous and successful soever) even during that Queen's whole reign; and (besides some domestic ruptures into rebellion, frequently into treason, and besides the blemish of an unparalleled act of blood upon the life of a crowned neighbour, queen and ally) the fear and apprehension of what was to come (which is one of the most unpleasant kinds of melancholy) from an unknown, at least an unacknowledged successor to the crown, clouded much of that prosperity then which now shines with so much splendour before our eyes in chronicle.

And for the other under King James (which indeed were excellent times bona si sua norint), the mingling with a stranger nation, (formerly not very gracious with this,) which was like to have more interest of favour: the subjection to a stranger prince, whose nature and disposition they knew not; the noise of treason, (the most prodigious that had ever been attempted), upon his first entrance into the kingdom: the wants of the Crown not inferior to what it hath since felt, (I mean whilst it sat right on the head of the King,) and the pressures upon the subject of the same nature, and no less complained of: the absence of the prince in Spain, and the solicitude that his highness might not be disposed in marriage to the daughter of that kingdom; rendered the calm and tranquillity of that time less equal and pleasant. To which may be added the prosperity and happiness of the neighbour kingdoms, not much inferior to that of this, which, according to the pulse of states, is a great diminution of their health; at least their prosperity is much improved, and more visible, by the misery and misfortunes of their neighbours.

The happiness of the times I mentioned was enviously set off by this, that every other kingdom, every other province were engaged, many entangled, and some almost destroyed by the rage and fury of arms; those which were ambitiously in contention with their neighbours having the view and apprehensions of the miseries and desolation, which they saw other states suffer by a civil war; whilst the kingdoms we now lament were alone looked upon as the garden of the world; Scotland (which was but the wilderness of that garden) in a full, entire, undisturbed peace, which they had never seen, the rage and barbarism (that is, the blood, for of the charity we speak not) of their private feuds, being composed to the reverence or to the awe of public justice; in a competency, if not in an excess of plenty, which they had never hoped to see, and in a temper (which was the utmost we desired and hoped to see) free from rebellion; Ireland, which had been a sponge to draw and a gulf to swallow all that could be spared, and all that could be got from England, merely to keep the reputation of a kingdom, reduced to that good degree of husbandry and government, that it not only subsisted of itself, and gave this kingdom all that it might have expected from it; but really increased the revenue of the crown forty or fifty thousand pounds a year, besides much more to the people in the traffic and trade from thence; arts and sciences fruitfully planted there; and the whole nation beginning to be so civilized, that it was a jewel of great lustre in the royal diadem.

When these outworks were thus fortified and adorned, it was no wonder if England was generally thought secure, with the advantages of its own climate; the court in great plenty, or rather (which is the discredit of plenty) excess, and luxury; the country rich, and, which is more, fully enjoying the pleasure of its own wealth, and so the easier corrupted with the pride and wantonness of it; the Church flourishing with learned and extraordinary men, and (which other good times wanted) supplied with oil to feed those lamps, and the protestant religion more advanced against the Church of Rome by writing especially (without prejudice to other useful and godly labours) by those two books of the late lord archbishop of Canterbury his grace, and of Mr. Chillingworth, than it had been from the Reformation; trade increased to that degree, that we were the exchange of Christendom, (the revenue thereof to the crown being almost double to what it had been in the best times), and the bullion of all other kingdoms brought to receive a stamp from the mint of England; all foreign merchants looking upon nothing as their own, but what they had laid up in the warehouses of this kingdom; the royal navy, in number and equipage much above former times, very formidable at sea; and the reputation of the greatness and power of the King much more with foreign princes than any of his progenitors; for those rough courses, which made him haply less loved at home, made him more feared abroad; by how much the power of kingdoms is more reverenced than their justice by their neighbours: and it may be, this consideration might not be the least motive, and may not be the worst excuse, for those councils. Lastly, for a complement of all these blessings, they were enjoyed by and under the protection of a king, of the most harmless disposition and the most exemplary piety, the greatest example of sobriety, chastity, and mercy, that any prince hath been endued with, (and God forgive those that have not been sensible of and thankful for those endowments) and who might have said, that which Pericles was proud of, upon his deathbed, "that no Englishman had ever worn a black gown through his occasion." In a word, many wise men thought it a time, wherein those two adjuncts, which Nerva was deified for uniting, were as well reconciled as is possible.

But all these blessings could but enable, not compel us to be happy: we wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own happiness, which all but we had; and took pains to make, when we could not find, ourselves miserable. There was in truth a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest: the court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; and the country full of pride, mutiny and discontent; every man more troubled and perplexed at that they called the violation of one law, than delighted or pleased with the observance of all the rest of the Charter; never imputing the increase of their receipts, revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue and merit of the Crown, but objecting every little trivial imposition to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the government; the growth of knowledge and learning being disrelished for the infirmities of some learned men, and the increase of grace and favour upon the Church, more repined and murmured at, than the increase of piety and devotion in the Church, which was as visible, acknowledged or taken notice of; whilst the indiscretion and folly of one sermon at Whitehall was more bruited abroad and commented upon than the wisdom, sobriety and devotion of a hundred.