The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

from being heard beyond the walls. Yet, with all this

care, it was often found impossible to elude the vigilance of

informers. In the suburbs of London, especially, the law was

enforced with the utmost rigour. Several opulent gentlemen were

accused of holding conventicles. Their houses were strictly

searched, and distresses were levied to the amount of many

thousands of pounds. The fiercer and bolder sectaries, thus

driven from the shelter of roofs, met in the open air, and

determined to repel force by force. A Middlesex justice who had

learned that a nightly prayer meeting was held in a gravel pit

about two miles from London, took with him a strong body of

constables, broke in upon the assembly, and seized the preacher.

But the congregation, which consisted of about two hundred men,

soon rescued their pastor. and put the magistrate and his

officers to flight.472 This, however, was no ordinary occurrence.

In general the Puritan spirit seemed to be more effectually cowed

at this conjuncture than at any moment before or since. The Tory

pamphleteers boasted that not one fanatic dared to move tongue or

pen in defence of his religious opinions. Dissenting ministers,

however blameless in life, however eminent for learning and

abilities, could not venture to walk the streets for fear of

outrages, which were not only not repressed, but encouraged, by

those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Some divines of

great fame were in prison. Among these was Richard Baxter.

Others, who had, during a quarter of a century, borne up against

oppression, now lost heart, and quitted the kingdom. Among these

was John Howe. Great numbers of persons who had been accustomed

to frequent conventicles repaired to the parish churches. It was

remarked that the schismatics who had been terrified into this

show of conformity might easily be distinguished by the

difficulty which they had in finding out the collect, and by the

awkward manner in which they bowed at the name of Jesus.473


Through many years the autumn of 1685 was remembered by the

Nonconformists as a time of misery and terror. Yet in that autumn

might be discerned the first faint indications of a great turn of

fortune; and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant

King and the intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against each

other for the support of the party which both had so deeply

injured.


END OF VOL. I.


1 In this, and in the next chapter, I have very seldom thought

it necessary to cite authorities: for, in these chapters, I have

not detailed events minutely, or used recondite materials; and

the facts which I mention are for the most part such that a

person tolerably well read in English history, if not already

apprised of them, will at least know where to look for evidence

of them. In the subsequent chapters I shall carefully indicate

the sources of my information.


2 This is excellently put by Mr. Hallam in the first chapter

of his Constitutional History.


3 See a very curious paper which Strype believed to be in

Gardiner's handwriting. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book 1., Chap.

xvii.


4 These are Cranmer's own words. See the Appendix to Burnet's

History of the Reformation, Part 1. Book III. No. 21. Question 9.


5 The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty

with which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes

thus: "However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, Queen

Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise and politic princess, for

delivering her kingdom from the difficulties in which it was

involved at her accession,. for preserving the Protestant

reformation against the potent attempts of the Pope, the Emperor,

and King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and her Popish

subjects at home.... She was the glory of the age in which she

lived, and will be the admiration of posterity."-History of the

Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii.


6 On this subject, Bishop Cooper's language is remarkably

clear and strong. He maintains, in his Answer to Martin

Marprelate, printed in 1589, that no form of church government is

divinely ordained; that Protestant communities, in establishing

different forms, have only made a legitimate use of their

Christian liberty; and that episcopacy is peculiarly suited to

England, because the English constitution is monarchical." All

those Churches," says the Bishop, "in which the Gospell, in these

daies, after great darknesse, was first renewed, and the learned

men whom God sent to instruct them, I doubt not but have been

directed by the Spirite of God to retaine this liberty, that, in

external government and other outward orders; they might choose

such as they thought in wisedome and godlinesse to be most

convenient for the state of their countrey and disposition of

their people. Why then should this liberty that other countreys

have used under anie colour be wrested from us? I think it

therefore great presumption and boldnesse that some of our

nation, and those, whatever they may think of themselves, not of

the greatest wisedome and skill, should take upon them to

controlle the whole realme, and to binde both prince and people

in respect of conscience to alter the present state, and tie

themselves to a certain platforme devised by some of our

neighbours. which, in the judgment of many wise and godly

persons, is most unfit for the state of a Kingdome."


7 Strype's Life of Grindal, Appendix to Book II. No. xvii.


8 Canon 55, of 1603.


9 Joseph Hall, then dean of Worcester, and afterwards bishop

of Norwich, was one of the commissioners. In his life of himself,

he says: "My unworthiness was named for one of the assistants of

that honourable, grave, and reverend meeting." To high churchmen

this humility will seem not a little out of place.


10 It was by the Act of Uniformity, passed after the

Restoration, that persons not episcopally ordained were, for the

first time, made incapable of holding benefices. No man was more

zealous for this law than Clarendon. Yet he says: "This was new;

for there had been many, and at present there were some, who

possessed benefices with cure of souls and other ecclesiastical

promotions, who had never received orders but in France or

Holland; and these men must now receive new ordination, which had

been always held unlawful in the Church, or by this act of

parliament must be deprived of their livelihood which they

enjoyed in the most flourishing and peaceable time of the

Church."


11 Peckard's Life of Ferrar; The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief

Description of the late erected monastical Place called the

Arminian Nunnery, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, 1641.


12 The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear

out what I have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages

which have led me to the conclusion at which I have arrived,

would be impossible, nor would it be easy to make a better

selection than has already been made by Mr. Hallam. I may,

however direct the attention of the reader particularly to the

very able paper which Wentworth drew up respecting the affairs of

the Palatinate. The date is March 31, 1637.


13 These are Wentworth's own words. See his letter to Laud,

dated Dec. 16, 1634.


14 See his report to Charles for the year 1639.


15 See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July 30,

1638.


16 How little compassion for the bear had to do with the matter

is sufficiently proved by the following extract from a paper

entitled A perfect Diurnal of some Passages of Parliament, and

from other Parts of the Kingdom, from Monday July 24th, to Monday

July 31st, 1643. "Upon the Queen's coming from Holland, she

brought with her, besides a company of savage-like ruffians, a

company of savage bears, to what purpose you may judge by the

sequel. Those bears were left about Newark, and were brought into

country towns constantly on the Lord's day to be baited, such is

the religion those here related would settle amongst us; and, if

any went about to hinder or but speak against their damnable

profanations, they were presently noted as Roundheads and

Puritans, and sure to be plundered for it. But some of Colonel

Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Uppingham town, in

Rutland, on the Lord's day, found these bears playing there in

the usual manner, and, in the height of their sport, caused them

to be seized upon, tied to a tree and shot." This was by no means

a solitary instance. Colonel Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey,

ordered the beasts in the bear garden of Southwark to be killed.

He is represented by a loyal satirist as defending the act thus:

"The first thing that is upon my spirits is the killing of the

bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the names in

the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear? Did not the Lord

Deputy Ireton kill a bear? Did not another lord of ours kill five

bears?"-Last Speech and Dying Words of Thomas pride.


17 See Penn's New Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and

Muggleton's works, passim.


18 I am happy to say, that, since this passage was written, the

territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the King of Oude

have been added to the British dominions. (1857.)


19 The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on

this subject, came from Sir William Coventry: "Our ancestors

never did draw a line to circumscribe prerogative and liberty."


20 Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the Character of

a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman,

Sir William Coventry.


21 North's Examen, 231, 574.


22 A peer who was present has described the effect of Halifax's

oratory in words which I will quote, because, though they have

been long in print, they are probably known to few even of the

most curious and diligent readers of history.


"Of powerful eloquence and great parts were the Duke's enemies

who did assert the Bill; but a noble Lord appeared against it

who, that day, in all the force of speech, in reason, in

arguments of what could concern the public or the private

interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, did outdo

himself and every other man; and in fine his conduct and his

parts were both victorious, and by