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

the word of God.


The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on

which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs

in our history. From that day dates the corporate existence of

the two great parties which have ever since alternately governed

the country. In one sense, indeed, the distinction which then

became obvious had always existed, and always must exist. For it

has its origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and of

interest, which are found in all societies, and which will be

found till the human mind ceases to be drawn in opposite

directions by the charm of habit and by the charm of novelty. Not

only in politics but in literature, in art, in science, in

surgery and mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even

in mathematics, we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a

class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and

who, even when convinced by overpowering reasons that innovation

would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and

forebodings. We find also everywhere another class of men,

sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing forward,

quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed

to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend

improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being

an improvement. In the sentiments of both classes there is

something to approve. But of both the best specimens will be

found not far from the common frontier. The extreme section of

one class consists of bigoted dotards: the extreme section of the

other consists of shallow and reckless empirics.


There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might

have been discerned a body of members anxious to preserve, and a

body eager to reform. But, while the sessions of the legislature

were short, these bodies did not take definite and permanent

forms, array themselves under recognised leaders, or assume

distinguishing names, badges, and war cries. During the first

months of the Long Parliament, the indignation excited by many

years of lawless oppression was so strong and general that the

House of Commons acted as one man. Abuse after abuse disappeared

without a struggle. If a small minority of the representative

body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High Commission,

that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the numerical

superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly

regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of

success, be openly defended. At a later period the Royalists

found it convenient to antedate the separation between themselves

and their opponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained

the King from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the

Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the

attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made war

on the King. But no artifice could be more disingenuous. Every

one of those strong measures was actively promoted by the men who

were afterward foremost among the Cavaliers. No republican spoke

of the long misgovernment of Charles more severely than

Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial

Bill was made by Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was

moved by Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be

kept close prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not

till the law attainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of

serious disunion become visible. Even against that law, a law

which nothing but extreme necessity could justify, only about

sixty members of the House of Commons voted. It is certain that

Hyde was not in the minority, and that Falkland not only voted

with the majority, but spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few

who entertained a scruple about inflicting death by a

retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the

utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration.


But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and

when, in October, 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short

recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with those

which, under different names, have ever since contended, and are

still contending, for the direction of public affairs, appeared

confronting each other. During some years they were designated as

Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were subsequently called Tories

and Whigs; nor does it seem that these appellations are likely

soon to become obsolete.


It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on

either of these renowned factions. For no man not utterly

destitute of judgment and candor will deny that there are many

deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that

the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many

illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great

services rendered to the state. The truth is that, though both

parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared

neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the

advantages arising from innovation and the advantages arising

from prescription, have been combined to an extent elsewhere

unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous

conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of

statesmen, a confederacy zealous for authority and antiquity, and

a confederacy zealous for liberty and progress.


It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two

great sections of English politicians has always been a

difference rather of degree than of principle. There were certain

limits on the right and on the left, which were very rarely

overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all

our laws and franchises at the feet of our Kings. A few

enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through

endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic. But

the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse

to despotism; and the great majority of the champions of popular

rights were averse to anarchy. Twice, in the course of the

seventeenth century, the two parties suspended their dissensions,

and united their strength in a common cause. Their first

coalition restored hereditary monarchy. Their second coalition

rescued constitutional freedom.


It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the

whole nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up

a majority of the nation. Between them has always been a great

mass, which has not steadfastly adhered to either, which has

sometimes remained inertly neutral, and which has sometimes

oscillated to and fro. That mass has more than once passed in a

few years from one extreme to the other, and back again.

Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired of

supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its

own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities,

and had been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its

whole weight in either direction, that weight has, for the time,

been irresistible.


When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they

seemed to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government

was a large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well

descended gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but

the name. These, with the dependents whose support they could

command, were no small power. in the state. On the same side were

the great body of the clergy, both the Universities, and all

those laymen who were strongly attached to episcopal government

and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable classes found

themselves in the company of some allies much less decorous than

themselves. The Puritan austerity drove to the king's faction all

who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry,

splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went

all who live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter

and the comic poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew.

For these artists well knew that they might thrive under a superb

and luxurious despotism, but must starve under the rigid rule of

the precisians. In the same interest were the Roman Catholics to

a man. The Queen, a daughter of France, was of their own faith.

Her husband was known to be strongly attached to her, and not a

little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a Protestant on

conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion with

no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger

toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians.

If the opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the

sanguinary laws enacted against Papists in the reign of

Elizabeth, would be severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were

therefore induced by the strongest motives to espouse the cause

of the court. They in general acted with a caution which brought

on them the reproach of cowardice and lukewarmness; but it is

probable that, in maintaining great reserve, they consulted the

King's interest as well as their own. It was not for his service

that they should be conspicuous among his friends.


The main strength of the opposition lay among the small

freeholders in the country, and among the merchants and

shopkeepers of the towns. But these were headed by a formidable

minority of the aristocracy, a minority which included the rich

and powerful Earls of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Stamford,

and Essex, and several other Lords of great wealth and influence.

In the same ranks was found the whole body of Protestant

Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established

Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty

years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy.

The municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the same

side. In the House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but

not very decidedly.


Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which it was

disposed to take. The reasonings of the most enlightened

Royalists may be summed up thus:-"It is true that great abuses

have existed; but they have been redressed. It is true that

precious rights have been invaded; but they have been vindicated

and surrounded with new securities. The sittings of the Estates

of the realm have been, in defiance of all precedent and of the

spirit of the constitution, intermitted during eleven years; but

it has now been provided that henceforth three years shall never

elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber the High

Commission, the Council of York, oppressed end plundered us; but

those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord

Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism; but he has

answered for his treason with his head. The Primate tainted our

worship with Popish rites and punished our scruples with Popish

cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his

peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned